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APPENDIX
l.Old Degree General English Syllabus of Assam University 2001
General English
(Arts)
General English
Paper I: Comprehension, Composition and Appreciation of English Prose 100 marks
Objective : this course will require students to perform exercises in comprehension
and composition, and also learn appreciation of English prose.
The course is divided into the following sections :
Section A: Comprehension and Composition
50 marks
The Scheme of Examination:
1. Comprehension of an unseen prose passage. The questions will be set to test
the student’s ability to take notes from the passage, to follow the development
of the argument in its and to analyse ideas.
15 marks
2. Writing of a short descriptive account of a given scene, a situation, an object
or a process.
3. Letter writing and format communication
15 marks
10 marks
4. 10 (ten) objective type (multiple choice) quesitons on correct usage relating to
the following items (to be included in the booklet) : use of articles, subject
verb agreement, use of prepositions, tenses. Some of these questions will
require identification of points of error in sentences of some length. 10 marks
Suggested Reading:
Raymond Murphy, Intermediate English Grammar, Second Edition, -Cambridge
University Press, 1994 (Available at Foundation Books, New Delhi - 110021)
C.A. Shopped & David Reid Thomas,m Grammar and Composition : A Course,
Orient Longman
F.T. Wood, A. Remedial English Grammar for Foreign Students, Macmillan
Nigel D. Thurton, ABC of Common Grammatical Errors, Macmillan
Section B. English Prose
Text Prescribed :
D.K. Barua (ed.) on the Threshold, Oxford University Press
50 marks
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Selected Pieces:
1. E.P. Gee, “The Rhino of Kaziranga”
2. George Orwell, “Rellections of Gandhi”
3. J. Bronowski & B. Mazlish, “The Western Intellectual
4. Bertrand Russel, “The Road to Happiness”
5. P.G. Wodehouse, “Sir Agravame”
The Scheme of Examination:
1. 2 (two) short essay type questions
12x2= 24 marks
2.4 (four) short answer questions
4x4=16 marks
3.10 (ten) objective type (multiple choice)
Questions to be included in the booklet
10x1=10 marks
General English
Paper II: English poetry, Drama and Composition
100 marks
Objective : The objective of this course are to teach the skill of appreciation of
English poetry and drama through the study of the prescribed texts, and to develop
written communication.
The course is divided into the following sections :
Section A : Poetry
Text Prescribed:
D.K. Barua (ed.) Whispering Reeds. Oxford University Press
Poems to be studied :
1. Herrick, ‘Gather Ye Rosebuds’
2. Milton, ‘Hail, Holy Light’
3. Wordsorth, “Written in London, September, 1802”
4. Shelley, “Ode to a Skylark”
5. Keats, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
6. Tennyson, ‘Ulysses’
7. Browning, ‘Love Among the Ruins’
8. Hardy, ‘The Darking Thrush’
9. Owen, ‘Strange Meeting’
10. Lawrence, ‘Bat’
50 marks
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The Scheme of Examination:
1. 2 (two) short essay type questions
12x2=24marks
2. Explanation of 2 (two passages from the started poems
8x2=16 marks
3. Ten objective-type(multiple choice) questions
10x1=10 marks
Section B:Drama
35 marks
Text prescribed:
Shakespeare:Julius Caesar
The Scheme of Examination:
1.One essay-type question
15 mark
2. Two short-answer questions
5x2=10 marks
3. Ten objective-type(multiple choice Questions
10x1=10 marks
Section C: Composition
The Scheme of Examination:
1 .Write an essay on a given topic
15 marks
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2. New Degree General English Syllabus of Assam University 2008
BA Part -1 (Pass)
General English
Marks-100
Objective : To familiarize the students with some of the selected areas of English
Grammar which are known to cause difficulties to learners, to help them to avoid
some common mistakes and also to teach the skill of appreciation of English prose
and poetry through the study of the prescribed texts, and develop written
communication.
