ENGLISH

Reading and Literature (Paper - II)

Examination Time: Three Hours Fifteen Minutes.
(The first fifteen minutes is for reading the Question Paper)

Section A: Short Stories

Question 1. (1 x 5)
Direction: Answer the following questions with reference to the story Lamb to the
Slaughter by Roald Dahl.
a. Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct answer or
response that best fits the given question and circle the letter of your choice.

i. The real reason that Mary goes shopping for groceries is

A. to obtain food for dinner
B. she wants the confess to Sam, the grocery clerk
C. she needs some fresh air
D. she needs an alibi, or excuse

ii. One of the police officers believes that the murder weapon was
A. A sharp knife C. A heavy blunt instrument
B. A poison D. A gun

iii. Which of the following shows situational irony?

A. Calm, loving Mary violently kills her husband.
B. The police officer goes to the grocer's.
C. Partick is a police officer.
D. The doctor says that Partick’s skull was smashed.

iv. Dramatic Irony takes place when

A. Marry tells the detectives that she would like a drink
B. The detectives are eating the leg of lamb and also the weapon.
C. Mary feels too ill to leave.
D. Mary goes to the grocer’s.

v. Mary hitting Patrick with the frozen leg of lamb occurs during the

A. Rising action C. Climax

B. Falling action D. Resolution

Question 2 (5 x 2)
Direction: Answer both the questions.
i. Imagine that you were one of the students attending a field lesson at the Zoo that day.
Describe your feelings about the field trip in about 100 words.

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ii. To what literary sub-genre does the story The Mirror Image belong? Support your answer by
writing down the features of the genre with reference to the story.

Question 3 (10 marks)

Direction: Answer any ONE question.

i. How does Roald Dahl use dramatic irony to enhance the overall effect on the readers in his
story, Lamb to the Slaughter?

ii. How is the stormy The Elephant by Slawomir Mrozek a satirical allegory? Identify at least five
characters or things used in the story and explain the symbolic meaning of each.

iii. Should scientists consider the impact their work will have on human beings before
proceeding?

Section B: Essay
Direction: Read the essay given below and answer the questions that follow in reference
to the essay.

May 10 dawned bright and clear. For the past few days, I had been pleasantly besieged by
arriving world leaders and dignitaries paying their respects. The inauguration would be the
largest ever gathering of international leaders on South African soil.

The ceremonies took place in the sandstone amphitheatre formed by the Union Buildings in
Pretoria. I was accompanied by my daughter Zenani. On the podium Mr. Klerk was first
sworn in as the second deputy President. Then Thabo Mbeki was sworn in as the first deputy
President. When it was my turn, I pledged to obey and uphold the constitution and to devote
myself to the well-being of the republic and its people.
We all lifted our eyes in awe as a spectacular array of South African jets, helicopters and
troop carriers roared in perfect unison over the Union Buildings. It was a display not only of
pinpoint precision and military force but of the military’s loyalty to democracy, to a new
government that had been freely and fairly elected. Only moments before, the highest
generals of the South African Defense Force and police, their chest covered with ribbons and
medals from days gone by had saluted me and pledged their loyalty. I was not unmindful of
the fact that not so many years before, they would not have saluted but arrested me.

The day was symbolized for me by the singing of our two national anthems and the vision of
whites singing ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ and blacks singing ‘Die Stem’, the old anthem of the
republic. Although that day neither group knew the lyrics of the anthem they once despised,
they would soon know the words by heart. On the day of the inauguration I was overwhelmed
with a sense of history. That day had come about through the unimaginable sacrifices of
thousands of my people. I felt that day that I was simply the sum of all the African patriots
who had gone before me. The policy of apartheid created a deep and lasting wound in my
country and my people. All of us will spend many years recovering from that profound hurt.
But the decades of oppression and brutality had another, unintended effect – they produced

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the Oliver Tambos, the Walter Sisulus, the Chief Luthulis, the Bram Fischers of our time.
Men of such extraordinary courage, wisdom and generosity; that their like may never be
known again.

Perhaps it requires such depths of oppression to create such heights of character. My country
is rich in the minerals and gems that lie beneath its soil, but I have always known that its
greatest wealth is its people, finer than the purest diamonds.

It is from these comrades in the struggle that I learned the meaning of courage. Time and
again I have seen men and women risk and give their lives for an idea. I have seen men in
prison stand up to attacks and torture without breaking, showing a strength and resilience that
defy the imagination. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over
it. I felt fear myself more times than I can remember, but hid it behind a mask of boldness.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur. No one is born hating another
person because of the colour of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn
to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more
naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

For myself, I have never regretted my commitment to the struggle. But my family paid a
terrible price – perhaps too dear a price – for my commitment. In South Africa, a man who
tried to fulfil his duty to his people was inevitably ripped from his family and his home and
was forced to live a life apart, a twilight existence of secrecy and rebellion. It was as simple
and yet as incomprehensible as the moment a small child asks her father, “Why can you not
be with us?”

I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free – free in every way that I could know.
Free to run in the fields near my mother’s hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran
through my village. It was only when I began to learn that my boyhood freedom had already
been taken from me that I began to hunger for it. And I saw that it was just not my freedom
that was curtailed but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did. That was when I joined
the African National Congress, and that was when the hunger for my own freedom became
the still greater hunger for the freedom of my people.

