CBSE Guess > Papers > Important Questions > Class XII > 2008 > English > English By Mrs. Mrinal Ghosh

CBSE CLASS XII

Book-1 (Flamingo) PROSE

The Last Lesson

Short Questions:

1. Why was Franz tempted to miss the school that day?
2. What unusual sight met Franz’s eyes when he entered the classroom?
3. How did the teacher describe the French language?
4. What did M. Hamel announce at the start of the lesson?
5. What does M. Hamel say about the importance of language to an ‘enslaved’ people?
6. How did M. Hamel say farewell to his students and the people of the town?

Broad Questions:

1. Give a detailed description of the scene of the classroom.
2. Describe M. Hamel’s last day at school.
3. Bring out the difference in the environment of the classroom before and after the announcement.

Lost Spring: Stories of Stolen childhood

Short Questions:

1. What makes the city of Firozabad famous?
2. Is Saheb happy working at the tea stall?
3. Bring out the irony in Saheb’s name.
4. Why had people of Bangladesh left their own fields and come to settle in the slums in Seemapuri?
5. How is Mukesh different from Saheb?
6. Describe the miserable plight of the people working at the glass furnaces.
7. How did Mukesh want to accomplish his dreams?
8. Why don’t the people of Firozabad organize themselves into a cooperative?

Broad Questions:

1. Describe the miserable plight of the people of Firozabad.
2. Bring out the irony and pathos in the story of Anees Jung.

Deep Water

Short Questions:

1. What was the misadventure that William Douglas speaks about?
2. What was the writer’s first reaction on being flung into the pool?
3. Why did William Douglas hate the idea of getting into water?
4. How did the instructor build a swimmer out of William Douglas?
5. How did William Douglas make sure that he conquered the old terror?

Broad Questions:

1. Which experience made the writer feel terrified of water?
2. Explain in brief William Douglas’ attempt to come out of the pool.
3. How did the instructor help the writer learn swimming?

The Rat Trap

Short Questions:

1. From where did the peddler get the idea of the world being a Rat trap?
2. Did the peddler respect the confidence reposed in him by the Crofter?
3. Why did the peddler decline the invitation?
4. When did the ironmaster realize his mistake?
5. Why was Edla happy to see the gift left by the peddler?

Broad Questions:

1. What made the peddler finally change his ways?
2. How does the metaphor of the Rattrap serve to highlight the human predicament?
3. Why is the daughter’s decision to let the peddler stay a turning point in the story?

Indigo

Short Questions:

1. How did Rajkumar Shukla decide to meet Gandhi?
2. What episode in Patna showed Gandhi the existence of a rigid caste system?
3. What was the problem of sharecroppers in Champaran?
4. What was the deadlock? How did it end?
5. Why did Gandhi say, “The battle of Champaran won”? Was it true?
6. Why was Champaran episode a turning point in Gandhi’s life?

Broad Questions:

1. Give a detailed account of the problem of sharecroppers in Champaran.
2. Civil disobedience had triumphed for the first time in modern India. When was it?
3. How did the British rulers lose their prestige?

Poets & Pancakes

Short Questions:

1. What is the example of national integration that the author refers to?
2. What is the significance of the words ‘poet’ and ‘pancake’?
3. Why was the Legal Advisor dismissed?
4. What impact did Frank Buchman have on the Gemini Studio?
5. Why did the book, The God That Failed assumed great importance for the writer?
6. In what way Subbu better than the Office Boy?

Broad Questions:

1. Describe the make up department in the Gemini Studio.
2. The Gemini studio was the haunt of poets and it had its due effect on the employees of the Studio. Justify.

The Interview

Short Questions:

1. Why do most celebrity writers despise being interviewed?
2. Who, in today’s world, is our chief source of information about personalities?
3. What according to Umberto Eco are the empty spaces? How did he deal with them?
4. What was Kipling’s experience about being interviewed?
5. What are the two facets of the interview as a form of reporting?
6. What was Mukund’s opinion about Eco’s writing style?

Broad Questions:

1. Interview, as a form of journalism are both loved and hated. Give reasons.
2. Write a note on the literary genius of Umberto Eco.
3. Why were the journalists and publisher puzzled at the success of the ‘Name of the Rose”?

Going Places

Short Questions:

1. What were the options that Sophie was dreaming of? Why does Jansie discourage her from having such dreams?
2. Why did Sophie feel a tightening in her throat?
3. What did Geoff think of Danny Casey and his promise to Sophie?
4. “And she saw it al again…” What did Sophie see?
5. What did Geoff warn Sophie about Danny?

Broad Questions:

1. Sophie is a middle class girl who longs like any other teenager to reach out to the horizons. Justify the statement.
2. What did Sophie tell Geoff about her meeting with Danny? How did Geoff react?

POETRY

My Mother at Sixty-six

Short Questions:

1. Why has the poetess brought the image of the merry children ‘splitting out of their homes’?
2. What do you think is the pain and the ache that the poetess feels?
3. Explain the statement: “ I saw my mother…. Her face ashen like that of a corpse”.

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

Short Questions:

1. How do the children of the elementary school classroom in a slum look?
2. What does the poet mean in ‘Shakespeare is wicked and the map is a bad example…’?
3. How does the poet draw out metaphorically the present condition of the slum school children indicating bleak and dreary features?
4. How does the poet begin the poem with all the despair and end with hope?

Keeping Quiet

Short Questions:

1. What will counting upto twelve and keeping still help us achieve?
2. Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?
3. What is the sadness that the poet refers to in the poem?
4. Central idea of the poem.

A Thing of Beauty

Short Questions:

1. How is a thing of beauty a joy for ever?
2. List the thing of beauty mentioned in the poem.
3. Why is grandeur associated with the mighty dead?
4. What image does the poet use to describe the beautiful bounty of the earth?
5. Central theme of the poem.

A Roadside Stand

Short Questions:

1. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
2. What did the farmers sell at their new sheds put up on the edges of the road?
3. What was the plea of the folks who had put up the roadside stand?
4. What ‘hope’ does the poet nurture about himself when he asks that these people should be put ‘at one stroke out of their pain’ ?

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Short Questions:

1. How do ‘denizens’ and ‘chivalric’ add to our understanding of the tiger’s attitude?
2. Interpret the symbols found in the poem.
3. What is the present state of affairs of Aunt Jennifer’s life characterized by ‘ordeals’, ‘mastered by’ and ‘terrified hands’?
4. What character of Aunt Jennifer does emerge from the poem?