ENGLISH (PRECIS & COMPOSITION)
TIME ALLOWED: THREE HOURSMAXIMUM MARKS: 100 |
NOTE:(i) SUBJECTIVE PART to be attempted on separate answer book.(ii) Attempt ONLY FOUR questions from SUBJECTIVE PART. ALL questions carry EQUAL marks.(iii) All the parts (if any) of each Question must be attempted at one place instead of at different places.(iv) Write Q. No. in the Answer Book in accordance with Q. No. in the Q. Paper.(v) No Page/Space should be left blank between the answers. All the blank pages of the Answer Book must be crossed.(vi) Extra attempt of any question or any part of the question will not be considered. |
SUBJECTIVE PART
Q.2. Make a précis of the following passage and suggest a suitable title. (15+5=20)
General words such as “man” or “cat” or “triangle” are said to denote “universals”, concerning which, from the time of Plato to the present day, philosophers have never ceased to debate. Whether there are universals, and, if so, in what sense, is a metaphysical question, which need not be raised in connection with the use of language. The only point about universals that needs to be raised at this stage is that the correct use of general words is no evidence that a man can think about universals. It has often been supposed that, because we can use a word like “man” correctly, we must be capable of a corresponding “abstract idea” of man, but this is quite a mistake. Some reactions are appropriate to one man, some to another, but all have certain elements in common. If the word “man” produces in us the reactions which are common but no others, we may be said to understand the word “man”. In learning geometry, one acquires the habit of avoiding special interpretations of such a word as “triangle”. We know that, when we have a proposition about triangles in general, we must not think specially of a right-angled triangle or any one kind of triangle. This is essentially the process of learning to associate with the word what is associated with all triangles; when we have learnt this, we understand the word “triangle”. Consequently, there is no need to suppose that we ever apprehend universals, although we use general words correctly. Hitherto we have spoken of single words, and among these we have considered only those that can naturally be employed singly. A child uses single words of a certain kind before constructing sentences; but some words presuppose sentences. No one would use the word “paternity” until after using such sentences as “John is the father of James”; no one would use the word “causality” until after using such sentences as “the fire makes me warm”. Sentences introduce new considerations and are not quite so easily explained on behaviourist lines. Philosophy, however, imperatively demands an understanding of sentences, and we must therefore consider them.
Q.3. Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. (20)
“Truth?” you question. “For example, 2+2=4? Or Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837? Or light travels at the rate of 187,000 miles a second?” No, obviously, you won’t find much of that sort of thing in literature. The “truth” of which I was speaking just now is in fact no more than an acceptable verisimilitude. When the experiences recorded in a piece of literature correspond fairly closely with our own actual experiences, or with what I may call our potential experiences — experiences, that is to say, which we feel (as the result of a more or less explicit process of inference from known facts) that we might have had — we say, inaccurately no doubt: “This piece of writing is true.” But this, of course, is not the whole story. The record of a case in a textbook of psychology is scientifically true, in so far as it is an accurate account of particular events. But it might also strike the reader as being “true” with regard to himself — that is to say, acceptable, probable, having correspondence with his own actual or potential experiences. But a text-book of psychology is not a work of art — or only secondarily and incidentally a work of art. Mere verisimilitude, mere correspondence of experience recorded by the writer with experience remembered or imaginable by the reader, is not enough to make a work of art seem “true.” Good art possesses a kind of super-truth — is more probable, more acceptable, more convincing than fact itself. Naturally, for the artist is endowed with a sensibility and a power of communication, a capacity to “put things across,” which events and the majority of people to whom events happen, do not possess. Experience teaches only the teachable, who are by no means as numerous as Mrs. Micawber’s papa’s favorite proverb would lead us to suppose. Artists are eminently teachable and also eminently teachers. They receive from events much more than most men receive and they can transmit what they have received with a peculiar penetrative force, which drives their communication deep into the reader’s mind. One of our most ordinary reactions to a good piece of literary art is expressed in the formula: “This is what I have always felt and thought, but have never been able to put clearly into words, even for myself.”
Questions
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What has the author not been able to put into words so far? (4)
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Why is absolute truth not found in literature? (4)
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How, according to the author, a book of psychology is not a work of art? (4)
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Explain why the author thinks that artists are teachable or are teachers. (4)
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What is “super-truth” and how can you explore it in your life? (4)
Q.4. Correct any FIVE of the following sentences. (10)
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Having heard that the minister is not in the office, they left back for their city soon.
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How ever many advices you give him, he won‟t pay heed.
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Placing the coma before the conjunction, not after it.
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To every request you made to him, he has only one answer, no.
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How could their home be sold so quick?
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Tie down your shoe laces securely.
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That is why their country has made progressing in leap and bound.