Unit -1: Grammar
25
Article, prepositions, verbs, tenses, subject-verb agreement (concord), voice,
speech, tag questions, simple, complex, compound sentences, synthesis and splitting
up of sentence).
Unit -II : Reading Comprehension
15
Unit - III: Written communication
10
A. Paragraph writing
10
B. Report/memorandum writing
10
Unit-IV:
Section A : Short stories
Short Stories to be studied :
1. O Henry, ‘A Service of Love’
2. Ruskin Bond, ‘The Thief
3. Hemingway, ‘A Day’s Waif
4. R.K. Laxman, ‘The Gold Frame’
5. W.S. Maugham ‘Die Verger’
Section B
Poems to.be studied:
1. Shakespeare, ‘The Marriage of True Minds’
2. Donne, ‘Death’
3. Milton,‘On his Blindness’
4. Wordsworth, ‘Three Years She Grew in Sim and Shower’
5. Keats, ‘To Autumn’
6. Eliot, ‘Journey of the Magi’
7. Dickinson, ‘Because I could stop for Death’
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Scheme of Examination:
Unit -1:
Correction of Sentences
5x1=5
Use of correct tense
5x1=5
Reported speech
5
Construction and transformation of sentences
5x1=5
Voice change and use of preposition and tag question
5x1=5
Unit - II: Reading Comprehension
15x1=15
Unit - III: A. Paragraph writing
10x1=10
B. Report/memorandum writing
10x1=1
Unit-IV:
A. Two essay type questions carrying ten (10) marks each
10x2=20
B. Two essay two questions carrying ten (10) marks each
10x2=20 ,
Text prescribed: Unit I, II & III
Bikram K. Das, Functional Grammar and Spoken and Written Communication
(Orient Longman)
Unit-IV:
Proposed Anthology to be prepared by Forum for English Studies, Department
of English, AUS.
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3. Assam University Degree Arts Question Paper 12007
(Old Syllabus)
General English
First Paper
(Comprehension, Composition and Appreciation of English Prose)
TDC Part-I
Full Marks : 100; Pass Marks : 33
Time: 3 hours
The.figures in the margin indicate full marks for the questions
Part-A
(Marks: 20)
1. (a) Answer all the questions given below:
1.
lxl0=10
What kind of noise do the Indian Rhino make when they are disturbed of
excited?
; 2.
Which species of rhino is the smallest in size?
3.
When did Gandhi take the vow of ‘Brahmacharya’?
4.
“....... for his whole life was a sort of pilgrimage in which every act was
significant.” Who is the person referred to?
5.
Who held the view that happiness cannot be attained by pursuing it?
6.
For how many years since Leonardo, have two ideals about man been
especially important?
7.
Who was Rousseau?
8.
‘Your Majesty’, he cried “a damsel in distress waits without”. Who is this
‘damsel in distress’?
9.
How many daughters did Earl Dorm have?
10.
Whom did Sir Agravaine call upon in the forest?
(b) Rewrite the following sentences according to the directions given in brackets
against each question:
1x10=10
(i)
I have___________________ few friends here, (use the correct article.)
(ii)
This is_________________ pen that I lost. (Use the correct article.)
(iii)
She (sleep) when I entered the room. (Use the verb in the bracket in its
correct tense form)
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(iv),
He (read) since ten o’clock this morning, (use the verb I the bracket in
■ its correct tense form)
, (v)
He is fond_____________ music (use appropriate preposition in the gap).
(vi)
Ten miles are a long distance (Correct the sentence)
(vii)
Neither father nor mother__________________present. (Full in the gap
with the correct verb)
(viii)
She and her mother_______________ gone to the village. (Fill in the gap
with the correct verb)
(ix)
We take delight______________music, (use appropriate preposition in
the gap)
(x)
He as well as his friend are guilty. (Correct the sentence)
Paper-B
Section - A
(Comprehension and composition)
Marks: 40
2. Read the following passage and answer the questions given below:
The men and women who lived a few thousand years ago are generally described
today as savages or barbarians. Both these words carry with them a suggestion of
censure of condemnation. They create in our minds a picture of particularly brutal
and cruel people, compared with whom, we may feel very superior and civilized
and pleased with ourselves.
