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Manipur PSC Exam Paper on General English
1. Write an essay in about 3OO words on any one of the following :
(a) English as a global language
(b) My favourite sportsperson
(c) Science and everyday life
(d) The pleasures of reading
2. Read the following passage and answer, in your own words, the questions that follow :
'In the place where the storyteller was the coming of night was marked as it was not in towns nor in modern houses. It was so marked that it created in the mind a different rhythm. There had been a rhythm of the day and now there was a rhythm of the night ... . The storyteller seated on a roughly made chair on a clay floor did not look unusually intelligent or sensitive. He certainly did not look histrionic. What was in his face showed that he was ready to respond to and make articulate the rhythm of the night. He was a storlteller because he was attuned to this rhythm and had in his memory the often repeated incidents that would fit it ... . These notions were in the present writer's mind once upon a time when he sat in a cottage where the tradition of storytelling was still in being.
A rhythm that was compulsive, fitted to daily tasks, waned., and a rhythm that was acquiescent, fitted for wishes, took its place. Btit when the distinction between day and night could be passed over as it could be in towns and in modern houses the change of rhythrn that came with the passing of day into . night ceased to be marked. This happened when light was prolonged until it was time to turn to sleep.
The prolongation of light meant the cessation of traditional stories in European cottages. And when the cottages took in American kerosene or paraffin there was prolongation. Then came lamps with full and steady light,lamps that gave real illumination. Told under this illumination the traditioqal stories ceased to be appropriate because the rhythm that gave them meaning was weakened.
(a) what is the rhythm of the nlght referred to in the passage?
(b) How did the storyteller function?
(c) What qualifies one to be a storyteller?
(d) what happened when light came to be prolonged in the evening?
(e) How did stories seem to lose meaning?
3. Make a precis of the following passage, in your own words, in about 18O to 2OO words. Marks will be deducted if the precis is not written on the separate precis sheets provided, and if it is longer or shorter than the prescribed limit' it tt. end of-ihe precis, state the number of words it contains and securely fasten the precis sheets inside the answer-book :
Jean-Jacques Roussea'u (L7I2-78) asked most of the questions that his age wanted asked and provided many answers. He examined civilized society and found it to be kind of straitjacket that hampered man's natural growth' But society was clearly created by men, for their mutual benefit in some far dtistant past. If some were placed in positions of power, this must have been by leneral agreement and for the good of all. So it follows that if rulers failed to govern beneficially, the implicit contrast which had given them their special iosition could be considered broken and new anangements made.
Accepting the ancient dream of a Golden Age when all men lived in perfect trarmony, and writing at a time when colonial developments were'making Europeans more aware of other forms of society, Rousseau dreamt of a primitive society devoid of the artificial accretions that seemed to stifle his world. For the iirst time in the history of civilization man wondered what he might have lost in achieving social order and material advantages' And as he tuired away from civilization and looked longingly towards what had been thought of as barbarism, so also he turned away from cities and formal garde4s towards nature.
Nature came to be seen as the regenerative, corrective influence it has been to us ever since. For the first time man felt the exhilarating drama offered by great mountains and the hints of cosmic vastness and timelessness give,n by deserts and empty oceans. It is difficult for us today to imagine a world in which people tookno interest in wild nature, but it has to !e emgtla3ised that to European culture the high and slightly guilty regard we have fo'r landscape and for the rustic and the seafaring life is something quite recent' Nor do the occasionaf exceptions in earlier times disprove this-one thinks of Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336 and of Breughel's Alpine sketches of 1554. The writers of the later eighteenth century and the painters of the nineteenth educated the western world into a sensibility towards the appearance and the process of nature. And this last aspect is perhaps the more important : it was not only the appearance of nature that now appealed to man, but he also came to regard wild nature as the exemplar of life and death and of creativity. At the same time science dramatically developed its ability to explain these processes in nature and in man himself.
Developments of this kind, accompanying the demolition of old social structures, the industrial revolufion's assault dn old ways of life and the loosening hold of religious faith on the minds of many, have given us a sense of vulnerability and of individual isolation as well as a new need for self-reliance' Modern man is expected not so much to learn the rules of religion and society and to abide by thein, as to 'find himself and to be .true to himself'. The onus is inescapable and considerable, and it is small wonder if, in all forms of human creativit5r, the kind of beauty that results from arranging beautifhl objects to convey a harmonious idea has generally been replaced by more challenging and discordant forms of signification.
4. (a) Correct the following sentences :
(t) I have received your letter yesterdAy.
(it) We shall go to home after finishing this work.
(ii.L) When he will come I wil go with him.
(iu) I explained that I have forgotten my keys.
(u) We are living here for seven years.
(ui This is the first time I hear her sing.
(uit) It's a long time since you didn,t come to see me.
(uiii) I'm going to the mountains about once a year.
(tx) We probably spend next weekend at home.
(x) Don't forget writing to Aunt Mary.
(b) Add the suflix -ion, -tion or -sion to each of the following words making necessary changes in spelling. Write out the new words :
(t) Bifurcate
(it) Repeat
(iit) Cbllude
(iu) Negate
(u) Respire
(ul Realize
(vit) Delude
(viii) Recognize
(tx) Allude
(x) Translate
(c) Use the foitowing ptrrases in sentences of your own so as to bring out their meaning :
(t) with a view to
(it as logg as
(iil at home
(iu) make do ivith
(u) man of straw
5. (a) Which of the two words within brackets in the following sentences is' correct in the context?
(r) la.ck of sleep can (affect/effect) the quality of one's work.
(it) If you (breath/breathe) deeply, you feel refreshed.
(iii) The (principal/principle) is in his office.
(iu) This is the (sight/site) for the new building.
(u) He is an (imminent/eminent) doctor of our city.
(ut) The motorcyclist hit a (stationary/station6ry) truck.
(ait) The teacher did not have any (advise/advice) for me.
(viii) There are Several (dairy/diary) farms here.
(tx) Please (ensure/insure) that everyone comes to tl.e meeting.
(x) Peopte have resented the (rise/raise) in prices of essential commodities.
(b) Use each of the following words in two separate sentences; first as a noun, and then as a verb :
(t) Position
(it) Eye
(iit) Corner
(iu) Drink
(v) Rebel
(c) Change the following sentences into indirect speech :
(t) She said, "What a lovely baby!"
(it) "No,o he said, "I won't go there."
(iit) "Can you tell me where she stays?" he asked me.
(iu) My fathir said, "You must do well in this examination."
(u) The teacher said, "Sita, please write this on the board.'
