CBSE Class 12 English Literary Passage Worksheet Set 01

Literary Passages

Passage 

1. I got posted in Srinagar in the 1980s. Its rugged mountains, gushing rivers and vast meadows reminded me of the landscapes of my native place - the Jibhi Valley in Himachal Pradesh. Unlike Srinagar that saw numerous tourists, Jibhi Valley remained clouded in anonymity. That’s when the seed of starting tourism in Jibhi was planted. I decided to leave my service in the Indian Army and follow the urge to return home.

2. We had two houses - a family house and a traditional house, which we often rented out. I pleaded with my father to ask the tenant to vacate the house so that I could convert it into a guesthouse. When my family finally relented, I renovated the house keeping its originality intact, just adding windows for sunlight.

3. I still remember the summer of 1992 when I put a signboard outside my first guesthouse in Jibhi Valley! The village residents, however, were sceptical about my success. My business kept growing but it took years for tourism to take off in Jibhi Valley. Things changed significantly after 2008 when the government launched a homestay scheme. People built homestays and with rapid tourism growth, the region also changed rapidly. Villages turned into towns with many concrete buildings. Local businesses and tourists continued putting a burden on nature.

4. Then, with the 2020-21 pandemic and lockdown, tourism came to a complete standstill in Jibhi Valley. Local people, who were employed at over a hundred homestays and guesthouses, returned to their villages. Some went back to farming, some took up pottery and some got involved in government work schemes. Now, all ardently hope that normalcy and tourism will return to the valley soon. In a way, the pandemic has given us an opportunity to introspect, go back to our roots and look for sustainable solutions.

5. For me, tourism has been my greatest teacher. It brought people from many countries and all states of India to my guesthouse. It gave me exposure to different cultures and countless opportunities to learn new things. Most people who stayed at my guesthouse became my repeat clients and good friends. When I look back, I feel proud, yet humbled at the thought that I was not only able to fulfill my dream despite all the challenges, but also to play a role in establishing tourism in the beautiful valley that I call home.

Question. Give a reason for the skepticism faced by the author from the village people?
Answer: The village residents were sceptical because Jibhi Valley had remained clouded in anonymity and did not see tourists, unlike places like Srinagar, making the success of a guesthouse seem unlikely.

Question. Why did the narrator leave the Indian Army?
Answer: The narrator decided to leave his service in the Indian Army to follow the urge to return home to Jibhi Valley and start tourism there.

Question. A collocation is a group of words that often occur together. The writer says that Jibhi valley remained clouded in anonymity. The word that collocates with ‘clouded in’ is ............
(a) disgust
(b) doubt
Answer: (b) doubt

Question. Complete the sentence appropriately. The writer’s initial thought of Srinagar and its scenic beauty fills him with ............
Answer: a reminder of the landscapes of his native place, the Jibhi Valley in Himachal Pradesh.

Question. Why did tourism become stagnant in the Jibhi Valley?
(a) The valley had no attractions.
(b) The 2020-21 pandemic and the eventual lockdown.
(c) The writer had no idea of what needed to be done.
(d) Everyone there wanted to go back to their day job.
Answer: (b) The 2020-21 pandemic and the eventual lockdown.

Question. What does the author feel at the end of the passage?
Answer: At the end of the passage, the author feels proud yet humbled that he was able to fulfill his dream despite the challenges and play a role in establishing tourism in his home valley.

Question. The writer mentions looking for sustainable solutions. Why does he refer to the need for sustainable solutions?
Answer: He refers to the need for sustainable solutions because the rapid tourism growth after 2008 led to villages turning into towns with concrete buildings, which put a burden on nature.

Question. Complete the analogy with one word from Paragraph 2. Faux : Artificial :: Genuine : ............
(a) Relented
(b) Intact
(c) Originality
(d) Tenant
Answer: (c) Originality

Question. Which quote summarises the writer's feelings about the peace of growth of tourism in Jibhi Valley?
(a) We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies. - John Marsden
(b) Nature will give you the best example of life lessons, just open your eyes and see. - Kate Smith
(c) We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understanding and our hearts. - William Hazlett
(d) I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God than in church thinking of the mountains. - John Muir
Answer: (c) We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understanding and our hearts. - William Hazlett

Question. Write a customer review for the writer's project.
Answer: "Staying at this guesthouse in Jibhi Valley was a truly authentic experience. The owner has beautifully renovated a traditional house while keeping its original charm intact. It’s the perfect getaway for anyone looking for serenity and a deep connection with nature and local culture. Highly recommended!"

