CBSE Class 11 English Question Paper Set 20

CBSE Class 11 English Question Paper Set T. Students can download the last year board exams question papers using the link below. Free download of examination question papers with solutions. Last 10 year question papers should be practised to get better marks in examinations. 

SECTION-A( READING)

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow

1. It was a great shock to me to discover that I had motor neuron disease. I had never been very well coordinate physically as a child, I was not good at ball games, and my handwriting was the despair of the teachers. Maybe for this reason, I didn’t care much for sport or physical activities. But things seemed to change when I went to Oxford, at the age of 17, I took up coxing and rowing. I was not Boat Race standard, but I got by the level of inter-college competition.

2. In my third year at Oxford, however, I noticed that I seemed to be getting more clumsy and I fell over once or twice for no apparent reason. But it was not until I was at Cambridge, in the following year, that my father noticed, and took me to the family doctor. He referred to me a specialist, and shortly after my 21st birthday, I went into hospital for tests. Although, there was a cloud hanging over my future. I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before. I began to make progress with my research, and I got engaged to a girl called Jane Wilde, whom I had met just about the time my condition was diagnosed. That engagement changed my life. It gave me something to live for. But it also meant that I had to get a job if we were to get married. I, therefore, applied for a research fellowship at Gonville and Cains College, Cambridge. To my great surprise, I got a fellowship up to 1974. I was able to feed myself and get in and out of bed. This lasted until I caught pneumonia in 1985. I had to have a tracheotomy operation.

3. Before the operation, my speech had been getting more slurred, so that only few people who knew me well, could understand me. But at least I could communicate. I wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary and I gave seminars through an interpreter, who repeated my words more clearly. However, the tracheotomy operation removed my ability to speak altogether. For a time, the only way I could communicate was to spell out words letter by letter, by raising my eyebrows when someone pointed to the right letter on a spelling card. It is pretty difficult to carry on a conversation like that, let alone write a scientific paper. However, a computer expert in California, called Walt Walpos, heard of my plight. He sent me a computer program he had written, called Equalizer. This allowed me to select words from a series of menus on the screen: by pressing a switch in my hand. The program could also be controlled by a switch operated by head or eye movement. When I have built up what I want to say, I can send it to a speech synthesizer. At first, i just ran to the Equilizer program on a Desktop computer.

4. However, David Manson of Cambridge adaptive communication, fitted a small portable computer and a speech synthesizer to my wheel chair. This system allowed me to communicate much better than I could before. I can, manage up to 15 words a minute. I can either speak what I have written, or save it to disc. I can then print it out, or call it back and speak it sentence by sentence. Using this system I have written a book, and dozen of scientific papers. ‘I have also given many scientific and popular talks. They have all been well received. I think that is in a large part due to the quality of the speech synthesizer which is made by Speech Plus . One’s voice is very important. If you have a slurred voice, people are likely to treat you as mentally deficient.’ This synthesizer is by far the best I have heard, because it varies the intonation and does not speak like a dalek. The only trouble is that it gives me an American accent.

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