On the other hand, there are a few people who look back with longing to the
earliest periods of human history, which they describe as those ‘golden days’ when
men were pure and unspoilt, when they lived a simple, unsophisticated, open-air
life, in peace and equality.
A reading of history does not, however, seem to justify either of these conficting
attitudes. The Golden Age only looks attractive because we are so far away from it.
Distance, as your poetry book has told you, ‘lends enchantment to the view’. It is
true, there was equality in those days. Then closely examined, however, it was an
equality, not of knowledge or of comfort or of wealth, but it was equality in
ignorance and poverty.
But if this romantic view of the past is untrue, equally unjustified is it to look down
with contempt on our distant ancestors. It was the so-called savages who laid the
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foundations of the civilization of which we are proud. And in any case, with the
, most savage wars taking place in our own times, none of us can afford to put on
airs.
The truth seems to be that man in his infancy was neither an ideal virtue nor an
embodiment of savagery. He was rather like us-a mixture of both. But unlike us, he
was young-and therefore more innocent on the one hand and wild on the other. So
we should try to avoid the use of the worlds ‘savages’ and ‘barbarians’ and call our
, distant forefathers primitive men-thus neitgher condemning nor complimenting
them.
(a) What are the two conflicting attitudes regarding the earliest periods of human
history?
4
(b) Why do some people view the early periods of human history as ‘golden days’?
3
(c) Why does the Golden Age look attractive?
2
(d) What kind of equality existed among men in the distant past?
2
(e) Why should we not look down with contempt on the men living in the earliest
periods of human history?
4
3. Give a short descriptive account of either ‘A visit to a place of historical
importance’ or ‘A health care camp in which you have participated’.
15
4. Write a letter to your friend telling him about the bad effects of witnessing random
television programmes.
10
Or
Write a letter of complaint to the Deputy Commissioner of your district, against
the scandal connected with the construction of Waiter Supply Plant of your
locality.
Section-B
(English Prose)
(Marks: 40)
5. Answer any two of the following questions:
12x2=24
(a) Describe the different species of rhino as you find in E.P. Gee’s The Rhino of
Kaziranga.
(b) How does Orwell portray Gandhi as a man and as a political leader?
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(c) Describe the idea of freedom that has been explained in The Western
Intellectual Tradition.
(d) Discuss briefly the true way to happiness as pointed out by Russell.
(e) Why was Sir Agravaine trapped and kept confined in the castle of Earl Dorm of
The Hills? How could he escape?
6. Write short answers to the following questions (any four):
.
4x4=16
11. Compare and contract the African Rhino with the Indian Rhino.
12. Why does an Indian Rhino sharpen or rub its horn?
13. “It is impossible to be happy without activity.” Elucidate
14. How did the moralists establish that one cannot get happiness by pursuing it?
15. What is Orwell’s view of ‘non-attachment’?
16. Why does Orwell say that sainthood is a thing that human beings must avoid?
17. What is the importance of‘dissent’ in The Western Intellectual Tradition?
18. Give a short description of the feast that followed the Great tournament in the
story Sir Agravaine.
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3.Assam University Degree Arts Question Paper II2007
(Old Syllabus)
General English
Second Paper
(English Poetry, Drama and Composition)
TDC Part-II
Full Marks : 100; Pass Marks : 33
Time: 3 hours
The figures in the margin indicate full marks for the questions
Part-A
1. Answer the following:
1 x20=20
(a) Who was Tiresias?
(b) Name the blind poet and musician who challenged the Muses.
(c) What type of man is referred to by Wordsworth as the best man among us?
(d) Who is called the worshipper of Nature among the nineteenth century
Romantics?
(e) What is the name of Ulysses’s son?
(f) What is meant by Hyades?
