FIRST TERM EXAMINATION
2021-22
Grade: 9 Total Marks: 40
Subject: ENGLISH LANGUAGE Duration: 1 hour
BHOPAL
You will not be allowed to write during the first 15 minutes.
This time is to be spent in reading the question paper.
Question 1
(Do not spend more than 35 minutes on this question.)
Write a composition (300 - 350 words) on any one of the following: [20]
a) You were on your way to school when you saw a car hit a person trying to cross the road in front of
the school gates. Describe what you saw and did to help the people involved. How you felt and what
measures you felt the authorities should take to avoid such incidents.
b) You are of forgetful nature. Once you bought a lottery ticket and kept it safely. Later you were
informed that you have won the first prize on your lottery ticket. But where was the lottery ticket?
Narrate how you managed to find out the lottery ticket.
c) Teenagers are more influenced by their peers than by their adults. Do you agree? Write for or against
the statement.
d) Write an original short story that begins with…’ There was a howling wind blowing that night.’
e) Study the picture given below. Write a story or an account or description of what the picture suggests
to you. Your composition may be directly about the subject of the picture or may take suggestions
from it, but there must be a clear connection between the picture and the composition.
Question 2
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
I was never able to get over the feeling that plants and trees loved Grandfather with as much tenderness as
he loved them. I was sitting beside him on the veranda steps one morning, when I noticed the tendril of a
creeping vine that was trailing near my feet. As we sat there, in the soft sunshine of a north Indian winter, I
saw that the tendril was moving very slowly away from me and towards Grandfather. Twenty minutes later
it had crossed the veranda step and was touching Grandfather’s feet.
There is probably a scientific explanation for the plant’s behaviour something to do with light and
warmth—but I like to think that it moved that way simply because it was fond of Grandfather. One felt like
FIRST TERM EXAMINATION
2021-22
Grade: 9 Total Marks: 40
Subject: ENGLISH LANGUAGE Duration: 1 hour
BHOPAL
drawing close to him. Sometimes when I sat alone beneath a tree I would feel a little lonely or lost; but as
soon as Grandfather joined me, the garden would become a happy place, the tree itself more friendly.
Grandfather had served many years in the Indian Forest Service, and so it was natural that he should know
and understand and like trees. On his retirement from the Service, he had built a bungalow on the outskirts
of Dehra, planting trees all round it: limes, mangoes, oranges and guavas; also eucalyptus,jacaranda and the
Persian lilac. In the fertile Doon valley, plants and trees grew tall and strong.
There were other trees in the compound before the house was built, including an old peepul which had
forced its way through the walls of an abandoned outhouse, knocking the bricks down with its vigorous
growth. Peepul trees are great show-offs. Even when there is no breeze, their broad-chested, slim-waisted
leaves will spin like tops, determined to attract your attention and invite you into the shade.
Grandmother had wanted the peepul tree cut down, but Grandfather had said, ‘Let it be. We can always
build another outhouse.’
Our gardener, Govind, who was a Hindu, was pleased that we had allowed the tree to live. Peepul trees are
sacred to Hindus, and some people believe that ghosts live in the branches of these trees.
‘If we cut the tree down, wouldn’t the ghosts go away?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Grandfather. ‘Perhaps they’d come into the house.’
Govind wouldn’t walk under the tree at night. He said that once, when he was a youth, he had wandered
beneath a peepul tree late at night, and that something heavy had fallen with a thud on his shoulders. Since
then he had always walked with a slight stoop, he explained.
‘Nonsense,’ said Grandmother, who didn’t believe in ghosts. ‘He got his stoop from squatting on his
haunches year after year, weeding with that tiny spade of his!’
I never saw any ghosts in our peepul tree. There are peepul trees all over India, and people sometimes leave
offerings of milk and flowers beneath them to keep the spirits happy. But since no one left any offerings
under our tree, I expect the ghosts left in disgust, to look for peepul trees where there was both board and
lodging. Grandfather was about sixty, a lean active man who still rode his bicycle at great speed. He had
stopped climbing trees a year previously, when he had got to the top of the jackfruit tree and had been
unable to come down again. We had to fetch a ladder for him.
Grandfather bathed quite often but got back into his gardening clothes immediately after the bath. During
meals, ladybirds or caterpillars would sometimes walk off his shirtsleeves and wander about on the
tablecloth, and this always annoyed Grandmother.
She grumbled at Grandfather a lot, but he didn’t mind, because he knew she loved him.
[From ‘The Tree Lover’, Rusty the Boy from the Hills by Ruskin Bond]
a) Give the meaning of each of following words as used in the passage.
One-word answers or short phrases will be accepted. [3]
(i) tenderness: (ii) explanation: (iii) vigorous:
FIRST TERM EXAMINATION
2021-22
Grade: 9 Total Marks: 40
Subject: ENGLISH LANGUAGE Duration: 1 hour
BHOPAL
(b) Answer the following questions in your own words:
1. Why did the author feel that plants loved Grandfather with as much tenderness as he loved them? [2]
2. Where had Grandfather worked for many years? [1]
3. Why does the author say peepul trees are great show-offs? [2]
4. How do we know Grandfather was fit? [2]
5. Why did ladybirds or caterpillars sometimes wander about on the tablecloth? [2]
(c) In not more than 50 words of your own, describe what the author has said about the old peepul
tree. [8]