Passage 

1. The postmaster’s office was located in the village of Ulapur. He was a young man from Calcutta. Stationed here, away from the known limits of civilisation, he often felt like a fish out of water. The plantation workers nearby seemed to have their own community. Social miscegenation between two different classes of people seemed all but impossible.

2. In truth, the boy from the city wasn’t good at mixing with people. Uprooted and exiled to a foreign land, his feelings oscillated between arrogance and shame. He rarely met any of the villagers. At times, he tried writing. He wrote poems: poems in which the marrow of life seemed to resonate with the faint tremble of young leaves, where the memory of existence was rejuvenated by the sight of rain clouds-and yet, in his heart of hearts, he knew that the only way he’d welcome the sight of a new life would be if some fantastical djinn from the Arabian Nights arrived at night, unawares, and secretly swept away this maze of maddening vegetation. He longed for the security of metalled roads, of tall houses which blocked the sight of clouds in the open sky. The city was spreading its tentacles, calling him back.

3. The postmaster’s salary was meagre. He had to cook his own meals and his housework was under the care of an orphan girl called Ratan. Ratan was thirteen years old and called him dadababu. Her marital prospects seemed bleak. Evenings would arrive with plumes of smoke rising from the cowshed. The postmaster would light his lamp. The flame would sputter as he’d call out, ‘Ratan?’ Ratan would be waiting for this call. But on its arrival, she’d rush into the room, feigning surprise. “You called, dadababu?” “Are you busy?” “Well, I need to go and make the fire ...” “You can afford to do that later, can’t you? Do be a dear and dress my tobacco..”

4. Ratan would enter with the coal-filled hookah, blowing on it feverishly. The postmaster would snatch it from her hands and ask, quite suddenly, “Ratan, do you remember your mother?” Memories would flow back in. Her father, she remembered, loved her more than her mother. She remembered his smile clearly, the smile he’d carry home when he returned every evening. His face would return to her like a revenant, and the little girl, still lost in thought, would proceed to sit on the floor by the postmaster’s feet. Looking at the young man, she’d remember how she had a brother once. She’d remember the past like it was only yesterday; how they’d played by that old pond, using a branch as a fishing pole! She’d find herself remembering bits of insignificant things. The larger tragedies of life were murky.

5. There were days of magnetic nostalgia-sitting on the wooden plank by the hut, the postmaster would find himself remembering his own history-as he’d think of his little brother, his sister, of everyone he’d left behind. He was infinite and infinitesimal, engulfed by a gaping emptiness-if only, if only he had someone to share this with! And just like that, all of nature was echoing his abyssal vacancy. My heart is in free fall. Won’t anyone catch it?

6. One afternoon during monsoons, Ratan walked into the postmaster’s room and found him lying on his cot under a pile of blankets and was running a fever. Something was happening to Ratan. The pale fire of steady resolution crackled under her skin. In the force of an instant, she assumed the authority of a mother. Rushing out of the hut, she called the local doctor, stayed awake for the entirety of the night, crushing herbs and feeding them to her patient, punctuating the stillness of this frightening night with the words, “Are you feeling better, dadababu?”

7. It took the postmaster weeks to recover from his illness. When he had completely recuperated, he thought to himself, “Enough is enough!” He had to get out of here. He had to. He immediately wrote a letter to his superiors in Calcutta asking for a transfer on medical grounds. Her duties relieved, Ratan spent her days outside his room, book in hand, waiting for that old call. But the call never arrived. Finally, after weeks of waiting, Ratan was called in one evening. Nursing secret excitement and tender trepidation, she walked into the room. “Dadababu, you called?” ‘Ratan,’ he began, “I’m leaving tomorrow.” “Where are you going, dadababu?” “I’m going home.” “When will you come back?” The postmaster pursed his lips. “I don’t think I will.” Ratan stood still for a while. Words seemed to be losing their way in the labyrinth of her silence. “Dadababu, will you take me with you?” The young man stared at the girl and then laughed. “That’s ridiculous!” Shaken, she burst into tears. “Listen, Ratan. I never thanked you for everything you did. Now that I’m leaving, I want to give you something. Keep this. It’ll make your ends meet for some time at least.” The postmaster handed her a pouch. Peering inside, Ratan found that it contained all of her master’s earnings. Stunned, the little girl fell onto the floor, clutching the postmaster’s feet. ‘Dadababu!’ she stuttered, “I b-beg of you! You don’t have to give me anything! Please! Please! I don’t want your kindness! No one-no one has to take charge of me!” And she ran out, vanishing into the mist enveloping the hut.

8. Sighing, the postmaster picked up his bags, and walked to the riverbank where a boat was waiting for him. When the boat finally slid into the current, it was then that the postmaster felt the sudden weight of crushing grief that his heart was gravitating with. “I should turn back,” he thought to himself “Let me take her with me; she, who has always been neglected. She, who has never been welcomed.” But by then, the wind had begun pushing the sails. The lukewarm heart of the voyager consoled itself with eternal philosophy: ‘life was a river of partings and departings, of death and uprooting, of longing and belonging. What was the use of looking back? Who belonged to whom in this world?’ But Ratan’s little heart harboured no such philosophy. She had been circling the old hut cradled in the river of her own tears. Perhaps she nursed a tender hope that her dadababu would return one day. Anchored by its roots, she refused to move away from the debris of her own heartbreak.

- ‘The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore’
- translated from the Bengali by Utsa Bose

Question. What does the postmaster mean when he thinks, “Who belonged to whom in this world?”
Answer: The postmaster is rationalizing his decision to leave Ratan behind by adopting a detached, philosophical view that human connections are temporary and ultimate responsibility for another person is an illusion in a world characterized by constant partings.

Question. What does the image of the “faint tremble of young leaves” symbolise in the excerpt? Explain in brief.
Answer: The image symbolises the fragile and delicate nature of life and emotions that the postmaster tries to capture in his poetry, contrasting with the overwhelming and maddening vegetation of the village that he finds suffocating.

Question. Complete the sentence appropriately. Ratan could not reconcile herself to the postmaster’s 'eternal philosophy’ and therefore chose to ............
Answer: remain anchored by her roots at the old hut, nursing a tender hope for his return while refuse to move away from the debris of her own heartbreak.

Question. Complete the following sentence with an appropriate inference with respect to the following. The postmaster often felt like a ‘fish without water’ in Ulapur because ............
Answer: he was a city-bred man from Calcutta who felt alienated by the lack of urban infrastructure, social connection, and the starkly different environment of the remote village.

Question. What literary device is used in the phrase “life was a river of partings and departings”?
(a) Metaphor
(b) Simile
(c) Hyperbole
(d) Personification
Answer: (a) Metaphor

Question. What all would Ratan recall while conversing with the postmaster?
Answer: Ratan would recall memories of her mother and father, specifically her father's loving smile. She also remembered playing by an old pond with her brother using a branch as a fishing pole, and various insignificant bits of her past.

Question. “And just like that, all of nature was echoing his abyssal vacancy.” What does this tell about the mental condition of the postmaster? Answer in about 40 words.
Answer: It reveals the postmaster's profound loneliness and sense of isolation. His inner emptiness is so overwhelming that he projects it onto his surroundings, feeling that the entire natural world reflects his own deep psychological void and lack of human connection.

Question. What does the river symbolise in the final Paragraph?
(a) The postmaster’s journey to a new life
(b) Ratan’s grief and isolation
(c) The passage of time
(d) The inevitability of change
Answer: (d) The inevitability of change

Question. The postmaster’s decision to leave reveal about his character shows that he is ............
(a) determined and resolute
(b) indifferent and uncaring
(c) hopeful and optimistic
(d) weak and indecisive
Answer: (b) indifferent and uncaring

Question. In the last Paragraph, the author uses a phrase “debris of her own heartbreak”, what do you think this means in the context of the passage. Explain your answer.
Answer: It means the shattered remnants of Ratan's hopes and emotional attachment to the postmaster. After being rejected and left behind, she is surrounded by the metaphorical wreckage of her affection and the painful memory of his departure, which she cannot move past.

Passage 

An Excerpt from ‘A Piece of Chalk’

1. I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a walking-stick and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity.

Hence, she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper wrappers from motives of economy.

2. I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks and possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one’s pocket; the pocketknife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

Source (edited): ‘A Piece of Chalk', Tremendous Trifles, G. K. Chesterton

Question. Why did the narrator want to write poems about things in his pocket?
Answer: The narrator felt that the everyday objects carried in one's pocket are "primeval" and "poetical," representing deep human history and significance, such as the pocketknife being the "infant of the sword."

Question. Why did the narrator prefer brown paper to note-paper for drawing pictures?
Answer: He preferred brown paper because he liked the quality of "brownness" and the "responsive surface." To him, brown paper represented the "primal twilight" against which bright chalks could stand out like "fierce stars."

