List of top English Questions

Freedom and power bring responsibility. That responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom, we had endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now. That future is not one of ease and resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today.
The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance. It also means ending of disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work and responsibility will not be over.
Democracy is a Government of the people, for the people and by the people. It is the moral and constitutional duty of the Government or the political party in power to ensure health, education, justice, equality, liberty and food to every citizen of India irrespective of caste, creed and community.

Destruction of forests has a major impact on the productivity of our crop lands. This happens in two ways. Soil erosion increases manifold and the soil literally gets washed away, leading to an accentuated cycle of floods and droughts. But equally important is the impact of the shortage of firewood on the productivity of crop lands. When firewood becomes scarce, people begin to burn cowdung and crop wastes. In many places of our country, cowdung and crop wastes are the major sources of cooking energy. Consequently every part of the plant gets used and nothing goes back to the soil. Over a period of time, this nutrient drain affects crop productivity.
In addition to this, the technology of the Green Revolution, the technology of growing high-yielding varieties on a limited diet of chemical fertilizers such as nitrogen, phosphates and potash. The total bio-mass production goes up and so does the drain of the nutrients from the soil.

Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

We become conscious of our weakness the moment we are placed in some responsible position. We then try to prove equal to the task. If we are ever tempted to go astray, it is this thought which prevents us from doing so. Does the editor ever care to weigh his words when he launches his fiery denunciation day in and day out against the government? But let him have a seat in the cabinet. No one is so thoughtful, so wise, so farsighted as he. Or take the case of a young man. How reckless and irresponsible he is! But let him marry and have children. The same wild youth is now transformed into a sober and grave householder.

I looked again at her, wan pale,
as a late winter’s moon and felt that old,
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear
but all I said was, see you soon
Amma,
All I did was smile and smile and smile.

Some people think that the aim of education is merely to give knowledge. These people want students to read books and do nothing else, but add to their knowledge. Others believe that knowledge alone is not enough, only that which enables a man to earn his living can be called education. Such people think that bread is more important than anything else. Still others believe that education should aim solely at making good citizens and good patriots. All these people see only one of the several purposes of education.
As a matter of fact, education should aim at three things together. It should give men knowledge, make them self-reliant and able to serve others. Education should not produce citizens who, while they love their own freedom, take away the freedom of others. It should produce men, who love their own country but who do not want to harm other countries.

They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

The first thing that a scholar should bear in mind is that a book ought not to be read for mere amusement. Half-educated persons read for amusement, and are not to be read for mere amusement; they are incapable of appreciating the deeper qualities that belong to a really great literature. But a young man who has passed through a course of university training should discipline himself at an early day never to read for mere amusement. And once the habit of this discipline has been formed, he will find it impossible to read for mere amusement. He will then impatiently throw down any book from which he cannot obtain intellectual food, any book that does not make an appeal to the higher emotions and to his intellect. But on the other hand, the habit of reading for amusement becomes with thousands of people exactly the same kind of habit as wine-drinking or opium-smoking: it is like a narcotic; something that helps to pass the time, something that keeps up a perpetual condition of dreaming, something that eventually results in destroying all capacity for thought, giving exercise only to the surface parts of the mind, and leaving the deeper springs of feeling and the higher faculties of perception unemployed.

Who was Sam Weiner? What did he write in his letter to Charley?

Write the central idea of any one of the following poems: Keeping Quiet
My Mother at Sixty-six
Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Describe the environment of Antarctica.

Who was Hana? How did Hana meet Sadao?

What was the third level? Where was it situated?

What was the astrologer’s prediction about the Tiger King’s death?

How did Dr. Sadao save the life of the American war prisoner and how did Hana help in doing so?

What did Douglas decide to overcome his fear of water?

What was the importance of garbage for children in Seemapuri?

Describe the plight of ragpickers as depicted in the lesson ‘Lost Spring’.

What did Gandhiji do for Champaran?

Who was the rattrap seller? How did he make them?

Whom did M. Hamel blame for not paying proper attention to the study of French?

Correct any one of the following sentences: There am large number of girls in this school.
He is tired in doing this work.

The synonym of ‘destroy’ is: