CBSE Class 10 English Sample Paper 2017 Set I

SECTION A : READING 

Q.1 Read the passage given below :

1. Legends will tell you that flamingoes are no ordinary visitors to Kutch. They were the honoured guests of King Lakho and he had forbidden the hunting of flamingoes, which came to Kutch from various parts of the world every year to breed. For centuries, the region had been a haven for the migratory bird. Today, Flamingo City, an island in the middle of the Rann of Kutch, known the world over as one of the biggest breeding grounds of the Greater Flamingo, is strewn with bodies of hundreds of flamingo chicks. The parents of these chicks have fled the island due to lack of food.

2. Zooplanktons, algae and the small fish that these birds survive on are dying due to a sudden increase in the salinity of the Rann waters. One can even see dead fish floating. Flamingoes need salt-encrusted, damp mud to build nests. The place where they build their nests has to be inaccessible to predatory cats and birds. It should also have sufficient food. The right mix of sweet and brackish water in the Rann is crucial for the proliferation of planktons and algae that the flamingoes feed on. Faced with starvation flamingoes have fled the island leaving their chicks to fend for themselves. Till date around a thousand flamingoes have died.

3. Maharaj Kumarshi Himmatsinghji, a member of the royal family of Kutch and an expert on the birds of Kutch, traces the problem of increased salinity in the Rann waters to the construction of dams on rivers that flow into the region. He emphasized that effort should be made to ensure that, at least some water flows into the Rann. In fact over the years, the number of flamingoes coming to the island has decreased because of the change in salinity of the Rann water. In 1945, Salim Ali, the late ornithologist, had found 5 lakh birds on the island. nSince then, the number has not gone above 2.2 lakh. However, the studies carried out on the Flamingo City so far cannot be taken as 100 percent accurate.

On the basis of your reading of the above passage, answer the following questions: 

(a) Why are the flamingoes no ordinary visitors to Kutch?

(b) Why do they come to Kutch?

(c) What is Flamingo City known as?

(d) What do the flamingoes feed on?

(e) What do flamingoes need to build their nests?

(f) Who was Salim Ali?

(g) What has caused increased salinity in the Rann of Kutch?

(h) Find a word in Para 2 which means the same as ‘unreachable’.

Q.2 Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow :

Evelyn Glennie was born in 1965 and grew up on a farm near Aberdeen in Scotland. She loved playing music, and her ambition was to become a solo percussionist. She started having problems with her ears and began to lose her hearing. By the time she was twelve, she was deaf. She couldn’t hear at all. Evelyn became very angry; it seemed to her that she would never fulfil her dream of being a great musician.

After a while Evelyn stopped being angry and instead found ways of adapting her playing to suit her deafness. At the age of sixteen she became the first deaf student at the Royal Academy in London. She went on to make lots of CDs and is now famous for being the world’s only full time solo percussionist. Evelyn likes to play unusual instruments and has over a thousand, some of which she has made herself. She likes to play with musicians from all over the world, and requests composers to create music especially for her. An example of this is a piece which was composed for her by the jazz composer Diango Bates, for which he used kitchen pots and pans as instruments. Her sixteen solo albums (including twelve on the RCA/BMG label) have reached a remarkably diverse public, as have her numerous collaborations with musicians from the non-classical world.

Glennie contends that hearing is a form of touch, and that everyone, whether "deaf" or not, processes sound in an individual way. When Evelyn performs she doesn’t wear shoes or socks. This is to enable her to feel the music through the floor and her body. Usually, percussionists play at the back of the Orchestra, Evelyn plays at the front so that she can lip – read signals from the conductor. Glennie has said that she doesn’t want an operation to cure her deafness; she likes being who she is and doesn’t want to change the way she works. Like many other courageous people, she tries hard to help others. She has helped many deaf children by giving them an opportunity to learn a musical instrument.

(a) What was Gennies’s ambition?