Question. Read and complete the sentence appropriately. The writer says “I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular...” From this we can conclude that the narrator ............
(a) enjoyed his time being idle
(b) suffered from a vision impairment
Answer: (a) enjoyed his time being idle

Question. In accordance with the narrator’s view, complete the sentence below by adding an appropriate comparison. .. .but liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, or in the peat-streams of the North, or in ............
Answer: the primal twilight of the first toil of creation.

Question. Which of the reader’s senses does the author primarily appeal to in the first two sentences of Paragraph 2?
(a) Sight
(b) Touch
(c) Smell
(d) Sound
Answer: (a) Sight

Question. In 20-30 words, state any one trait of the narrator and justify it with an example.
Answer: The narrator is imaginative and philosophical. For example, he sees brown paper not as a utility for parcels, but as a symbolic "primal twilight" for artistic creation.

Question. Based on the passage, how can the description of the woman as ‘square and sensible’ be justified?
Answer: She is justified as "sensible" because she views brown paper practically—for its "toughness and endurance" in tying parcels—and assumes the narrator wants to use it for correspondence to save money.

Question. I did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface... (Paragraph 1) What does ‘them’ refer to in the statement above?
(a) Parcels
(b) Pictures
(c) Note-paper
(d) Brown paper
Answer: (b) Pictures

Question. Which of these best describes the narrator of the passage?
(a) Argumentative
(b) Elaborate
(c) Objective
(d) Ignorant
Answer: (b) Elaborate

Question. Whom does the narrator compare an artist to in the statement below? Explain your answer. ...and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. (Paragraph 2)
Answer: The narrator compares the artist to a creator or God. By using chalk on brown paper, the artist performs an act similar to the "first toil of creation," bringing light and color out of a symbolic "divine darkness."

Passage

1. The afternoon was warm and the prospect of a dull, prolonged vigil in the beer garden had made me feel vaguely uneasy and almost sad. I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game. And, as I walked on, I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood. And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

2. There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college-one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the “Yale News” and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram-life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

3. It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due East of New York and where there are among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land.

4. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals-like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end-but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

Question. How does the narrator describe the appearance of the books he purchased?
Answer: The narrator describes the books as standing on his shelf in "red and gold like new money from the mint."

Question. What conviction did the narrator feel with the arrival of summer? How does the narrator describe his intention to become a “well-rounded man”?
Answer: The narrator felt a conviction that "life was beginning over again with the summer." He intended to become a "well-rounded man" by returning to his literary interests and reading extensively on diverse subjects like banking and investment.

Question. In the line It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America.’ What made these communities strange?
(a) Unusual geographical formations
(b) Unique cultural practices
Answer: (a) Unusual geographical formations

Question. Complete the sentence suitably. The expression “unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew” indicates an aura of ....................
Answer: immense wealth, mystery, and exclusive knowledge possessed by legendary figures and financiers.

Question. I was rather literary in college-one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the “Yale News”... In the given expression, ‘solemn’ means
(a) unfold
(b) thoughtful
(c) obvious
(d) epigram
Answer: (b) thoughtful

Question. Why does the author say that he has ‘rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America’?
Answer: He says this because the community is located on a "slender riotous island" featuring natural curiosities like two identical, enormous egg-shaped land formations jutting into Long Island Sound.

Question. Share evidence from the text in about 40 words, to support the view that the speaker is determined to make a change in his life and what inspires him to do so.
Answer: The speaker expresses the "conviction that life was beginning over again" with the summer. Inspired by the sunshine and the "great bursts of leaves," he buys a dozen volumes on banking to become a "well-rounded man."

Question. Complete the analogy with one word from the passage. Enormous : Huge :: Supervision : ............
(a) Vigil
(b) Courtesy
(c) Pursuits
(d) Conviction
Answer: (a) Vigil

Question. According to the passage, what did the writer spend money to buy?
(a) Artwork and home decor
(b) Books on finance and investment
(c) Travel tickets and accommodation
(d) Electronic gadgets and technology
Answer: (b) Books on finance and investment

Question. “I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.” Explain this line from Paragraph 1 and why the speaker feels so.
Answer: This line suggests that Tom is trapped in his past athletic glory, unable to find anything in his current life that matches the excitement of his college football days. The speaker feels Tom is perpetually restless and longing for a peak experience he can never truly recapture.