West Bengal State University
B. A. ENGLISH HONOURS
GENERAL PAPER IV
MODEL QUESTION
Duration: 3 Hours
Maximum Marks: 100
Candidates are advised to write answers in their own language as far as practicable. Precise
answers will be given special credit. Spelling and grammatical errors will be penalised.
[ Group A]
1. Answer any one of the following questions, each in about 500 words: 1x15
a) The Tiger in the Tunnel is the story of an ordinary watchman showing extraordinary
courage while performing his duties. Comment.
b) What is the theme of the short story The Hungry Stones by Rabindranath Tagore.
c) Analyse the character of Iswaran in R.K.Narayan’s story, Iswaran.
2. Locate and annotate any two of the following excerpts, each in about 200 words : 2x5=10
a)
The Tiger used to the ways of men, for it had been preying upon them for years, came
on fearlessly, and with a quick run and a snarl struck out with, its paw, expecting to
bowl over this puny man who dared to stand in his way.
b) Though I could not see my fair guide, her form was not invisible to my mind’s eye, --an
Arab girl, her arms, hard and smooth as marble, visible through her loose sleeves, a
thin veil falling on her face from the fringe of her cap, and a curved dagger at her
waist!
c) His heart palpitated as he stood tiptoe to scan the results. By the light of the bulb he
scrutinized the numbers. His throat went dry.
3. Answer any one of the following questions:
1x15a) How does Kamala Das asserts her individual independent self in her poem An
Introduction. What is A.K.Ramanujan’s attitude to journalists and poets in A River?
b) Critically analyse Jayanta Mahapatra’s poem Dawn at Puri.
4. Locate and annotate any two of the following :
2x5=10
a) The new poets still quoted
the old poets, but no one spoke
in verse
b) Not in vain
She weeps- for lo! at every tear she sheds
Tears from three pairs of young eyes fall amain
c) Their austere eyes
stare like those caught in a net
hanging by the dawn's shining strands of faith.
[Group : B]
5. Make a Précis of the following passage and add a suitable title:
8+2=10
Our own daily affairs, political and social, we approach with strong prejudices, with
ignorance ore one-sided knowledge of the issues and with no knowledge at all of what is
going to be the outcome. To remedy this, the reading of history instills into us the habit of
surveying broad-mindedly and calmly the pageant and process of human affairs. I do not
mean that we should be ‘impartial’ in the sense of thinking that all sides in the past were
equally in the right. We may and we often should, feel that one side was on the balance
much more in the right than the other. And we shall not all of us come to the same point
from as many angles as possible, we shall all of us gain in wisdom and understanding. We
shall acquire a mentality which will be less at the mercy of newspapers and films, trying to
make us take short cuts to truth, and to oversimplify the tangled net of human affairs.
6. Prepare a CV for applying for the post of an assistant teacher in a school.
Check the proof of the following text using necessary proof reading signs:
10
10
the little Cottage in thir steet whichad remained vac ant suddenly shed its to let notice.
along with the new shaper and the lettrs the train one morning bought a flim star from
madras called bamini bai a young person all smiles silk and powder.
7. Read the following passage and answer the questions given below:
4x5=20
The examination system is both an opiate and a poison. It is an opiate because it lulls
us into believing that all is well when most is ill. ‘Look’, the public says, ‘at this list of
scholarships; see how many children have got their school certificate: something is
clearly happening; the school is doing its job’. Something no doubt is happening ;
but it may not be education: it may be not be the administration of the poison which
paralyses or at least slows down the natural activities of the healthy mind. The
healthy human being, finding himself a creature of unknown capacities of an
unknown world, wants to learn what the world is like, and what he should be and do
in it. To help him in answering these questions i the one and only purpose of
education. But this is not the prime aim of the ordinary pupil who is working for a
school or Higher Certificate or for a scholarship or a degree, and for whom the
examination becomes much more important than seeing ‘visions of greatness’, and
‘getting through’ excuses all shortcomings and disguises all omissions. I am speaking
here throughout of external examinations, not of those set by the school, as tests of
progress, which are useful and necessary. Examinations are harmless when
examinee is indifferent to their result, but as soon as the matter, they begin to
distort his attitude to education and to conceal its purpose. The more depends on
them the more worst their effect. For disinterestedness is the essence of all good
education, and liberal education is impossible without it.
Questions:
a) What, according to the author, is the one and only purpose of education?
b) Why is an ordinary pupil more interested in external examinations than in good
education?
c) When are examinations harmless?
d) Explain the first sentence of the passage?