CBSE Class 9 English Communicative Sample Paper Set 41

SECTION A

(READING – 20 MARKS)

Q1. Read the following passage carefully: (10 marks)

School used to be all about writing, whether it was the exercise books we wrote in or the notes we passed around. But not any more. Now it’s all about typing. Learning your QWERTY is almost as important as learning your ABC.

So, when my daughter came home last year with cursive handwriting homework, I was nonplussed. Cursive writing was originally developed to make it easier for children to write with a quill. By joining up the letters, it kept the quill on the parchment and minimized ink blots. But my daughter writes with a laptop. I explained as much to her teacher at the next parents’ day.

But the teacher explained that research suggests that the process of writing information down on paper, by hand, has a more direct effect on the formation of memories in the learning process than typing. Taking notes in class is still the most effective way to learn.

It’s a better way to store the skills for written language in a child’s brain than pressing keys.

She went on to say, “But that doesn’t mean that one should ditch computers. Children should be taught to touch-type early on. She just feels that learning is aided by the physical act of writing. Authors often write their first draft by hand. Whether it’s to do with the pace of thought, or some kind of stimulation the physical act has, we don’t know.

But it’s a fact.”

The French would doubtless agree. They love their handwriting. Teachers in France believe that fluency with a pen ‘unlocks the mind’ and they spend more time on writing than reading between the ages of three and eight.

We teach children the formation of letters and the appropriate joining strokes. But after a few years we leave them on their own devices, just as the written workload starts to increase. That’s when the bad habits set in.