English Model Question Grade Nine
Sub.:- Compulsory English
FM – 75
Grade – IX
Time: 3 hrs
Students are required to show creativity in the answers wherever applicable.
Reading Section – 40 Mark
- Read the poem and answer the following questions. 5×1=5
WHAT is this life, if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
NO time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
NO time to turn at Beauty’s glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
NO time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
a. Why is our life so miserable according to the poet?
b. What do sheep and cows do in nature?
c. What do squirrels do in the woods?
d. What kind of magic does Beauty perform?
e. What is human life like if observed carefully?
- Read the text and do the tasks. 10
Paulo Coelho is a well-known Brazilian author and lyricist. He was born on 24 August 1947 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil He had always loved writing and dreamed of being a writer from an early age. He was, however, discouraged by his parents who wanted him to become a lawyer. During adolescence, Coelho was sent three times to a mental hospital by his parents because of his dream to become a writer. In his twenties, he was arrested and tortured in Brazil, but always kept dreaming of becoming a writer. After his release from prison, Coelho was enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of being a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippie, travelling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe, and started using drugs in the 1960s.
He changed his life radically at the age of 36, after a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain where he experienced a spiritual awakening and felt inspired to write the book, The pilgrimage 1987. Only one year later he wrote the alchemist in the course of a two-week spurt of creativity. The alchemist was his breakthrough as an international author. The allegorical novel is about a shepherd boy who follows a mystical trek to his heart’s desire in which he learns to speak “The language of the World ” and thus receives his heart’s desire. The book attracted little attention at first until a french language translation suddenly leapt onto the bestseller lists in France in the early 1990s. New translations followed, and soon the Alchemist became a worldwide Phenomenon. The book has sold roughly 35 million copies and is now the most translated book in the world by any living author.
Since then he has published books at the rate of about one every two years. In 2013, approximately 150 million copies of his books were published in at least 71 languages. Several of his books are autobiographical in nature and deal with spirituality and faith, societal impacts on individuals, and love. His 26 books have sold more than 65 million copies in at least 59 languages.
Besides The Alchemist, his other notable works include Veronika Decides to Die” (1998), which mines the perceived mental instability of his youth. The devil and Miss Prym (2000) an investigation of the essential nature of humankind, and Elven Minutes (2003) explores the boundaries between love and sex through the story of a prostitute.
A. State whether the following sentences are TRUE or FALSE (5×1=5)
- Paulo Coehlo dreamed of being a lawyer since his childhood.
- He experienced a spiritual awakening in Spain.
- The book Alchemist didn’t sell well.
- The book Alchemist is about a musician boy who follows a mystical journey.
- Several of the books of Paulo Coehlo are autobiographical.
B. Answer the following questions. (5×1=5)
- Why was Coehlo sent to a mental hospital?
- Which places did he travel to being a hippie?
- What changed Coelho’s life in a significant way?
- Why is the book Alchemist special?
- In what subjects is his book dealt with?
3. Read the text and do the tasks. 10
The vehicles are being driven slowly because of the downpour. The visibility was poor and the wind was howling. There had been landslides in many places and driving was dangerous. Earlier the wind had been blowing forcefully but, by the time we started it had calmed down. The downpour had turned into a drizzle and both the thunder and lightning.
I’d been driving for an hour when the accident happened. My wipers hadn’t been working and the rain was spattering my windscreen, so I couldn’t see well. I’d been stopping to clean my windscreen every five minutes. I had just started the engine again when my tires started to slip. The truck slipped onto the side and hit the hill, turned over, and stopped. I felt and looked to see if I was hurt, but I wasn’t. I had been driving quite slowly and luckily the bend was quite wide. It was very quiet, with just the sounds of music and falling rai. I’d been playing the cassette. I looked for my Khalasi but couldn’t find him. Soon there was a long queue of vehicles and people were all looking at me asking questions about the accident. I heard them talking about two more accidents in which three people had died and ten others had been injured. Suddenly, someone shouted that there was a man lying beside the road. It was my Khalasi. He had been lying unconscious there for half an hour.
- Put the following in the correct order.
- The windscreen was often cleaned.
- He was driving the truck slowly.
- The helper of the driver was hurt.
- The truck soon had an
- The downpour had turned into a drizzle.
B. Answer the following questions. (5X1=5)
- Why was driving dangerous?
- What was wrong with the wipers?
- Where was the sound of the music coming from?
- How many accidents happened altogether on that day?
- How long had the Khalasi been lying unconscious?