(g) What is the meaning of ‘chorus hymeneal”?
(h) “The Pale purple even
:
Melts around thy flight”
What does ‘even’ stand for?
(i) What does Hardy mean by the word ‘Carolings’?
(j) Give the English meaning of the name ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’.
(k) What is the name of Brutus’ wife?
(l) Who was Pompey?
(m)“I dreamt to-night that I feast with Caesar.”
Who said this?
(n) “O, look, Titinius, looklThe Villains fly.” Who are the Villains refereed to
here?
(o) What is meant by ‘feast of lupercal’?
(p) Who was Titinius?
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(q) Who persuades Caesar to disregard Calphumia’s appeal to her husband not to
leave the house and go to the Capitol?
(r) Who first stabbed Caesar?
(s) Where was Julius Caesar slain?
(t) “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears”
Who said these words?
Part-B
2. Answer any two of the following :
12x2=24
(a) How does Ulysses argue for undertaking a voyage again in the sea?
(b) Give a pen-picture of the winter landscape as portrayed by Hardy in The
Darkling Thrush.
(c) Write the substance of the poem Written in London, September 1802.
(d) What do you understand by ‘Carpe diem’ theme? Answer with reference to the
poem Gather Ye Rosebuds.
3. Explain with reference to the context (any two):
(a) “Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know
Such harmonius madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then,
As I am listening now.”
(b) One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield;
(c) That I could think there
trembled through,
His happy good night air,
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.
(d) We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest
The wealthiest man among us is the best.
8x2=16
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4. Answer any one of the following questions:
15
(a) Compare and contrast the characters of Portia and Calphumia.
(b) Summarise the arguments by which Brutus seeks to defend his joining the
conspiracy against Caesar. What light does the scene throw upon Brutus’
character?
, 8+7= 15
(c) Describe the scene of quarrel between Brutus and Cassius,
5. Answer any two of the following:
5x2=10
(a) “Beware the Ideas of March”
Bring out the significance of the above quotation in the play Julius Caesar.
(b) “When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
(i) Who said this and to whom?
(ii) Explain the lines
1+1
3
(c) Discuss briefly the title of the play Julius Caesar.
(d) Write a note on the last speech of the play Julius Caesar.
6. Write an essay on any one of the following :
15
(a) Environmental pollution
(b) Television and its impact upon our lives
(c) Computer and modem civilisation
(d) Folk songs and dances of Assam
h
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4. Assam University Degree Arts Question Paper 2009
(Revised Syllabus)
General English
(Arts)
TDC Part-I (New Course)
Full Marks : 100; Pass Marks : 33
Time: 3 hours
The figures in the margin indicate foil marks for the questions
Part-A
(Marks: 20)
1. (a) Rewrite the following sentences after necessary corrections :
1x5= 5
(ii) My son is going to study in United States.
(iii)John as well as his brother are punished for the offence.
(iv)Price of vegetable is one the rise.
(v) Good night Sir, how are you?
(vi)Divide this among the two boys.
(b) Rewrite using the verbs in brackets in their correct tense form :
1x5=5
(i) If I (be the Prime Minister of India, I would solve all the problems.
(ii) The patient (die) before the doctor came.
(iii)Peter (dirty) his singers, so he went to wash.
(iv)He (work) until his friend returns in the afternoon.
(v) The dog (eat) all his food and begged for more.
(c) Rewrite the sentences as directed:
1x5 = 5
1. You are telling a story which is unbelievable.
(Make it a simple sentence)
2.
He killed a snake
(Make it a compound sentence)
3.
Her husband died. She heard the news. She fainted.
(Combine into a simple sentence)
4. You should love your neighbours.
(Make it a complex sentence)
5.
Unless you labour hard, you will fail.
(Rewrite the sentence by replacing ‘unless’ with ‘if)
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(d) Rewrite the sentences as directed :
(i)
1x5=5
Find the lost documents.
(Change the voice)
(ii)
Will the rising water flood the fields?
