CBSE Class 12 English Functional Sample Paper 2013 Set B

Section A 

Reading 

1 Read the following passage:

1. I had submitted across an article ‘Reforming our education system' recently wherein the need for our educational system to shift its focus from insisting upon remembering to emphasizing or understanding was stressed upon.

2. This article brought back the memory of an interesting conversation between my daughter and myself in the recent times wherein I had learnt that Economics and Physics were a few of the most difficult subjects for her as she had to mug up the answers. Though I offered to help her out with the immediate problem on hand. I learnt subsequently that many a time it pays to mug up the answer properly, because the teachers find it easier to evaluate that way. It seems the more deviation there is from the way the sentences are framed in the textbook, the more risk one runs of losing marks on that count many a time.

3. This reminded me of a training session I had attended at work wherein we were required to carry out an exercise of joining the dots that were drawn in rows of three without lifting the pen and without crossing the trodden path more than once. Though the exercise seemed quite simple almost 95 percent of us failed to achieve the required result, no matter how hard we tried. The instructor then informed us cheerily that it happened all the time, because the dots that appeared to fit into a box like formation do not allow us to think out of the box. That was when I realised that all of us carry these imaginary boxes in our minds thanks to our stereotyped upbringing that forces our thinking to conform to a set pattern:

4. "What is the harm in conforming as long as it is towards setting up a good practice” someone might want to ask. Perhaps, no harm done to others but to the person being confined to “think by rote.” it may mean being deprived of rising to the heights heèkshe is capable of rising to, even without the person being aware of the same.

5. If we instill too much of fear of failure in the children right from the young age, the urge to conform and play safe starts stifling the creative urge which dares to explore, err and explore again. As we know, most of the great inventions were initially considered to be most outrageous and highly impractical. It is because the persons inventing the same were not bothered about being ridiculed and were brave enough to think of the unthinkable these inventions came into being.

6. For many children studies are the most boring aspect of their lives. Learning instead of becoming fun, is being considered the most mundane and avoidable activity thanks to the propagators of an educational system that is more information oriented than knowledge oriented. Too much of syllabus, too many students per teacher, lack of enough hands on exercises, teaching as a routine with the aim of completing the syllabus in time rather than with a goal of imparting knowledge, the curriculum more often than not designed keeping in view the most intelligent student rather than the average student. The peer pressure, great expectations of the parents in an extremely competitive environment, the multitude of distractions in an era of technological revolution are adding further to the burden on the young minds.

7. For a change, can we have some EnglishèkHindi poems that ickle, tickle and pickle the young minds and send them on a wild goose chase for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Can we have lessons in History that make the child feel proud of his heritage instead of asking him to mug up the years of the events? Can the physics and chemistry lessons be taught more in the laboratories than in the classrooms? Can a system be devised so as to make the educational excursions compulsory in schools so that visits to historicalèkbotanical places are ensured without fail? Can the educational institutes start off inter school projects on the Internet, the way the schools abroad do, so as to encourage the child to explore on her own and sum up her findings in the form of a report?

1.1 On the basis of your understanding of the passage answer the following 

(a) What does the article “Reforming our Education system” emphasise ? 

(b) What exercise was the author given in her training session ? 

(c) What are the “imaginary boxes” that are referred to here ? 

(d) What is the likely harm that may occur if a person is taught to always think by rote? 

(e) List the factors that have made learning a very boring process ? 

(f) Give at least four suggestions the author gives for making schooling interesting. 

1.2 Pick out the words from the passage which mean the following : 

(i) Later (para 2)

(ii) Conservative (para 3)

(iii) In the beginning (para 5)

(iv) Ordinary (para 6)

Please refer to attached file for CBSE Class 12 English Functional Sample Paper 2013 Set B