CBSE Class 12 English Practice Passages for Note Making Assignment Set D. Students are advised to refer to the attached assignments and practice them regularly. This will help them to identify their weak areas and will help them to score better in examination. Parents should download and give the assignments to their children for practice.
Read the passage given below:
My Dear Little Fellow,
You are now going to settle at school, and may consider this as your first entrance into the world. As my health is so indifferent, and I may not be with you long, I wish to leave you some advice (the best I can) for your conduct in life, both that it may be of use to you, and as something to remember me by. I may at least be able to caution you against my own errors, if nothing else.
As we went along to your new place of destination, you often repeated that "you durst say they were a set of stupid, disagreeable people, "meaning the people at the school. You were to blame in this. It is a good old rule to hope for the best. Always, my dear, believe things to be right, till you find them the contrary; and even then, instead of irritating yourself against them, endeavour to put up with them as well as you can, if you cannot alter them. You said, "You were sure you should not like the school where you were going." This was wrong. What you meant was that you did not like to leave home. But you could not tell whether you should like the school or not, till you had given it a trial. Otherwise your saying that you should not like it was determining that you would not like it. Never anticipate evils, or, because you cannot have everything exactly as you wish, make them out worse than they are, through more spite and willfulness.
You seemed at first to take no notice of your school-fellows, or rather to set yourself against them, because they were strangers to you. They knew as little of you as you did of them; so that this would have been a reason for their keeping aloof from you as well, which you would have felt as a hardship. Learn never to conceive a prejudice against others, because you know nothing of them. It is bad reasoning, and makes enemies of half the world. Do not think ill of them, till they behave ill to you; and then strive to avoid the faults which you see in them. This will disarm their hostility sooner than pique or resentment or complaint.
I thought you were disposed to criticize the dress of some of the boys as not so good as your own. Never despise any one for anything that he cannot help -- least of all, for his poverty. I would wish you to keep up appearances yourself as a defence against the idle sneers of the world, but I would not have you value yourself upon them. I hope you will neither be the dupe nor victim of vulgar prejudices. Instead of saying above -- "Never despise any one for anything that he cannot help" -- I might have said, "Never despise any one at all"; for contempt implies a triumph over and pleasure in the ill of another. It means that you are glad and congratulate yourself on their failings or misfortunes. The sense of inferiority in others, without this indirect appeal to our self-love, is a painful feeling, and not an exulting one.
(a) On the basis of your reading of the passage above, make notes using points only, use abbreviations wherever necessary. Supply a suitable title.
(b) Write a summary of the passage above in about 80 Words.
Please click the link below to download CBSE Class 12 English Practice Passages for Note Making Assignment Set D
