CBSE Class 10 English Communicative Sample Paper 2014 Set M

Q.1 Read the following passage carefully: 

PERILS OF ELECTRONIC WASTE

Look around you and you could easily pick out loads of equipments and devices that could qualify as potentially hazardous and un-biodegradable electronic waste. The television, the mobile phone, the refrigerator, the computer and printer sitting on your desk, are all eventually going to end up in a landfill where they will leach out dangerous carcinogens and chemicals, poisoning the soil and dirtying underground water aquifers. The result will be huge amounts of money spent on cleaning up our landfills and health risks that could include cancer, lead poisioning, or kidney disease.

All obsolete electronic devices such as computers, TVs, cellular phones, calculators, audio and video devices, printers, scanners, copiers and fax machines, besides refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing machines, microwave ovens, DVDs, CDs, chips, and processors, once disposed also add up to the e-waste pile. The ipod and the iphone, glamorous products for the young generation providing thousands of songs at the touch of a bottom and conveniently fitting in the pocket, can spend thousands of years in a landfill. Apple has sold over 180 million ipods to date! One can imagine the staggering e-waste problem once these devices start getting disposed off.

The magnitude of the problem is really huge, and scary. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, global e-waste generation is growing by about 40 million tonnes a year. A report titled "Recycling—From E-Waste to Resources", released in February this year by the UNEP, predicts that by 2020 in South Africa and China e-waste from old computers will have jumped by 200 to 400% from 2007 levels, and by 500% in India.

The spectre of hazardous e-waste mountains looms large especially for developing countries with serious consequences for the environment and public health. According to a recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology, within six to eight years, developing countries will be disposing of more old computers thanthe developed world. And by 2030, these nations will be disposing of two to three times as many computers as the developed world, perhaps resulting in up to 1 billion computers being dumped worldwide every year.

India especially needs to be on guard. A study titled "Electronics Recycling and EWaste Issues," estimates that e-waste from televisions will be 1.5 to 2 times higher in India, and that from discarded refrigerators will double or triple in India. The estimates of un-biodegradable electronic waste that could pile up in India are somewhat like this: over 100,000 tonnes from refrigerators, 275,000 tonnes from TVs, 56,300 tonnes from personal computers, 4,700 tonnes from printers and 1,700 tonnes from mobile phones. —HasanJawaid Khan in Science Reporter

A. Now complete the following sentences briefly: 

a) Landfill means ...............................

b) The dangerous carcinogens and chemicals carried by e-waste pile will spoil ...............................

c) E-waste problem comes into existence when .............................. .

d) The United Nations Environment Programme has made it clear that .............................. .

e) It has been studied that developing countries will be more prone to ewaste problem than the developed world ............................. .

f) It is high time for India to get alert because .............................. .

B. Find words from the above passage that mean the same as the following: 

a) shocking

b) the production of something

C. Find words from the above passage that mean the opposite to the following: 

a) safe b) simple

Please refer to attached file for CBSE Class 10 English Communicative Sample Paper 2014 Set M