CBSE Class 12 English Elective Sample Paper 2019 Solved (1)

CBSE Class 12 English Elective Sample Paper 2019 Solved (1). It’s always recommended to practice as many sample papers as possible before the examinations. Students can download the sample papers and also question papers of previous years to practice and score better marks in examinations. Refer to other links too for more sample papers.

SECTION A (READING)

1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow: 

1 Hewlett- Packard Company or HP (styled as hp) is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It provides hardware, software and services to consumers, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors.

2 It specializes in developing and manufacturing, computing, data storage, and networking hardware; designing software and delivering services. Major product lines include personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software and a diverse range of printers and other imaging products. HP markets its products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises directly as well as via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors. HP also has services and consulting business around its products and partner products.

In 2013, it was the world's second-largest PC vendor by unit sales.

3 During the late 1990s, HP, the second largest computer manufacturer in the world, faced major challenges in an increasingly competitive market. In 1998, while HP's revenues grew just by 3%, competitor Dell's rose by 38%. HP's share price remained more or less stagnant, while competitor IBM's share price increased by 65% during 1998. Analysts said HP's culture, which emphasized teamwork and respect for co-workers, had over the years translated into a consensus-style culture that was proving to be a sharp disadvantage in the fast-growing Internet business era. Analysts felt that instead of Lewis Platt, HP needed a new leader to cope with rapidly changing industry trends. Responding to these concerns, in July 1999, the HP board appointed Carleton S. Fiorina (Fiorina) as the company's CEO. Fiorina implemented several cost-cutting measures to streamline the company's operations. Some of the measures included forced five-day vacation for the workers and the postponement of wages' hikes for three months in December 2000. In January 2001, HP laid off 1,700 marketing employees.

4 In April 2001, Fiorina announced that HP's revenues would decrease by 2% to 4% for the quarter ending April 30,2001 due to decrease in consumer spending. In yet another move to cut costs, in June 2001, employees were forcibly asked to take pay-cuts. More than 80,000 employees volunteered saving the company $ 130 million. Things became worse when the HP management announced that it would layoff another 6,000 workers in July 2001, the biggest reduction in the company's 64-year history. The management also sent memos saying that the layoffs would continue and that the volunteering for pay-cuts would not guarantee continued employment.

5 In September 2001, HP and Compaq Computer Corporation announced their merger. According to company insiders, once the merger was implemented, Fiorina was likely to layoff another 15,000 to 30,000 employees as part of a major cost saving drive. The merger was expected to yield cost savings upto $ 2.5 billion primarily because of layoffs. The steps taken by Fiorina surprised analysts. They said that these steps were a major departure from HP's organizational culture - 'The HP way' of promising lifelong employment and employee satisfaction.

6 According to the company insiders, though change was necessary, employees' morale had suffered badly. Many employees had lost faith in Fiorina's ability to execute her plans. They also felt that her changes were destroying much of the company's cherished culture. HP Vice-President for Human Resources, Susan Bowick admitted, "Morale statistics are lower than we have ever seen them." They also explicitly communicated their beliefs and values to the employees.

1.1 On the basis of your reading of the above passage make notes on it using recognizable abbreviations, wherever necessary. Use a format you consider suitable. Supply a suitable title. 

1.2 Write a summary of the passage in about 80 words. 

2. Read the passage given below carefully and answer the questions that follow: 

1 Three years ago, Martin Scorsese, the New York director who has made street violence one of his signature traits, teamed up with Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax Films and something of a street fighter himself. The goal was to make a stylized epic film about gang warfare in pre-Civil War Manhattan with enough mass appeal to score at the box office.

2 But the making of that movie, Gangs of New York, has turned into an epic of its own. Stars like Robert De Niro and Willem Dafoe have come and gone. Costs have overshot the original budget by about 25 percent to soar above $ 100 million. Weinstein has fought for a streamlined, more commercial version. All the while, Scorsese has tried to stick to his artistic guns as the two have battled over taste and length.

3 With hopes of promoting the film next month at Cannes, Miramax executives are pushing to have the final editing completed in the next few weeks so the complex task of mixing sound with film can begin. But Scorsese is still not satisfied with the ending. He has been considering reshooting it, some people involved in the film say. The film was initially supposed to hit theatres last December, but now is expected to be released later this year.

4 Scorsese has not had a box-office smash since Cape Fear, which earned $ 79 million domestically in 1991. Weinstein, a domineering personality who,

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