The Shriram Millennium School, Noida

Half Yearly Examination (PRACTICE PAPER)

Subject: Literature in English (0475)
Class: X

Name ______________________________ Roll no. _________

FIRST READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY

Please note this is a question bank which has IGCSE style questions for Paper 1 (Poetry and Prose) and
Paper 2 (Drama).

For Paper 1

• In Paper 1- you will attempt any one question from Section A- Poetry and any one question from
Section B- Prose.
• The number of marks is given in the brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part of a question.
• The total number of marks for Paper 1 is 50.
• All questions are worth equal marks.
• Some of the extracts from the prose section will be marked in the class.

For Paper 2

• In Paper 2 – you will answer two questions.

• You must answer one (a) passage-based question and one (b) essay question.
• The number of marks is given in the brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part of a question.
• The total number of marks for this Question Paper is 50.
• All questions are worth equal marks.
• The extract from ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ will be marked in the class.

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 SECTION A: POETRY

SONGS OF OURSELVES VOLUME 1: from Part 4

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

The Chimney Sweeper

1. Explore the ways in which Blake makes The Chimney Sweeper such a moving poem. [25]

Report to Wordsworth

2. How does Cheng powerfully convey a sense of mourning for the natural world in this poem? [25]

Follower

3. In what ways does Heaney create moving impressions of his father in Follower? [25]

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 SECTION B: PROSE

from Stories of Ourselves Volume 2

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

4. Read this passage from When It Happens (Margaret Atwood), and then answer the question that
follows it:

She doesn’t even feel like teasing him about his spare tire anymore, though she does it all the same
because he would miss it if she stopped. “There you go,” she says, in the angular, prodding, metallic voice
she cannot change because everyone expects it from her, if she spoke any other way they would think
she was ill, “you keep on munching away like that and it’ll be easy for me to get you out of bed in the
mornings, I’ll just give you a push and you’ll roll all the way down the stairs like a barrel.” And he answers
in his methodical voice, pretending to be lazy even though he isn’t, “You need a little fun in life,” as though
his pickles and cheese are slightly disreputable, almost like an orgy. Every year he tells her she’s made
too much but there would be a fuss all right if he went down to the cellar one day and there wasn’t any left.

Mrs. Burridge has made her own pickles since 1952, which was the first year she had the garden. She
remembers it especially because her daughter Sarah was on the way, and she had trouble bending down
to do the weeding. When she herself was growing up everyone did their own pickles, and their own
canning and preserving too. But after the war most women gave it up, there was more money then and it
was easier to buy things at the store. Mrs. Burridge never gave it up, though most of her friends thought
she was wasting her time, and now she is glad she didn’t, it kept her in practice while the others were
having to learn all over again. Though with the sugar going up the way it is, she can’t understand how long
anyone is going to be able to afford even the homemade things.

On paper Frank is making more money than he ever has; yet they seem to have less to spend. They could
always sell the farm, she supposes, to people from the city who would use it as a weekend place; they
could get what seems like a very high price, several of the farms south of them have gone that way. But
Mrs. Burridge does not have much faith in money; also, it is a waste of the land, and this is her home, she
has it arranged the way she wants it.

When the second batch is on and simmering she goes to the back door, opens it, and stands with her arms
folded across her stomach, looking out. She catches herself doing this four or five times a day now and she
doesn’t quite know why. There isn’t much to see, just the barn and the back field with the row of dead elms
Frank keeps saying he’s going to cut down, and the top of Clarke’s place sticking over the hill. She isn’t sure
what she is looking for but she has the odd idea she may see something burning, smoke coming up from
the horizon, a column of it or perhaps more than one column, off to the south. This is such a peculiar thought
for her to have that she hasn’t told it to anyone else. Yesterday Frank saw her standing at the back door
and asked her about it at dinner; anything he wants to talk to her about he saves up till dinner, even if he
thinks about it in the morning.

He wondered why she was at the back door, doing nothing at all for over ten minutes, and Mrs. Burridge
told him a lie, which made her very uneasy. She said she heard a strange dog barking, which wasn’t a good
story because their own dogs were right there and they didn’t notice a thing. But Frank let it pass; perhaps
he thinks she is getting funny in her old age and doesn’t want to call attention to it, which would be like him.
He’ll track mud all over her nice shiny kitchen floor but he’d hate to hurt anyone’s feelings. Mrs. Burridge
decides, a little wistfully, that despite his pig-headedness he is a kind and likable man, and for her this is
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 like renouncing a cherished and unquestionable belief, such as the flatness of the earth. He has made her
angry so many times.

When the pickles are cool she labels them as she always does with the name and the date and carries
them down the cellar stairs. The cellar is the old kind, with stone walls and a dirt floor. Mrs. Burridge likes to
have everything neat – she still irons her sheets – so she had Frank build her some shelves right after they
were married. The pickles go on one side, jams and jellies on the other, and the quarts of preserves along
the bottom. It used to make her feel safe to have all that food in the cellar; she would think to herself, well,
if there’s a snowstorm or anything and we’re cut off, it won’t be so bad. It doesn’t make her feel safe anymore.
Instead she thinks that if she has to leave suddenly she won’t be able to take any of the jars with her, they’d
be too heavy to carry.

- How does Atwood powerfully convey Mrs. Burridge’s thoughts and feelings at this moment in the
story? [25]

5. Extract based question from Nick by Christina Rossetti. Extract will be marked in the class.

- How does Rossetti make this such an amusing moment in the story? [25]

6. Theme based question from Fluke by Romesh Gunesekera.

- Explore the ways in which Gunesekera conveys a sense of mystery and tension in Fluke. [25]

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 Paper 2

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

1. Read this passage carefully, and then answer the question that follows it:

Hermia: Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes.
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found.
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

Lysander: Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?

Hermia: What love could press Lysander from my side?

Lysander: Lysander’s love, that would not let him bide,

Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
Why seek’st thou me?
Could not this make thee know
The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?

Hermia: You speak not as you think. It cannot be.

Helena: Lo, she is one of this confederacy!

Now I perceive they have conjoined all three
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.—
Injurious Hermia! Most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—oh, is it all forgot?
All schooldays' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry—seeming parted
But yet an union in partition—
Two lovely berries molded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies but one heart,
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,

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 Due but to one and crownèd with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder

To join with men in scorning your poor friend?

It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly.
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.

Hermia: I am amazed at your passionate words.

I scorn you not. It seems that you scorn me.

Helena: Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,

To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
And made your other love, Demetrius—
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot—
To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
And tender me, forsooth, affection,
But by your setting on, by your consent?
What though I be not so in grace as you—
So hung upon with love, so fortunate—
But miserable most, to love unloved?
This you should pity rather than despise.

Hermia: I understand not what you mean by this.

Helena: Ay, do. Persever, counterfeit sad looks,

Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
Wink each at other, hold the sweet jest up—
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.
But fare ye well. 'Tis partly my own fault,
Which death or absence soon shall remedy.

[Act 3, Scene 2]

- How does Shakespeare make this such a dramatic moment in the play? [25]

2. Theme based question: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Explore how Shakespeare makes Bottom such an entertaining character in the play. [25]

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 TENNESSE WILLIAMS : A Streetcar Named Desire

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

3. Extract based question from A Streetcar Named Desire. Extract will be marked in the class.

- How does Williams make this introduction to Blanche and Stella so intriguing? [25]

Theme based question from A Streetcar Named Desire.

4. How is masculinity portrayed through the character of Stanley? [25]

5. In what ways do Stanley and Blanche represent clashing social classes and ideals? [25]

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