4. Read the text and do the tasks. 15
Book: The Kite Runner
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Published: Bloomsbury
page: 324
In this appearance, the first Afghan novel is written in English, two motherless boys who learned to crawl and walk side by side are destined to destroy each other across their tribal differences in a country of dried mulberries, sour oranges, rich pomegranates, and honey.
It is Shakespearean beginning to an epic tale that spans lives lived across two continents amid political upheavals, however, dreams wither before they bud and the search for a child finally makes a coward, not a man. The kite runner is the shattering first novel by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan doctor who received political asylum in 1980 as civil conflict devastated his homeland. Whatever the truth of the claim to be the first English language Afgan novel, Hosseini is certainly the first Afgan novelis to fictionalize his culture for a western readership melding the personal struggle of ordinary people in the terrible historical sweep of a devastated country in search and soul-searching narrative.
Over the last three decades, Afghanistan has been ceaselessly battered by Communist rule, Soviet occupation, the Mujahidin, and democracy that became a terror. It is a history that can intimidate and exhaust an outsider’s attempts to understand, but it simply and quietly turns into an intimate account of love, honour, guilt, fever and redemption that needs no dry history book or atlas to grip and absorb.
Amir is a privileged member of the dominant Pashtun tribe growing up in affluent Kabul in the seventies. Hassan is his devoted servant and a member of the oppressed Hazare tribe whose first word was the name of his boy master. The book focused on the friendship between the two children and the cruel and shameful sacrifice the rich boy made to his humble, adoring late ego to buy the love of his own distant father. “I ran because I was a coward, “Amir realizes as he bolts from the scene that severs his friendship with Hassan, shatters his childhood, and haunts him for the rest of his life, “I actually aspired to cowardice.”
The book starts with Amir’s attempts to flee culpability for his act of betrayal, seeking asylum from his hellish homeland in California and a new life buried deep in black velvet portraits of Elvis. Amir’s story is simultaneously devastating and inspiring. His world is a patchwork of the beautiful and horrific and the book is a sharp unforgettable taste of the trauma and tumult experienced by Afghans as their country buckled.
The kite runner is about the price of peace, both personal and political, what we knowingly destroy in our hope of achieving that, be it friends, democracy, or ourselves.
A. Find the opposite words for the following from the text. (5×1=5)
a. peace b. enmity c. aggressive. d. bold e. kind
B. Choose and write the correct alternative – 5
- What has battered Afghanistan ceaselessly?
Communist rule ii. Soviet Occupation. iii. Mujahidin iv. All of them
- How is Amir’s story?
devastating. ii. uninspiring. iii. enjoyable iv. happy
- When was Amri grown up?
in the sixties ii. in the seventies. iii. in the eighties. iv. in the nineties.
- Khaled Hosseini was a……………..
a soldier ii. teacher iii. doctor iv. politician
- Who Was Hassan?
i. Amir’s master ii. Amir’s servant. iii. Amir’s enemy iv. Amir’s doctor.
C. Answer the following questions. 5
- Who is Amir?
- How is Amir’s world?
- Who is the protagonist of the story?
- What is the relationship between Amir and Hassan?
- How does Amir feel at the end of the novel?
Writing Section – 24
5. Design an attractive and persuasive advertisement for your favorite product. 5
6. Write a message of congratulations to your neighbor who has received a full scholarship to complete his/her studies abroad. 5
7. Suppose you are applying for the post of receptionist in a commercial bank. Write an application to the manager of the bank with your profile. 6
8. Write an essay on the “Importance of English language .” 8
Grammar Section – 11 Marks
9. Reproduce the following sentences as indicated in brackets. 5X1=5
- Don’t open the door……..? (add a suitable tag)
- The head teacher asked,” How old are you, Gaurav?”(change in Reported Speech)
- They are constructing a new bridge over the Bagmati river. (Change into passive voice)
- By the end of December this year, Sita …………..her M.A in English Literature.(a correct form of verb complete)
- Manoj sold his land and home in Hetauda. (Into Yes/No question)
10. Choose the correct words for the following gaps 6X1=6
[Re-writing is not compulsory]
A man who had just died arrived at heaven’s gate. Yamraj, the God of death, questioned him if he loved women,” No” …….(a/an/the)man replied, “I never loved a single man or one.” Yamraj questioned him again if he had loved a child then. “No”, “Had I loved a child I ……………..(should/would /had) have told you. ” His answer………….(made/made/to make) him silent. Then he had asked again. “Perhaps you loved animals, didn’t you? “No” he answered, “Once I was bitten by a dog………………..(after /since/before)then I hate animals. Then the man ………….(was/were/gave)taken …………….(on/onto /into)the palace of Yamraj.
All the Best
