CBSE Guess > Papers > Question Papers > Class X > 2009 > English > English Language and Literature

SECTION D—Literature 45

Q. 12. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow. Write the answers in your answer sheet in one or two lines only. Remember to number the answers correctly. 5
One of the employees, who was a postman and also helped at the post offi ce, went to his boss laughing heartily and showed him the letter to God. Never in his career as a postman had he known that address. The postmaster—a fat, amiable fellow—also broke out laughing, but almost immediately he turned serious and, tapping the letter on his desk, commented, “What faith! I wish I had the faith of the man who wrote this letter. Starting up a correspondence with God!”
(a) Why did the postman laugh heartily? 1
(b) Which address had the postman never known? 1
(c) What type of man was the postmaster? 1
(d) Why did the postmaster become serious all of a sudden? 1
(e) Which word in the passage means the same as ‘letter-writing’? 1

Ans. (a) The postman laughed heartily on seeing a letter addressed to ‘God’.
(b) The postman had never known God’s address.
(c) The postmaster was a fat and amiable fellow.
(d) On refl ecting upon the writer’s immense faith in God the postmaster, all of a sudden became serious.
(e) The word ‘correspondence’ in the passage means the same as ‘letter-writing’.

Q. 13. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow. Write the answers in your answer sheet in one or two lines only. Remember to number the answers correctly. 5
Let me put it more clearly, since no one will believe that a thirteen-year-old girl is completely alone in the world. And I’m not. I have loving parents and a sixteen-year-old sister, and there are about thirty people I can call friends. I have a family, loving aunts and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything, except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem. Maybe it’s my fault that we don’t confi de in each other. In any case, that’s just how things are, and unfortunately they are not liable to change. This is why I’ve started the diary.
(a) Anne has thirty people around, yet she feels alone. Why? 1
(b) What does Anne think about when she is with friends? 1
(c) What reasons does she give for writing the diary? 2
(d) Which word in the passage means the same as ‘to trust someone’/‘to share a secret’? 1

Ans. (a) Despite having thirty people around Anne feels lonely because she does not have a true friend. (b) When she is with friends Anne can only think of having a good time.
(c) Anne’s reasons for writing a diary are that when she is with her friends she is not able to talk to them about anything but ordinary everyday things and they don’t seem to be getting any closer so they are unable to confi de in each other. So she started writing a diary.
(d) The word ‘confi de’ means the same as ‘to trust someone’/‘to share a secret’.

Q. 14. Answer the following question in about 80 words: 6
What does Mandela mean by the boyhood freedom and the freedom he enjoyed as a young man?

Or

For what reasons was a baker in the Goan village considered very essential? What was the peculiar dress of the baker in the Portuguese days?

Ans. See Q.14, 2009 (Comptt. I Delhi). [Page 31

Or

See Q.14 (Or), 2009 (Comptt. I Delhi). [Page 31
Also Add: In the Portuguese days bakers had a peculiar dress known as the kabai. It was a single piece long frock reaching down to the knees.