Time
allowed: 3 hours
Maximum marks: 100
Question No 1. Write a précis of the following passage:
Those who regard the decay of civilization as
something quite normal and natural console themselves with the thought that it
is not civilization, but a civilization , which is falling a prey to
dissolution, that there will be a new age a new race in -which there will
blossom a new civilization. But chat is a I stake. The earth no longer has in
reverse, as it had once, gifted peoples as yet who can relieve us and take our
place in some distant future as the leaders of our spiritual life. We already
know all those that the earth has to dispose of. There is not one among them
which is not already taking such a part in our civilization that its spiritual
fate is determined by our own. All of them, gifted and the un-gifted, the
distant and the near, have felt the influence of forces of barbarism which are yet
working among us. All of them are, like ourselves, diseased, and only as we
recover can they recover.
It is not
the civilization of a race, but that of mankind, present and future ...h. that
we must give up as lost, if belief in the rebirth of our civilization is a vain
thing. But it need not be so given up. If the ethical is the essential element
in civilization, decadence changes into renaissance as on as ethical activities
are set to work again in our convictions and in the ideas which we undertake
to- upon reality. The attempt to bring this about is well worth making, and it
should be worldwide. It is true that the difficulties that have to be reckoned this
undertaking are so great that only the strongest faith in the power of the
ethical spirit will let us venture on it
Again the renewal of civilization is hindered by
the fact that it is so exclusively the individual personality which must be
looked to as the agent in d new movement.
The renewal of civilization has nothing to do with
movements which bear the character of the experiences of the crowd, these are
never anything but reactions to external happenings. But civilization can only
revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone
of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to
it, a tone of mind which gradually win influence over the collective one, and
in the end determine its character. His only an ethical movement which can
rescue us from the slough of barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence
only in individuals.
The final decision as to what the future of a
society shall be depends not only how near its organization is to perfection, but
on the degrees of worthiness in its individual members. The most important, and
yet the least easily determinable, ’element in history is the series of
unobtrusive general changes which take place in the individual dispositions,
and that is why it is so difficult to understand thoroughly the men and events
of past times. The character and worth of individuals among the mass and the
way they work the, themselves into membership of the whole body. Receiving
influences from its and giving others back, we can even today only partially
and uncertainly understand.
One thing, however, is clear. Were the collective
body works more strongly on the individual than the latter does upon it, the
result is deterioration because the noble element on which everything depends,
namely the spiritual and moral worthiness of the individual’ is thereby
necessarily constricted and hampered. Decay of the spiritual and moral life
then sets in which renders society incapable of understanding and solving the
problems which it has faced. Therefore sooner or later, it is involved in
catastrophe, and that is why I is the duty of individuals to a higher
conception of their capabilities and undertake the function which only the
individual can perform, that of producing new spiritual-ethical ideas. If this
does not come about many times over nothing can save us. (20 marks)
Question No 2 a) Read. The following poem carefully and
paraphrase it in modern English prose: (10 marks)
b) Write brief criticism of the poem. (10 marks)
Mortality, behold and fear,
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heaps of stones,
Here they lie, had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to stir their hands?
Where from their pulpits seal’d with dust
They preach, ‘In greatness is no trust’.
Here’s an acre sown indeed.
With the richest royallest seed
That the earth did e’er suck in
Since the first-man died for sin.
Here the bones of birth have cried
Though gods they were, as men they died!’
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Drop from the ruin’d sides of Kings:
Here’s a world of pomp and state
Buried in dust, once dead by fate.
Question No 3 a) Use any five of the following pairs of words in
sentences to bring out clearly their difference in meaning:
Altar, alter, apposite, opposite, bear, bare,
complacent, complaisant, confident, confidant, disease, decease, gate,
gait,judicial,judicious, ingenious. Ingenuous, yoke, yolk. (l10.marks)
b) Use any five of the following expressions in your own
sentences to illustrate, their meaning:
To bear the brunt of, To call a spade a spade, To fight shy
of, To cry over the spilt milk, To burn the candle at both ends, To rob peter
to pay Paul, To take the bull by the horns, playing to the gallery, Holding out
the olive branch. To make out. (10 marks)
Question No 4 Write a letter to your local newspaper, complaining
of some local nuisance and making some positive recommendations. (Please make
sure that Name Roll No. etc. is not given in the letter) OR
Write a description (of about 200 words) of a rural or urban
scene with which you are familiar.(20 marks)
Question No 5 briefly discuss “The Role of the University in economic
Development OR
Discuss in about 250 words. One of the following topics:
a) How free is the Press?
b) The lure of fashion. (20 marks)