You are Faiz/Falak Mazumdar living at 39, Udampur Colony, Shimla. You decide to hold a dinner party to congratulate your grandparents on their golden wedding anniversary. Draft a formal invitation in not more than 50 words to all family members to attend a grand dinner at home.

OR

You are Harish/Harshita of 12, Seva Nagar, Pune. You want to sell your flat as you are shifting to another city for work. Draft a suitable advertisement in not more than 50 words to be published in The Pune Times under the classified columns.

Read the passage given below :

1. Every morning Ravi gives his brain an extra boost. We’re not talking about drinking strong cups of coffee or playing one of those mind-training video games advertised all over Facebook. ‘‘I jump onto my stationary bike and cycle for 45 minutes to work,’’ says Ravi. ‘‘When I get to my desk, my brain is at peak activity for a few hours.’’ After his mental focus comes to a halt later in the day, he starts it with another short spell of cycling to be able to run errands.

2. Ride, work, ride, repeat. It’s a scientifically proven system that describes some unexpected benefits of cycling. In a recent study in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, scientists found that people scored higher on tests of memory, reasoning, and planning after 30 minutes of spinning on a stationary bike than they did before they rode the bike. They also completed the tests faster after pedalling.

3. Exercise is like fertilizer for your brain. All those hours spent on exercising your muscles, create rich capillary beds not only in leg and hip muscles but also in your brain. More blood vessels in your brain and muscles mean more oxygen and nutrients to help them work. When you pedal, you also force more nerve cells to fire. The result : you double or triple the production of these cells — literally building your brain. You also release neurotransmitters (the messengers between your brain cells) so all those cells, new and old, can communicate with each other for better, faster functioning. That’s a pretty profound benefit to cyclists.

4. This kind of growth is especially important with each passing birthday because as we age, our brains shrink and those connections weaken. Exercise restores and protects the brain cells. Neuroscientists say, ‘‘Adults who exercise display sharper memory skills, higher concentration levels, more fluid thinking, and greater problem-solving ability than those who are sedentary.’’

5. Cycling also elevates your mood, relieves anxiety, increases stress resistance, and even banishes the blues. ‘‘Exercise works in the same way as psychotherapy and antidepressants in the treatment of depression, maybe better,’’ says Dr Manjari. A recent study analyzing 26 years of research finds that even some exercise — as little as 20 to 30 minutes a day — can prevent depression over the long term.

6. Remember: although it’s healthy, exercise itself is stress, especially when you’re just getting started or getting back into riding. When you first begin to exert yourself, your body releases a particular hormone to raise your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels, says Meher Ahluwalia, PhD, a professor of integrative physiology. As you get fitter, it takes a longer, harder ride to trigger that same response.

On the basis of your understanding of the passage, complete the statements given below with the help of the options that follow :

(a) Ravi gets his brain to work at peak level by

(i) drinking three cups of coffee.

(ii) playing games that need brain activity.

(iii) cycling on a stationary bike.

(iv) taking tablets to pump up his brain.

(b) When nerve cells work during exercise then

(i) the body experiences stress.

(ii) the bran is strengthened by multiplying them.

(iii) you start to lose your temper.

(iv) your stationary cycle starts to beep.

Answer the following questions briefly :

(c) How does exercise help the brain ?

(d) Why does Ravi do a circuit of ‘ride, work, ride’ ?

(e) What is the work of neurotransmitters ?

(f) What benefits other than greater brain activity does one get from cycling ?

(g) Why is exercise so important for adults ?

(h) How is exercise itself a stress ?

(i) Find words from the passage which mean the same as the following :

(i) manure (para 3)

(ii) inactive (para 4)

Read the passage given below :

Keeping cities clean is essential for keeping their residents healthy. Our health depends not just on personal hygiene and nutrition, but critically also on how clean we keep our cities and their surroundings. The spread of dengue and chikungunya are intimately linked to the deteriorating state of public health conditions in our cities.

The good news is that waste management to keep cities clean is now getting attention through the Swachh Bharat Mission. However, much of the attention begins and stops with the brooms and the dustbins, extending at most to the collection and transportation of the mixed waste to some distant or not so distant place, preferably out of sight. The challenge of processing and treating the different streams of solid waste, and safe disposal of the residuals in scientific landfills, has received much less attention in municipal solid waste management than is expected from a health point of view.

One of the problems is that instead of focusing on waste management for health, we have got sidetracked into ‘‘waste for energy’’. If only we were to begin by not mixing the biodegradable component of solid waste (close to 60 percent of the total) in our cities with the dry waste, and instead use this stream of waste for composting and producing a gas called methane.

City compost from biodegradable waste provides an alternative to farmyard manure (like cow-dung). It provides an opportunity to simultaneously clean up our cities and help improve agricultural productivity and quality of the soil. Organic manure or compost plays a very important role as a supplement to chemical fertilisers in enriching the nutrient-deficient soils. City compost can be the new player in the field.

Benefits of compost on the farm are well-known. The water holding capacity of the soil which uses compost helps with drought-proofing, and the requirement of less water per crop is a welcome feature for a water-stressed future. By making the soil porous, use of compost also makes roots stronger and resistant to pests and decay. Farmers using compost, therefore, need less quantity of pesticides. There is also evidence to suggest that horticulture crops grown with compost have better flavour, size, colour and shelf-life.

City compost has the additional advantage of being weed-free unlike farmyard manure which brings with it the seeds of undigested grasses and requires a substantial additional labour cost for weeding as the crops grow. City compost is also rich in organic carbon, and our soils are short in this.

Farmers clearly recognize the value of city compost. If city waste was composted before making it available to the farmers for applying to the soil, cities would be cleaned up and the fields around them would be much more productive.

Quite apart from cleaning up the cities of biodegradable waste, this would be a major and sustainable contribution to improving the health of our soil without further damage by excessive chemical inputs. What a marvellous change from waste to health!

The good news is that some states are regularly laying plastic roads. Plastic roads will not only withstand future monsoon damage but will also solve a city’s problem of disposing of non-recyclable plastic. It is clear that if the mountains of waste from our cities were to be recycled into road construction material, it would tackle the problem of managing waste while freeing up scarce land.

(a) On the basis of your understanding of the above passage, make notes on it using headings and sub-headings. Use recognisable abbreviations wherever necessary (minimum four) and a format you consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it.

(b) Write a summary of the passage in about 80 words.

You are Neeraj/Neeraja Shekhar, Principal, Vasant Public School, Pune. Your school has just started a music department. Write a letter to the Manager of Melody House, Pune, wholesale suppliers of musical instruments, placing an order for musical instruments for the school. Ask for a discount on the catalogue prices. (120 – 150 words)

OR

Bal Vidya Public School, Bhilai, urgently requires a post-graduate teacher to teach political science for which they have placed an advertisement in The Bhilai Express. You are Sanjay/Sanjana Sharma from 21, Vasant Marg, Bhilai. Draft a letter including a CV, applying for the advertised post. (120 – 150 words)

Recent floods in many metropolitan cities of the country during the monsoon season laid bare the hollowness of the claims of the civic authorities of their preparedness. The poor had to bear the brunt of the problem while no one was ever held accountable. Write an article in 150 – 200 words on the common man’s woes during the monsoons and the need for accountability of the officials concerned. You are Sumit/Smita Verma.

OR

You are Ali/Alia, Head girl / Head boy of your school. You are deeply disturbed by the rising cases of aggressive behaviour of students in your school. You decide to speak during the morning assembly about it. Write a speech on ‘Indiscipline in Schools’. (150 – 200 words)