CBSE Class 12 Functionsl English Delhi Question Paper 2013 (1)

CBSE Class 12 Functionsl English Delhi Question Paper 2013 (1). Students can download the last year 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.

Functional English

SECTION A — READING 

A1. Read the following passage :

“But have you been to Nimtita ? Have you seen the palace there ?” asked the old man in the tea-shop, with the thatched roof. We were in the village of Lalgola, one hundred and fifty miles from Calcutta, and we had just seen our thirtieth nobleman’s palace and found it unsuitable.

5 “Nimtita ? Where is that ?” we asked without much interest. We had never heard of the place. “It is sixty miles to the north of here. You drive up the highway. Then you come to a river which you have to cross. A ferry will take your car across. Then up the highway again for twenty miles. A sign tells you where to branch off ... It’s on the river Padma, on the eastern bank. It’s the palace of the Choudhurys. I’ve been listening

10 to your talk, and I feel you ought to see this one before you give up.”

We were not very hopeful. We had had enough trouble taking free advice from people who had no idea of our needs. Anyway, the question was : do we or do we not undertake this one last trip ? If we did not like the palace, it might mean either giving up making this film altogether, or seriously changing its nature. We tossed a coin to

15 decide whether to go or not. The coin said ‘Go!’, and we set out on our sixty-mile journey. It was when I was in bed with my right leg in plaster that I had decided to film Tarasankar Banerji’s famous short story, ‘The Music Room’ (Jalsaghar). A nasty fall on the stone steps at Banaras had brought about a serious knee injury. I lay in bed and

20 read all the Bengali books I could lay my hands on. Just then, the film distributors were not too keen to take my films for distribution, and may be this was one of the things that made me choose ‘The Music Room’.

Here was a dramatic story which could naturally bring in music and dancing, and distributors loved music and dancing. But here, too, was a story full of feelings. So it

25 would be satisfying for me as an artist. I would cast Chabi Biswas, our greatest actor, in the leading role of the zamindar — the zamindar whose love of big musical entertainments brings about his ruin. But the most important thing was to find a palace. As we had a low budget, there was no question of having studio-built sets. I knew that, if we had the money, my art director could easily build a set which looked

30 like our old palace with the right style. But we just didn’t have the money for it.

Nimtita turned out to be everything that the old man had claimed — and more. No one could have described in words the feeling of utter sadness that surrounded the palace. The river Padma had changed its course over the years, so that now there were endless stretches of sand where once had been villages. The palace itself—Greek

35 pillars and all — was a perfect realization of my dream image. It stood looking out over the stretches of sand with a sad dignity. It had somehow escaped being totally destroyed when the river changed its course. The river had approached within ten yards of the front of the palace — having swallowed the garden — and then stopped. Ganendra Narayan Choudhury, who is seventy and owns a British title and the palace,

40 told us how it happened : “We were having breakfast one morning when we heard a low rumble. We went out on the verandah and saw a big chunk of our estate — almost a square mile of it — go under water, disappearing forever. It all happened in a matter of seconds. Padma’s appetite is legendary.” “But aren’t you afraid that the river might encroach further ?”

A1.1 On the basis of your understanding of the passage answer the following : 

(a) How was the meeting with the old man at the tea-shop lucky for the narrator ? 

(b) It was important for the narrator to find the right setting for his film for two reasons. What are they ? 

(c) When did the narrator get the idea of making the film ‘Jalsaghar’ ? 

(d) Why did the narrator feel that the film would appeal to his distributors ? 

(e) Why was making the film so important to the narrator ? 

(f) What surprised Mr. Banerji, the author of the story ? 

A1.2 Pick out the words from the passage which mean the following : 

(i) a motorized boat (lines 5 - 10)

(ii) asserted or said (lines 31 - 35)

(iii) something mythical/famous from the past (lines 39 — 43)

(iv) unique or strange (lines 53 - 58

Please click the link below to download pdf file of CBSE Class 12 Functionsl English Delhi Question Paper 2013 (1).