(b) Why did she become very angry?

(c) What is she now famous for?

(d) Why does she not wear shoes or socks when she performs?

(e) What is meant by the word ‘ambition’? (para 1)

(i) goal in life                  (ii) hope

(iii) employment              (iv) success

(f) What is meant by the word ‘unusual’? (para 2)

(i) uncommon                 (ii) unknown

(iii) employment              (iv) uncover

(g) Find the word opposite in meaning to ‘happy’? (para 1)

(i) solo                     (ii) angry

(iii) hearing               (iv) helpless

(h) Find the word opposite in meaning to ‘disable’? (para 3)

(i) enable                   (ii) retain

(iii) keep                    (iv) draw

SECTION B : WRITING AND GRAMMAR 

Q.3 You are Arun/Aarti 112 Bank Street Agra. You want to join the Care and Concern Drive organized by your school's Nature Club. Write a letter in 100-120 words to the editor of a local daily expressing your views on the same. You can use the hints given below :

● Be conscious, be concerned about your surroundings

● Take care of the waste and its management; plant a sapling

● Make your neighbours aware of their rights and duties, take an initiative to be in touch with the municipality

Q.4 Weave a story with the given outline in about 150 -200 words.

A young man setting out on a journey –accompanied by an old man-they part under a pipal tree-young man asks old man to keep Rs.100 for him till he returns-old man agrees and takes money-old man says he never gave him any money to keep......

Q.5 Read the paragraph given below. Fill in the blanks by choosing the most appropriate words / phrases from the given options.

After all the stories that he (a) ________ been hearing, he was too frightened to sleep alone. So, that night, he slept with the cross his mother had given him, (b) ________ his pillow. He believed that it (c) ________ protect him from the evil.

Q.6 In the following paragraph one word has been omitted in each line. Write the missing word along with the words that come before and after it. The first one has been done as an example. 

Q.7 Rearrange the following words/phrases to make meaningful sentences. 

(a) develops / nature / trekking / love / for / real

(b) new area/with/familiarizes/it/us/a

(c) the route/before going/we should learn/on the trek/all about

SECTION C : LITERATURE 

Q.8 Read one of the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow:-

They were childish enough, and in many ways quite artless. Jacopo was lively as a squirrel. Nicola’s smile was steady and engaging. Yet in both these boyish faces there was a seriousness which was far beyond their years.

(a) Why does the narrator call them ‘childish’ and ‘artless’ ?

(b) Contrast the two different styles of Nicola and Jacopo.

(c) What does the word, ‘engaging’ mean ?

OR

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.

She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.

(a) What is common between the mirror and a lake ?

(b) Why are candles and the moon called liars ?

(c) What is meant by ‘searching my reaches’ ?

Q.9 Answer the following questions in about 30-40 words each.

a) Why has time been referred to as sluttish by Shakespeare in his sonnet, ‘Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments’ ? 

b) How did Miss Mebbin blackmail Mrs. Packletide ? 

c) What request did Ali make to Lakshmi Das ? 

d) How do all members of the family react when they see grandfather alive ? 

Q.10 Answer one of the following questions in about 80-100 words:

The Dear Departed highlights how we are treating our elders. Comment on the declining family values in the modern society with reference to the play. 

OR

The frog who was not at all talented ruled in the end and the nightingale who possessed the fineness and versatility of voice died. Explain the irony of the statement, highlighting the values the frog should have possessed.

Q.11 Answer one of the following questions in about 150-200 words:

What made Anne hopeful when the Fascists were overthrown in Italy ? 

OR

'Anne is constantly compared to Margot and she detests it. She does not want to be like Margot at all'. What does it show about the attitude of Anne ?

OR

Comment on the academic progress of Helen Keller even though she was differently abled.

OR

How did Anne Sullivan help Helen Keller get over the difficulties of her life?

Please click the link below to download CBSE Class 10 English Sample Paper 2017 Set I