This hunger became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well
as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man
who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred. I am not truly free if I am
taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is
taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

When I walked out of the prison; that was my mission: to liberate both the oppressor and the
oppressed. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that the truth is that we are not
yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We
have taken the first step on a longer and even more difficult road.

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I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made mistakes
along the way. But I have discovered the secret that, after climbing a great hill, one only finds
that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of
the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back at the distance I have come. But I can rest
only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my
long walk is not yet ended.

Nelson Mandela
Extract from Long Walk to Freedom

Question 1 (1x5)
Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct answer or
response that best fits the given question and write the answer on your answer sheet.

i. A brave person, according to the essay, is one who

A. overcomes fear.
B. does not know fear.
C. can tolerate extreme pain.
D. Has a hunger for freedom.

ii. May 10 appears to the inaugural day of

A. the Union Building
B. South African Defence force
C. the author as a President
D. World Leader’s Seminar
iii. The names Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulus (paragraph 4)have been used as symbols of
A. wisdom and courage.
B. bravery and rebellion.
C. wisdom and rebellion.
D. freedom and courage.

iv. ‘I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter’ (last paragraph) is an
example of
A. a hyperbole C. a symbol
B. a metaphor D. an allusion

v. The essay can be best categorised as

A. Descriptive C. Narrative
B. Persuasive D. Expository

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Question 2 (5x2)
Direction: Answer both questions

i. Explain the ideas of freedom that the author presents in the essay.

ii. Do you think the author is bitter about the events in his life? Justify your answer in about ten
lines.

Question 3 (10 marks)

Direction: Answer any ONE question

i. The essay can easily be told as a story. Outline the features of a short story with examples
from the essay that correspond to the features.

ii. Write a paragraph of about 15 lines as a continuation of the last paragraph. Your paragraph
should have a clear topic sentence.

Section C: Poetry
Direction: Read the poem given below and answer the questions that follow.

A Day
Emily Dickinson - 1830-1886

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, —

A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,

The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”

But how he set, I know not.

There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,

A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away

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Question 1 (1x5)
Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct
answer or response that best fits the given question and circle the letter of your
choice.

i. The entire poem symbolises

A. Beauty and nature C. Transition of river
B. Animals and nature D. Transition from life to death

ii. “The news like squirrels ran” is an example of

A. simile C. personification
B. metaphor D. Hyperbole

iii.The tone in the first stanza of the poem is

A. merry and full of promise C. depressing and pessimistic
B. aggressive and depressing D. happy and aggressive

iv. “But how he set, I know not.” The underlined pronoun “he” refers to the
A. mountain C. moon
B. sun D. River

v. “Which little yellow boys and girls

Were climbing all the while”
The above line is the best example of _______ in poetry writing.

A. euphemism C. enjambment
B. irony D. soliloquy

Question 2
Direction: Answer both questions. (5x2)

i. What does the line ‘The news like squirrels ran’’ mean?

ii. Is the speaker watching the morning sun? Why? Why not?

Question 3
Direction: Answer any ONE question. (1x10)

i. What makes his poem a lyrical poem?

ii. What could be the possible themes of the poem? Elaborate by quoting relevant lines or
phrases from the poem.

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 Section D: Drama

Direction: Answer the questions in this section with reference to The Merchant of Venice by
William Shakespeare.

Question 1 (1 x 5 =5)
Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct answer or
response that best fits the given question and circle the letter of your choice.

i. Bassanio uses an analogy to ask Antonio to lend money to him again. What analogy does he
use?

A Jacob breeding spotted sheep

B Shooting arrows during his school days
C Look at maps for ports, piers and roads
D Finding two grains of wheat in bushels of chaff

ii. Why does Shylock decide to go dine with Bassanio when initially he declined their invitation?

A He wanted to have a better relationship with them.

B He had nothing better to do.
C He wanted to be accepted in their community.
D He wanted to waste Bassanio’s money.

iii. “Here in her hairs The painter plays the spider, and hath woven a golden mesh t’ entrap the
hearts of men” (Act III, Scene2) refers to

A Jessica
B Portia
C Nerissa
D Cupid

iv. Antonio: “I am a tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death” (Act IV, Scene 1). The figure
of speech Antonio uses is:

A simile. C metaphor.
B sarcasm. D hyperbole.

v. In Act V, Portia says “How many things by season season’d are To their right praise and true
perfection!” What was the context of this phrase?

A She was listening to the music that was playing from her house.
B She was asking Bassanio about her ring.
C She was welcoming her husband and Antonio home.
D She was listening to Bassanio talk about Antonio’s success.

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Question 2 (2 x 5 = 10)
Direction: Answer BOTH questions.

NERISSA
(Act II, Scene 1)

For aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit

with too much s they that starve with nothing. It is
no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the
mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but
competency lives longer.

i. Explain the truth described by Nerissa above. Do you agree with her? Answer with an
example from your own experience.

PORTIA
(Act IV, Scene 1)

For, as thou urgent justice, be assur’d

Thou shalt have justice more than thou desir’st.

ii. What does Portia mean by this? Do you feel that Shylock received what Portia promised?
Give examples from the text.

Question 3 (1 x 10 = 10)

Direction: From the two questions below, choose and answer any ONE question ONLY. If you
answer both questions, only ONE will be marked.

i. Discuss THREE lessons you learnt from The Merchant of Venice, by providing examples from
the play, with reference to the themes of the play.

ii. As a news reporter for the Venetian Times, your task is to write up a 150-200 word news
article for the court case between Antonio and Shylock. Remember to use a headline, and a date.

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