CBSE Class 9 English Communicative Sample Paper Set 68

Q1.Read the following passage carefully:

1. India sells the largest number of branded drugs in the world, almost 60,000 in all. By volume India is ranked 4th and comprises 8 percent of the global pharma market. This scenario becomes scary given that spurious and substandard drugs are a thriving parallel industry in our country. “When manufacturers sell chalk as life – saving drugs, such criminals should be given the death sentence,” says Dr. P.K. Dave, President of National Academy of Medical Sciences, Delhi and former Director of AIIMS.

2. Self-medication with genuine drugs also has disastrous fallouts. “I‟ve lost count of how many patients come to us, when water crosses head level,” says Dr. Dave. While Dr. Simran Nundy, consultant gastro-intestinal surgeon at Delhi‟s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, observes : ”Patients come to me, after six months of taking antacids, to find they‟re not suffering from indigestion but cancer of the stomach or gastric tract.” Most medical experts say pill name - dropping is common. But besides superficial awareness patients know little about dosage, duration and more importantly, side-effects. In Calcutta, Dr. Krishnangshu Ray, head of Pharmacology at NRS Medical College and Hospital, agrees:” “There‟s a drug culture in our state, where people assume they know which drug to take. This is a dangerous habit, which accounts for at least 15 to 20 percent of complicated cases.”

3. Besides, no drug, not even an over the counter (OTC) medicine is totally safe. Aspirin on an empty stomach may lead to severe gastritis. Even paracetamol, considered the safest painkiller, when taken in high doses or for prolonged periods, can cause liver damage. Then there‟s carelessness. Dr. Gupta observes: “ People take cough suppressant for a cough with sputum, which in fact requires an expectorant. Or, they consume antibiotics without a doctor‟s prescription for viral fever, allergic cold, dry cough, flu or sore throat, which do not require any antibiotic.” Self - medication of antibacterial drugs can be dangerous. Frequent treatment with ciprofloxacin for undiagnosed diarrhoea is one of the most common reasons for emergence of typhoid germs that are resistant to this drug.

4. What makes us such willing pill-swallowers ? Dr. Wishvas Rane, Pune - based health activist, asserts : “ Most viral conditions are self-limiting, 80 percent get cured on their own, this pill-popping attitude is nurtured by pharmaceutical firms.” This is particularly true in our unique pharma-sales culture where pills are available without bills and bills can be obtained without buying pills. Dr. Ashish Sabherwal, Joint Secretary, Indian Medical Association in Delhi, points out: “Patients just want momentary relief and aren‟t willing to get to the root of the problem, so pills are eaten like peanuts.”

5. Another reason for spiralling self-treatment is that general practitioners or GPs, doctors who have shone the torch down our throats from our toothless babyhood to our ailing adulthood, are gradually vanishing.

6. In real life, we patients do not have a family friend and a philosopher - our GP who knew us by blood group, allergies, medical history and emotional upheavals. Hesitant about dashing off to intimidating ENT specialist when we have throat trouble, we just check with the chemist. That could be a dose for disaster.

1. Based on the reading of the passage answer the questions given below. Write the answers in your answer sheet. Remember to number the answers correctly :

(a) Why do people indulge in self-medication ?

(b) Why can self - medication have dangerous results ?

2. Fill in the given blanks with appropriate words from the passage : No drug not even an (a) ..................... medicine is totally safe. Aspirin on an empty stomach may lead to severe (b) ................ Paracetamol when taken for prolonger periods and in high dosage can cause (c) ................ . Self-medication of antibacterial drugs can be (d) ................

Please refer to attached file for CBSE Class 9 English Communicative Sample Paper Set L