(A) Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:

1 Mano Majra is a tiny place. It has only three brick buildings, one of which is the home of the money-lender, Lala Ram Lal. The other two are the Sikh temple and the mosque. The three brick buildings enclose a triangular area with a large peepul tree in the middle. The rest of the village is a group of flat-roofed mud huts and low-walled courtyards, which open into narrow lanes that spread out from the centre. Soon the lanes turn into footpaths and get lost in the surrounding fields. At the western end of the village there is a pond ringed round by keekar trees. There are only about seventy families in Mano Majra, and Lala Ram Lal’s is the only Hindu family. The others are Sikhs or Muslims, about equal in number. The Sikhs own all the land around the village; the Muslims are tenants and share the tilling with the owners. There are a few families of sweepers whose religion is uncertain. But there is one object that all Mano Majrans — even Lal Ram Lal — worship. This is a three-foot slab of sandstone that stands upright under a keekar tree beside the pond. It is the local deity, the ‘deo’ which all the villagers — Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or pseudo-Christian — visit secretly, whenever they are in special need of blessing.

2 Although Mano Majra is said to be on the banks of the Sutlej River, it is actually half a mile away from it. In India villages cannot afford to be too close to the banks of rivers. Rivers change their moods with seasons and later their course without warning. The Sutlej is the largest river in the Punjab. After the monsoon its waters rise and spread across its vast sandy bed, touching high up the mud embankments on either side. It becomes an expanse of muddy turbulence more than a mile in breadth. When the flood subsides, the river breaks up into a thousand shallow streams that wind sluggishly between little marshy islands. About a mile north of Mano Majra the Sutlej is spanned by a railroad bridge. On the eastern end the embankment extends all the way to the village railroad station.

3 Mano Majra has always been known for its railway station. Since the bridge has only one track, the station has several sidings where less important trains can wait, to make way for the more important ones.

4 A small colony of shopkeepers and hawkers has grown up around the station to supply travellers with food, betel leaves, cigarettes, tea, biscuits and sweetmeats. This gives the station an appearance of constant activity and its staff a somewhat exaggerated sense of importance. Actually the station-master himself sells tickets through the pigeon-hole in his office, collects them at the exit besides the door, and sends and receives messages over the telegraph ticker on his table. When there are people to notice him, he comes out on the platform and waves a green flag for trains which do not stop. His only assistant manipulates the levers in the glass cabin on the platform, which control the signals on either side and helps shunting engines by changing hand points on the tracks to get them on to the sidings. In the evenings, he lights thelong line of lamps, on the platform. He takes heavyaluminium lamps to the signals and sticks them in the clamps behind the red and green glass. In the mornings, he brings them back and puts out the lights on the platform.

5 Not many trains stops at Mano Majra. Express trains do not stop at all. Of the many slow passenger trains, only two, one from Delhi to Lahore in the mornings and the other from Lahore to Delhi in the evenings, are scheduled to stop for a few minutes. The others stop only when they are held up. The only regular customers are goods trains. Although Mano Majra seldom has any goods to send or receive, its station sidings are usually occupied by long rows of wagons. Each passing goods train spends hours shedding wagons and collecting others. After dark, when the countryside is steeped in silence, the whistling and puffing of engines, the banging of buffers, and the clanking of iron couplings can be heard all through the night.

(a) Name any two brick buildings in Mano Majra.

(b) Where are the keekar trees growing?

(c) What type of trains stop at Mano Majra?

(d) Which common object of worship is visited by all the villagers?

(e) Why did people not build their houses on the banks of the rivers?

(f) What do the shopkeepers around the railways station sell to the travellers?

(g) What additional job did the station master perform in addition to selling tickets and sending and receiving messages over the telegraph ticker?

(h) What breaks the silence of the village at night?

(i) Find the word from the passage, which means the opposite of ‘broad’ (para 1).

(j) Find the word from the passage, which means the same as ‘lazily’ (para 2).

(B) Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:

(From ‘‘The Passing of Arthur’’; Alfred Lord Tennyson)

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:

‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

5 Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me ?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within himself make pure !but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul, More things are wrought by prayer

10. Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

15. Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

18. But now farewell.

(a) What does the expression ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new’ signify?

(b) What does the speaker ask the listener to do if he fails to return?

(c) Identify and name the figure of speech in lines 10 – 13.

(d) What makes human beings different from animals?

(e) (i) Which word in the extract means the same as ‘giving’?

(ii) Which word in the extract means the opposite of ‘foe’?