QUESTION BANK – PERIODIC TEST 1
CLASS XII – ENGLISH
Answer the following questions in 40-45 words each :(3 marks)
CHAPTER : THE LAST LESSON
1. What thought came to Franz’s mind while going to school in the morning? Why?
2. What things tempted Franz to keep away from school?
3. What did the blacksmith say to Franz and why?
4. What usual noises could be heard in the street when the school began?
5. What did Franz see through the window when he reached his school?
6. How was Mr Hamel dressed on his last day in school?
7. What announcement did Mr Hamel make?
8. “What a thunderclap these words were to me!”- Which were the words that shocked and surprised Franz?
CHAPTER : THE LOST SPRING
1. Who was Saheb? What was his full name? What was the irony about his name?
2. How did the writer come to recognise each of the ragpickers in her neighbourhood?
3. Where have the people living in Seemapuri come from? Why don’t they want to go back?
4. What does garbage mean for the elders and the children in Seemapuri?
5. How did Saheb feel working at a tea stall? What did he get there?
6. What is the condition of children working in the glass furnaces of Firozabad?
POEM : MY MOTHER AT SIXTY SIX
1. Where was the poet going? Who was sitting beside her? What does she say about the one going with her?
2. What painful thought comes to the poet’s mind and how does she drive its away?
3. What does the poet see when she looks outside during her drive to the airport?
4. What were KamlaDas’s fears as a child? Why do they surface when she is going to the airport?
5. What do the poet’s parting words to her mother signify?
REFERENCE TO THE CONTEXT (4 MARKS)
MY MOTHER AT SIXTY SIX
- Driving from my parent’s home to Cochin last Friday
morning, I saw my mother, beside me,
doze, open mouthed, her face ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with pain
that she might not live long......
1.Where was the poet going?
2.How did the poet’s mother look?
3.What did the poet realise with pain?
4.Name the poem and the poet.
- .....but soon
put that thought away, and looked out at young
trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes, but after the airport’s
security check, standing a few yards
away, I looked again at her......
1.Who looked out at the young trees?
2.Which thought did she put away?
3.What do young sprinting trees signify?
4.What are the ‘ merry children spilling out of their homes’ symbolic of?
POEM : AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM IN A SLUM
1. How does the poet describe some of the children in the classroom?
2. Why does the poet say : ‘Shakespeare is wicked.?
3. Why has the map been said to be a ‘a bad example’?
4. What does the poet want the governor, the inspector and the visitor to do?
5. What message does Stephen Spender want to convey in his poem “An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum”?
REFERENCE TO THE CONTEXT (4 MARKS)
AN ELEMENTRY SCHOOL
- At back of the dim class
One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,
Of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this.
1.Why do you think the class was dim?
2.Who was sitting at the back of the class?
3.What was the little one dreaming of?
4.Name the poem and the poet.
- On sour cream walls, donations, Shaespeare’s head,
Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.
Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map
Awarding the world its world.
1.What walls have been referred to in these lines?
2.What is meant by ‘sour cream walls’?
3.What donations are there on the walls?
4.Name the poem and the poet.
CHAPTER : THE TIGER KING
1. How did the crown prince Jung JungBahadur react when he heard the chief astrologer’s prediction?
2. How was the crown prince Jung JungBahadur brought up?
3. What led the Maharaja to start out on a tiger hunt?
4. How did the Tiger King acquire his name?
5. Why did a British officer visit Pratibandapuram?
6. What happened to the tiger provided by the dewan?
7. How did the Tiger King celebrate his victory over the killing of the hundredth tiger?
8. How did the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram meet his death?
CHAPTER : THE ENEMY
1. What was the chief concern of Sadao’s father and what did he do for it?
2. Who was Hana? Where had Sadao met her?
3. How did the foreign students feel at Professor Harley’s house?
4. “The kindest thing would be to put him back into the sea.” Who says this and why?
5. Who was Yumi? What did she refuse to do and why?
6. Hana told Yumi to wash the soldier. How did Yumi react?
7. Who was it that washed the wounded man before the operation?
8. Why did Hana wash the wounded soldier herself?
Answer the following questions in 125-150 words each :(6 marks)
CHAPTER : THE LAST LESSON
1. What changes did the narrator find when the orders from Berlin came?
2. Describe the effect on the life at school, produced by the passing of Alsace and Lorraine into Prussian hands?
3. How was it Mr Hamel a different teacher while giving his last lesson?
4. What did the French teacher tell his students in his last French lesson? What impact did have on them? Why?
CHAPTER : THE LOST SPRING
1. What could be some of the reasons for the migration of people from villages to cities?
2. Would you agree that promises made to the poor children are rarely kept? Why do you think this happens in the incidents narrated in the text?
3. What forces conspire to keep the workers in bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty?
CHAPTER : THE ENEMY
1. How did Dr Sadao rise above narrow prejudices of race and country to help a human being in need?
2. Describe the difficulties faced by Dr Sadao when he decided to help the enemy soldier.
3. What explains the attitude of the general in the matter of the enemy soldier? Was it human consideration, lack of national loyalty, dereliction of duty or simple self-absorption?
CHAPTER : THE TIGER KING
1. How did the Maharaja come in the danger of losing his throne and how did he avert this danger?
2. Give a brief account of how the hundredth tiger was found and hunted down.
3. Describe the efforts made by the Tiger King to achieve his target of killing a hundred tigers.
NOVEL (LONG READING TEXT)
Answer the following questions in 125-150 words. (6 MARKS)
NOVEL : “THE INVISIBLE MAN”
1.Give a detailed character sketch of “ The Stranger” who had come to the “Coach and Horses”.
2.What kind of couple are the Halls?
3.Why was “Henfrey” taken by surprise when he met the stranger?
4.Why was the stranger annoyed with Henfrey?
5.Describe the “Burglary incident” in your own words.