Mountview Public School, Kalka is run by an NGO to give quality education to the children of the deprived sections of society. The Principal of the school feels that blackboards in the classrooms need to be replaced. She decides to ask the chairperson of the NGO named ―Education for All‖ for funds. Write her letter in 120 – 150 words. Her name is Shweta Pandit.

OR

National Book Trust organised a week-long book fair at Anna Grounds, Chennai. You visited the fair and bought a few books. You were pleased with the arrangements, enthusiasm of the visitors and the fact that books have not yet lost their relevance in the world of the Internet. Write a letter in 120 – 150 words to the editor of a local newspaper to express your feelings. You are Lalit/Latha, 112, Mount Road, Chennai.

Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow :

The most alarming of man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers and sea with lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrevocable; the chain of evil it initiates is for the most part irreversible. In this contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world; radiation released through nuclear explosions into the air, comes to the earth in rain, lodges into the soil, enters the grass or corn, or wheat grown there and reaches the bones of a human being, there to remain until his death. Similarly, chemicals sprayed on crops lie long in soil, entering living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death. Or they pass by underground streams until they emerge and combine into new forms that kill vegetation, sicken cattle, and harm those who drink from once pure wells.

It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth and reach a state of adjustment and balance with its surroundings. The environment contains elements that are hostile as well as supporting. Even within the light of the sun, there are short-wave radiations with power to injure. Given time, life has adjusted and a balance reached. For time is the essential ingredient, but in the modern world there is no time.

The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature. Radiation is no longer the bombardment of cosmic rays; it is now the unnatural creation of man’s tampering with the atom. The chemicals to which life is asked to make adjustments are no longer merely calcium and silica and copper and all the rest of the minerals washed out of the rocks and carried in the rivers to the sea; they are the synthetic creations of man’s inventive mind, brewed in his laboratories, and having no counterparts in nature.

(a) On the basis of your understanding of the above passage, make notes on it using headings and sub-headings. Use recognizable abbreviations (wherever necessary — minimum four) and a format you consider suitable.

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

Your friend, P.V. Sathish, has invited you to attend the wedding of his sister, Jaya. You find that you have an important paper of pre-board examination on the day of the wedding. Thus you cannot attend the event. Write in about 50 words a formal reply to the invitation expressing your regret. You are Puneet/Puneeta Vij, M-114, Fort Road, Chennai.

OR

You are Vikram/Sonia, an electronics engineer who has recently returned from the U.S. and looking for a suitable job in the IT industry. Draft an advertisement in about 50 words for the Situations Wanted column of a national newspaper. Your contact number is 9193010203.

Every teenager has a dream to achieve something in life. What they are going to become tomorrow depends on what our youth dream today. Write an article in 150 – 200 words on ―What I want to be in life‖. You are Simranjit/Smita.

OR

History Society of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Krishna Nagar sent a group of students to visit a place of historical interest. You, Anant/Anita, were its leader. Write a report in 150 – 200 words for the school newsletter on tour, describing the place, its history, how you reached there and all that you have learnt.

Holi is a festival of colours. It expresses pure and simple joy. Sometimes we start throwing coloured water and that too on strangers. As the Head boy / girl of your school write a speech in 150 – 200 words that you will deliver in the morning assembly of your school, describing why Holi is played and how it should be played.

OR

It is cruel to put stray dogs to sleep.‖‖ Write a debate in 150 – 200 words either for or against the motion.