(Change the voice)
(iii)
We are not interested
your story.
(Use appropriate preposition in the gap)
(iv)
John has no taste
music.
(Use appropriate preposition in the gap)
(v)
Shut the door.
(Rewrite the sentence adding a tag question)
Part-B
Unit -1
(Marks: 15)
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Arundhati Roy, the famous novelist and activist, who won the Booker Prize in 1997
for her novel, The God of Small Things, was bom in Shillong, Meghalaya, on
November 24th 1961, to a Keralite-mother and a Bengali father. She spent her
childhood in Aymanam in Kerala, with her mother. Arundhati left Kerala for Delhi
at the age of 16 and embarked on a bohemian life-style, staying in a small hut with
a tin roof and making a living by selling empty bottles. She studied architecture in
Delhi but did not take it up as a profession.
In 1984, Arundhati began a brief career in films under the influence of her husband,
who was a film-maker. She played the role of a village girl in the award-winning
movie ‘Massey Sahib’ and also wrote the screenplay for the film ‘In which Annie
Gives it those Ones’.
Roy began writing ‘The God of Small things’ in 1992 and finished it in 1996. she
received half-a-million pounds (about Rs. 3.5 crore) as an advance from the
publishers and the rights to the book were sold in twenty one countries. The book is
semi-autobiographical and a major part of its captures her childhood in Aymanam.
When India tested a nuclear weapon in Pokhran, Rajasthan, Roy wrote an essay
with the tile, The End of Imagination which was a strong criticism of the
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government’s nuclear policies. It was published in her collection called. The Cost of
Living in which she also crusaded against india’s large hydroelectric dam projects
in the States of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. She has since devoted
herself solely to non-fiction and politics, publishing two more collections of essays,
as well as working for social causes.
She was in the news recently (in 2006) after she rejected the national award given
by the Central Sahitya Academy to the best Indian writer in English. Arundhati
explained that although she had no quarrel with the Academy she was turning down
the award as a protest against the policies of the Government.
(a) What is Arundhati Roy famous for?
1
(b) What are Arundhati Roy’s connections with Kerala?
2
(c) Who wrote the essay, The End of Imagination and what is the object of
writing this essay?
3
(d) How did Arundhati Roy begin her career?
3
(e) What kind of a person do you think Arundhati Roy is?
3
(f)
Do you think Roy’s method of protest would have any impact on he
government? If so, how?
1+2
Unit-II
(Marks: 25)
3. Write a paragraph on any one of the following topics :
10
(a) Environment pollution
(b) Child labour
(c) Use of cell-phones
4. Prepare a report on the following topic as per the hints given below:
10
(a) A cultural function held in your college Hints :
1. Date and time of the function
2. Principal presided
3. Programme presentation
4. President’s speech
5. Closing of the function
Or
(b) Write a memorandum on behalf of the students of your college to the Deputy
Commissioner of your district, demanding strict measures to prevent the use of
6. STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE
For 2nd year Degree Arts students
[Please fill in the Questionnaire by ticking your answers.
Rajat Bhattacharya N C College, Badarpur]
1. Do you want to learn English?
Yes, I do/No, I don’t.
2. Should English be compulsory?
Yes, it should/No, it shouldn’t.
3. What is more useful to you—knowing the English language or knowing
English literature.
Knowing English language/Knowing English literature
4. Do you learn English mainly in the classroom?
Yes, I do/No, I don’t.
5. Do you want to read English well?
Yes, I do/No, I don’t.
6. Do you want to speak English well?
Yes, I do. / No, I don’t.
7. Do you want to listen to and understand English well?
Yes, I do. / No, I don’t.
8. Do you want to write English well?
Yes, I do. / No, I don’t.
s
9. Would you like an English course that teaches you all these four skills?
Yes, I would. / No, I wouldn’t.
10. Is English useful to you?
Yes, it is. / No, it isn’t.
Name..................................
College...............................
Date...................................
[Writing name is optional]