English 2 (Literature in English) Official Board 2024-2025 (English Medium) ICSE Class 10 Question Paper Solution

What does Antony describe as, ‘thou bleeding piece of earth,’?

Caesar’s robe that was stained with his blood

The blood-soaked spot on which Caesar lies

When Brutus says, ‘ambition’s debt is paid’, he means that ______.

Caesar’s greed for power and possession had resulted in his death

Caesar had left seventy-five drachmas for every citizen of Rome

Mark Antony would be permitted to speak at Caesar’s funeral

The conspirators would be punished for assassinating Caesar

After Antony’s speech following Caesar’s assassination, the angry mob kills ______.

Cinna the conspirator

Cinna the poet

Decius Brutus

Cicero

When Antony says, ‘He must be taught, and train’d, and bid go forth: A barren-spirited fellow;’ he refers to ______.

Octavius

Lucilius

Lucius

Lepidus

Who were the members of the Second Triumvirate, formed to rule over Rome after Caesar’s assassination?

Julius Caesar, Crassus, Pompey

Marcus Brutus, Caius Cassius, Casca

Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, Lepidus

Octavius Caesar, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony

Which of the following words best describes Cassius’s mood when he says:

‘Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,’

anxious

regretful

fearful

frustrated

In the poem, ‘Haunted Houses’, what does the speaker see at his fireside that the stranger cannot?

the speaker only sees what is physically present

the stranger can see the spirits while the speaker cannot

the speaker sees both the present and the past

the stranger sees both the present and the future

In the poem, ‘The Glove and the Lions’, who does Count de Lorge ‘sigh for’?

The lions that ramped and roared

King Francis who loved a royal sport

The nobles who filled the benches

The beauteous lively dame

Select the option that shows the correct relationship between Statements (1) and (2) from Maya Angelou’s poem, ‘When Great Trees Fall’:

Statement 1: When great trees fall, the world is left permanently unstable.

Statement 2: In the poem, the natural world is depicted as reacting with fear and uncertainty when great trees fall.

(1) is false, but (2) is true.

Both (1) and (2) are false.

(1) is true, but (2) is false.

Both (1) and (2) are true.

The poem, A Considerable Speck, expresses Frost’s ______.

love for the little organism

respect for intelligent life

indifference to the tiny creature

anger at the mite’s escape

Which of the given options contains the figure of speech that appears in the following line from the poem, ‘The Power of Music’?

And in the sky the feathered fly turn turtle while
They’re winging,

You’re one month on in the middle of May

Rainbow-tinted circles of light

And life is too much like a pathless wood

The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn

He is delighted with the photographer’s skill

He looks very handsome in the photograph

He is unable to recognise his own face

He is ashamed of how he looks in the picture

In the short story, ‘The Elevator’, which of the following does Martin’s father NOT do when Martin expresses his fear of the elevator?

He dismisses Martin’s concerns

He encourages Martin to use the stairs

He tells Martin to grow up and be brave

He watches TV and ignores Martin’s fear

Choose the option that lists the sequence of events from Ray Bradbury’s short story, ‘The Pedestrian’:

1. One night, as he was nearing home, he was stopped by a police car.
2. Since his answers were considered odd and unacceptable, he was forced to enter the car and taken away.
3. Leonard Mead loved to walk through the empty streets at night.
4. A metallic voice from the car asked him a series of questions.

2, 1, 3,4

1, 3, 4, 2

3, 1, 4, 2

4, 1, 2, 3

Where was Adjoa born?

Nigeria

Ghana

Ethiopia

Kenya

Why did M. Hamel have to leave the school after forty years of service?

He was not allowed to teach French any longer

He had grown tired ofhis job as a schoolteacher

He was thought to be too strict in his ways

He wanted to retire and take up farming

Read the extract from ‘Julius Caesar’ Act 3, Scene 2, given below and answer the questions that follow:

1. What does Antony say he is there for?     [3]
   What does he say he is not there for?
   What do you think he is actually there for?
2. What were the three conditions that Brutus had laid down before allowing Antony to speak to the citizens of Rome?     [3]
3. List the three arguments that Antony uses immediately after he speaks these lines to prove conclusively that Julius Caesar was not ambitious.     [3]
4. Antony repeatedly uses certain words in his speech to describe Brutus. What are they? Why does he do this?     [3]
5. Which one argument of Antony’s do you think had the greatest impact on his listeners? Give a reason to support your answer.     [4]
   What were the citizens’ feelings towards Antony before he began his speech?
   How do their feelings towards him change at the end of his speech?

Read the extract from ‘Julius Caesar’ Act 5, Scene 1, given below and answer the questions that follow:

1. Why does Brutus say, ‘No, Cassius, no’?
   What conditions may force Brutus to go bound to Rome?
   Brutus says, ‘And whether we shall meet again I know not.’ What do these words imply?     [3]
2. To what does Brutus refer when he says, ‘the work which the ides of March begun’?
   How was ‘that work’ begun?
   What political change would take place in Rome if Brutus and Cassius lose this battle?     [3]
3. Earlier in this scene, Cassius had confided to Messala a strange occurrence that he had observed when his army was on its way from Sardis to Philippі. Describe this strange occurrence.     [3]
4. How does Brutus die?
   How does his manner of dying contradict the philosophy by which he had lived his life?     [3]
5. At the end of the play, Antony calls Brutus, ‘the noblest Roman of them all’. Why does he say this?
   What does this reveal of Antony’s character?     [4]

Read the following extract from William Sleater’s short story, ‘The Elevator’ and answer the questions that follow:

1. Who entered the elevator when the door slid open? Describe this person.     [3]
2. Why was Martin afraid of using this elevator?     [3]
3. What led to Martin’s fall down the stairs?
   What did it result in?     [3]
4. How does the story end?
   Bring out the element of horror in the ending.     [3]
5. What was Martin’s father’s opinion of him?
   What does this reveal to us about his father’s character?     [4]

Read the following extract from Alphonse Daudet’s short story, ‘The Last Lesson’ and answer the questions that follow:

1. What does the word, ‘that’ in the extract refer to?
   What other ‘bad news’ had the villagers received from the bulletin board outside the town-hall?     [3]
2. How does the narrator describe the daily bustle at the start of a typical school day?     [3]
3. What was different on that morning when he arrived late for school?     [3]
4. What thoughts filled the narrator’s head when he heard the above announcement?     [3]
5. What does M. Hamel urge his listeners never to forget?
   M. Hamel writes a few words on the board at the end of the lesson. What were they?
   What does he hope to inspire through his words and actions on that day?     [4]

Read the following extract from Leigh Hunt’s poem, ‘The Glove and the Lions’ and answer the questions that follow:

Read the following extract from Robert Frost’s poem, ‘A Considerable Speck’ and answer the questions that follow:

1. What did the narrator first imagine the ‘speck’ to be?
   What does his use of the words ‘speck’ and ‘mite’ tell us about it?     [3]
2. What was the narrator doing when he spotted the speck?
   Which two words from the poem helped you come to this conclusion?     [3]
3. What made him realise that he was dealing with ‘an intelligence’?     [3]
4. Why did the narrator conclude that the mite had feet?     [3]
5. Describe the narrator’s initial response to the speck.
   What did he eventually decide to do about it?
   Why does he make this decision?
   What does this decision reveal of his character?     [4]