Anna University Chennai 2007 Post Graduate Diploma Journalism (Oriya) B.A ENGLISH (ENTRANCE) - Question Paper
Model Question Paper
B.A. (Hons.) English Entrance Test Time : 1.30 Hours Maximum Marks : 85
Note: Attempt all questions Marks are indicated alongside each question
1. Read the passage and answer the questions that follow:
It was the beginning of November when we left Calcutta for Harsingpur. The place was new to me, but the scents and sounds of the countryside pressed round and embraced me. The morning breeze coming fresh from the newly ploughed land, the sweet and tender smell of the flowering mustard, the shepherd boys flute sounding in the distance, even the creaking noise of the bullock-cart, as it groaned over the broken village road, filled my world with delight. The memory of my past life, with all its ineffable fragrance and sound, became a living present to me, and my blind eyes could not tell me I was wrong. I went back, and lived over again my child hood. Only one thing was absent: my mother was not with me.
I could see my home with the large peepul trees growing along the edges of the village pool. I could picture in my minds eye my old grandmother seated on the ground with her thin wisps of hair untied, warming her back in the sun as she made the little round lentil balls to be dried, and used for cooking. But some how
I could not recall the songs she used to croon to herself in her weak and quavering voice. In the evening, whenever I heard the lowing of cattle, I could almost watch the figure of my mother going found the sheds with lighted lamp in her hand. The smell of the wet fodder and the pungent smoke of the straw fire would enter into my very heart. And in the distance I seemed to hear the clanging of the temple bell wafted up by the breeze from the river bank.
(A) Answer the following questions in one or two sentences each: 20
(i)
4
When did the author and his family leave Calcutta ?
(iii) Who was absent when the author recollected his past life ? 4
(iv) What could the author picture in his minds eye ? 4
(v) What would the author hear in the evening? 4
(B) Answer the following questions: 10
(i) What is meant by the phrases croon to herself and I could picture in my minds eye ? 2+2=4
breeze:_
scents:
(iii) What are the antonyms for :
1+1=2
2
fresh:_
absent:_
(iv) Make adjectives from:
Home:_
Distance :
2. Read the poem and answer the questions that follow:
25
Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
(i) Which season of the year is described in the poem ?
5
(iii) Why does the horse give his harness bells a shake? 5
(iv) How does the poet describe the woods? 5
(v) What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? 4
(vi) What is the meaning of the word queer? 1
3. Write an essay in about 300 words on any one of the following: 30
(i) My favourite sportsperson
(ii) The use of computers in everyday life
(iii) The book that changed my life
(iv) If I were the Prime Minister...
M.A. English Entrance Test,
Time: 1:30 Hours Maximum Marks: 85
Note: Attempt all question, Marks are indicated against each question.
1. Read the poem given below and answer the questions that follow: PARTITION
Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on this land he was a called to partition Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods,
Time, they had briefed him in London, is short. Its too late For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So weve arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for getter or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot The case, as a good lawyer must, Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.
(a) What was the brief given to the protagonist?
5
(b) The work that the officer had was the task of settling the fate of millions. What do you understand by this? 5
(c) What were the difficulties the protagonist faced when called to partition two peoples? 5
(d) Why is the protagonist called a good lawyer?
5
(e) Explain the significance of any two ironical statements. 5
(f) Comment on the form of the poem.
5
2. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow :
Whether we like it or not, we humans are totally dependent on nature for our survival. The environment is both a source of food, shelter and raw materials, and
a sink to dispose of our wastes. Our dwelling units are built from bricks, mud, wood, thatch, cement, stone and steel. Our clothes come from cotton, silk or wool. Whatever you can think of - paper, pencil, minerals, medicines, utensils, anything-everything has its origin in nature. Electric wires are made in factories, but the basic material from which they are made - copper - comes from nature, the earth. As for the great quantities of waste we generate in the form of sewage, garbage, smoke-all of them are absorbed in various ways by nature. After all, where does the water in your toilet go? Have you thought about it? I have, often. And it makes me sick with worry for our planet.
The problem really starts when we begin to take nature for granted, when we use its resources recklessly and dump huge quantities of wastes that far exceed the absorption capacity of the ecosystem. Take the river Yamuna, for instance.
Looking at the black, foamy, turbid, slimy waters of the Yamuna in Delhi, nobody will believe that it emerge from the hills not far away as a crystal clear stream. From a snow-fed, pristine river it becomes a stinking cesspool. Why ? Because as the river enters Delhi, all its waters are seized for supply to the city for humans to use in their homes, institutions, offices; downstream, untreated effluents from seventeen major outlets fall into the river. Only during the monsoon does the river flow; at other times it is nothing but a drain. This is the Yamuna, one of the holy rivers of India. This is true of practically all the major rivers in India.
Everything in nature happens in a cycle. It is a cycle of creation, decay and renewal until we humans intervene to make it a cycle of destruction. Doesnt exactly cover us with glory, does it?
The amount of garbage each one of us produces is impossible to imagine. In a city like Chennai, for instance, where lakhs of people live, the amount of garbage generated each day would build mountains. Yet we expect a few hundred municipal workers to get rid of all of it quietly and efficiently. Our individual wastes are transferred to dumping sites that breed disease and epidemic. The entire neighborhood becomes and ugly sight and the stench spreads far and wide. And when it rains? Water seeps through the heaps of garbage and into the soil, contaminating the groundwater.
(a) How does the author argue that humans are totally dependent on nature for their survival? 5
(b) What does the author mean when he discusses the absorption capacity of the ecosystem? 5
(d) How does reckless garbage disposal contaminate groundwater? 5
(e) Find the word in the passage that means the same as: 5
(i) pure and unspoiled:..........
(ii) puddle of dirty water:............................
(f) The author of the passage is justified in being sick with worry for our planet Comment. 5
3. Write an essay on any one of the following topics:
(a) How real is fiction and how fictional is reality
(b) Demolition drive in Delhi
(c) Literature in the age of science and technology
(d) The legal system of India: Does it succeed in providing justice?
Entrance Test for Admission to M.Phil in English Literature
Time : 1 hour 30 minutes Maximum Marks : 85
Attempt all questions
1. Write an essay on any one of the following in about 400 words: (30 marks)
(i) Shakespeares Tragedies
(ii) Comedy of Manners
(iii) The Victorian Compromise
(iv) The Modern Novel
(v) Post-structuralism
(vi) Post-colonialism
2. Attempt a critical appreciation of the following poem in about 250 words:
(30 marks)
THE HUMAN SEASONS
Four seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of Man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously Springs honeyd cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness - to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook :--
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
3. Comment on the prose style of the following passage: (25 marks)
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth: whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral
I meet - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea, whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick - grow quarrelsome - dont sleep of nights - do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing; no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them.
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