HPAS/HAS Mains Question Paper 2024- ENGLISH (COMPULSORY)

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PREVIOUS YEAR QUESTION PAPERS

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1. (a) Rewrite the following sentences after making necessary corrections, if any. Do not make unnecessary changes in the original sentences.     05

i) My son is going to study in United States.

ii) Sindhu selected the furniture for her mother.

iii) Rana has known Sumit since three years.

iv) By the time Thomas found an umbrella, it stopped raining.

v) I am a student here, isn’t it?

1. (b) Do as directed           10

i) “Are you coming home with me today?” he asked her. (Convert to indirect speech)

ii) He could write it in a day. (Turn into passive)

iii) Meera has a sick cat. It was the reason she was late. (Rewrite the sentence beginning with ‘That’)

iv) Joy fell off a horse last year and broke his arm. He goes riding every day. (Rewrite the sentence beginning with ‘Although’)

v) Yes, I like homemade desserts. (Write a negative question)

vi) Pia took a walk in the park. Twenty minutes later, she took a nap. (Rewrite the sentence using ‘Not long after’ at the beginning.)

vii) I wish I _______________the house five minutes earlier. I missed my bus. (leave) (Complete the sentence with the correct form of the verb given in the bracket)

viii) Did you enjoy the opera? It wasn’t very good, but I loved the costumes. (Complete the answer to the question using the correct reflexive pronoun.)

ix) One of the two is mine and (another/the other) is yours. (Choose the right option)

x) There are several flocks of (goose/geese) flying in the sky. (Choose the right option)

1. (c) Fill in the blanks to complete the sentences.      05

i) Savita is the ___________of all my friends. (Childish) (Fill up the blank with the right form of the word given in bracket)

ii) Keshav repaired the clock,___________? (Complete the sentence with a question tag)

iii) His _____________words helped me a lot. (encourage) (Complete the sentence using the appropriate form of the verb given in the bracket)

iv) Asha loves mangoes. _____________we take some for her? (Shall/Will) (Choose the most appropriate word from the bracket to complete the sentence)

v) He has_______________a wonderful idea for the picnic. (come into/come by/come up with) (Fill in the blank with the correct phrasal verb given in the bracket)

2. Do as directed

(a) Give synonym for each of the following and make use of it in a sentence.   04

i) Exorbitant

ii) Abominable

iii) Pragmatic

iv) Solitude

(b) Give antonym for each of the following and make use of it in a sentence.   04

i) Trivial

ii) Serene

iii) Perennial

iv) Frugal

(c) Use the following expressions to make sentences that bring out their meaning clearly. Do not change the form of the words.      04

i) Look into

ii) Fall out

iii) Ins and outs

iv) Bury the hatchet

(d) Give one word substitutions for the following expressions and use it in a sentence. 04

i) A person who pretends to be someone he is not

ii) That which is not in use any more

iii) A detailed plan of a journey

iv) One who is never wrong

(e) Use the given pairs of words in a single sentence to bring out their meaning clearly. Do not change the form of the words.        04

i) Adapt, adept

ii) Imminent, eminent

iii) Elicit, illicit

iv) Jest, zest

3. You are Sukanya Patel and you have recently moved from 52 West Enclave, Pitampura, New Delhi -110028 to 130 Park Apartments, Kasturba Nagar, Ahmedabad – 700007, contact number 7131748475. Write an official letter to the Branch Manager of the Bank of Baroda, 25 Circle Street, Ahmedabad – 700004, informing her of the change of your residence requesting that your new address and contact number be noted and that the records be modified accordingly. Your savings account number at the bank is: 4759687227.                           10

OR

You are Ashok Kumar of Diamond Book Store, Chennai, which sells college and university books on science and technology. You want to write a letter to the Sales Manager of New Science Tech Publications in Mumbai asking for their catalogue and enquiring about the possibility of being their distributor for the southern zone.

4. You are Dr. Prakash Tripathy, a college professor in one of the Delhi University colleges in Delhi. The modem you bought two weeks ago from Asia Electronics in Delhi is giving you problems. Write a formal letter to the Manager of the company, making a complaint about the defective modem and asking for it to be replaced at the earliest. Give your complete postal address with contact number.                          10

OR

You are Sunita Yadav, a qualified eligible person for the post of a PGT in English. The National Public School, Mandi has advertised for a few posts in your subject. Write a formal letter to the Principal of the school mentioning your qualifications and previous teaching experiences of five years and state that you are the most deserving person for the post.

5. Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.                    10

Social media has become all pervasive today — especially amongst the youth. More and more young people are joining various social media networks for various reasons. These networks include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Youtube, Vine, Tumblr, Pinterest, and many more. It becomes common to see children as young as ten and twelve run their own social media accounts with aplomb. From pictures of kittens and puppies to updates about family and personal lives, from trivial gossip and games to serious debate and work – almost everything young people do is updated on some social media platform or another. They use these platforms not just to share personal details but also to connect with friends and acquaintances, widen their social circle, gain popularity and engage with various issues of the day. Here in our country, social media platforms now cater to a variety of Indian languages. Since social media has become even more accessible with the penetration of mobile internet, one sees youth of various classes and strata gaining access to a wider audience/network of people. Youth from across the nation are now able to reach out to someone their age in another part of the world. They can access content and information that was previously not available simply because they lived in a different country. From music to photos and even answering questions about homework, social media gives the youth of today a way to share and communicate with each other no matter which country they come from or what they do.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions in the context of the passage:

i) Describe at least three significant roles social media play in the lives of the youth today.    3

ii) What are the two possible disadvantages of social media?      2

iii) What is the role of language in social media? Does English language have greater edge over Indian languages?       2

iv) Write the synonym of the word •aplomb’ and use it in a sentence.        1

v) Write the antonym of the word •pervasive and use it in a sentence.      1

vi) Make two sentences using the phrasal verb ‘accessible with’. Do not repeat the sentence from the passage.              1

6. Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: 10

There is a market that springs up out of nowhere every Sunday at the end of my lane. Six days of the week, there’s just an open ground; but come Sunday morning, and it is transformed into a hustling, bustling, mini-city. Tents and pens come up overnight. I wake up to the bleating of goats and the mooing of cows. Not to mention the incessant chatter of chickens chittering everywhere. Walking down the street, a thousand scents assail me. The rich fragrance of earth wet by the dew on the fresh vegetables, the sharper tang of crushed greens, the sour stench of cow manure, and a hint of mint as one farmer unloads bales and bales of freshly picked mint and coriander. I see the freshest of sarson and my mouth starts watering at the thought of the curry my mother will make with it. Potatoes and bright red tomatoes spill out at my feet as someone’s sack of vegetables tips over. A couple of boisterous children unapologetically trample a couple of tomatoes and run off giggling with red stained chappals while the owner of the tomatoes waves and shouts and calls them mischievous monkeys. Further down a woman and her husband are arguing over how exactly to display the cabbages and cauliflowers and lemons they’ve brought while vigorously dusting out a neon pink and green tarpaulin they’ll use to sit on. An elderly lady who lives close to us and is usually the mildest mannered person I know suddenly transforms into a fiend and bargains vociferously over the choicest leaves of spinach, gourds and arbi. Suddenly she shrieks and jumps into the air! People gather around to find out what the commotion is all about and discover that an unruly goat has somehow gotten loose from its tether and had decided to snack on auntyji’s basket of greens. I think those two children had something to do with it. I hear them giggling madly somewhere close by. This is why I love the marketplace. There’s so much to see and do every week.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions in the context of the passage:

i) Why does the author love the marketplace? Give at least three examples.

ii) The author compares the Sunday market with a mini-city. Give at least two features of a mini-city. 2

iii) Why does the elderly lady suddenly shriek and act like a fiend? 2

iv) Write the synonym of the word ‘incessant’ and use it in a sentence. 1

v) Write the antonym of the word ‘boisterous’ and use it in a sentence. 1

vi) Make two sentences of the phrasal verbs •spill out’. Do not repeat the sentence from the passage.            1

7. Make a précis of the following passage in about one third of its length and give a suitable title. The précis should be written in your own words: 20

Foreign rule over a civilized country like India suffers from many disadvantages and many ills follow in its train. One of these disadvantages is that it has to rely on the less desirable elements in the population. The idealists, the proud, the self- respecting, those who care sufficiently for freedom and are not prepared to degrade themselves by an enforced submission to an alien authority, keep aloof or come into conflict with it. India’s case is somewhat unique and interesting. 

It is very important to remember especially now when we have regained our freedom from British rule, that it was contact with western ideas that made our own people wake up and work for a new India. Many great men and women have worked for the making of the new India in many different ways. They had different ideas of what the new India should be. Some wanted to reform the Hindu religion by getting rid of idol- worship, caste and other ideas which were not in the Hindu religion of ancient times. Swami Dayanand, who founded the Arya Samaj, had this aim. Others wanted to get rid of old ideas completely and make India a modern country, with the help of scientific knowledge gained from the West. Some wanted to bring about changes more slowly, by spreading education through newspapers and schools. But all these people got to know about these changes which had been taking place in Europe and America. They got to know about these changes from people who came to India from the West, first to trade with them, and then to rule over them. They did not like being ruled over by foreigners, but they could not help seeing that unless they got the new knowledge which the foreigners had, they would not be able to make a new India and rule it themselves. 

India is now known as knowledge society. With new knowledge, new infrastructures, new economy, new science and technology, etc. India is trying to shed the old customs and traditions by embracing new ideas and innovations to make every Indian proud. Thus the new India is coming out as a global example, growing face of its power, an illustration of advancements and self-sufficiency being the power of independent identity. The New India has led itself to free on every platform making and setting new records to its name in every field — legal advancements, technology, economic advancement, health, social advancements, to say – sports, foreign relations, coming out as a global power embracing all the possible modern growth and advancements which are the call of the hour.

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