HSC Commerce (Marathi Medium) इयत्ता १२ वी - Maharashtra State Board Question Bank Solutions for English

Speech Writing:

You are an active member of an NGO working for water conservation. Prepare a speech for the school children/students where you are invited on the eve of ‘World Environment Day’ to guide them about water harvesting. Your speech should not exceed 150 words.

Imagine you are preparing for an elocution competition and you wish to speak on the topic "Green Revolution."
Draft a speech in about 150 words on the given topic.

•  It's a growing linguistic revolution.
• It sharpens students' ability to think about construction and precision of words.
• Students will use numerals, punctuation marks and symbols to convey message.
• It's an art form.

Read the given sentences:

• Does Sam write all his own reports?
• The secretaries haven’t written all the letters yet.
• Terry is writing an e-mail to a client at the moment.

The verbs in bold are broadly used to express tense. ‘Do’ can also be used for adding emphasis, as in “I do know the answer.” The verbs “be’, ‘have’ and ‘do’ are called Primary Auxiliaries. When helping verbs are used to express the mode or action, they are called Modals.

• You shall have a holiday tomorrow. (Simple Future)
• We should obey our elders. (Obligation)
• I can play the piano. (Ability) 
• Could you open the window, please? (Request).

In the above examples, the modals indicate the expressions given in brackets. There are other modals that are used for expressions.

Study the given table carefully and do the activities that follow.

(a) Fill in the blanks with appropriate modals according to the situations given in the following sentences.

1. Take an umbrella. It _______ rain later.
2. People _______ walk on the grass.
3. _______ I ask you a question?
4. The signal has turned red. You _______ wait.
5. I was a sportsperson in my school days. I ________ play badminton.
6. I am going to the library. I _______ find my friend there.

(b) Find from the text, the sentences that show past habit.

We can accept our life gracefully.

(Rewrite using modal auxiliary showing 'compulsion')

Neeraj Chopra may not participate in the world championship due to ankle injury.

(Choose the correct option from the following sentences which uses a more definite modal auxiliary.)

Read the following extract and then do all the activities that follow :

I rain into a stranger as he passed by
“Oh, excuse me please” was my reply.
He said, “please excuse me too; wasn't even watching for you.”
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on out way and we said good-bye.
But at home a different story is told.
How we treat out loved ones, young and old.
Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My daughter stood beside me very still.
When I turned, I nearly knoked her down.
“Move out of the way,” I said with a frown.
She walked away, her little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.
While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,
“While Dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use,
But children you love, you seem to abuse.”

A1. Order- 
The incidents narrated in the extract are arranged in a jumbled manner here, Rearrange them in a proper order as they occur in the extract:
(i) The poet and the stranger went on their way saying good-bye.
(ii) Seeking excuse politely from the stranger, she went her way.
(iii) The poet ran into a stranger on the road.
(iv) The poet yelled at her daughter.

A2. Poetic device:
Make a list of rhyming pairs from the second stanza and note down the rhyme scheme of the same stanza.

A3. Personal Response:
Understanding and politeness are the essentials of out everyday life. Explain your views in brief.

A4. Creativity -
Frame two poetic lines on the following situation using a rhyming pattern with the help of clues given:
“While introducing great personalities, we praise them highly and talk about their qualities, but while speaking
about our friends we may not follow the same trend.”
While introducing great personalities, — a
------------------------------------ — a
But while speaking about our friends, — b
------------------------------------ — b

Read the extract and do the activities that follow:
The duke senior and his follower were sitting down to a meal one day when Orlando rushed out from among the trees, his sword in his hand. ‘Stop, and cat no more!’ he cried. The Duke and his friends asked him what he wanted.
‘Food,’ said Orlando. ‘I am almost dying of hunger’. They asked him to sit down and eat, but he would not do so. He told them that his old servant was in the woods, dying of hunger. ‘I will not eat a bite until he has been fed,’ Orlando said.
So the good Duke and his followers helped him to bring Adam to their hiding-place, and Orlando and the old man were fed and taken care of. When the Duke learned that Orlando was a son of his old friend sir Rowland de Boys, he welcomed him gladly to his forest court.
Orlando lived happily with the Duke and his friends, but he had not forgotten the lovely Rosalind. She was always in his thoughts andevery day he wrote poetry about her pinning it on the trees in the forest. ‘These trees shall be my books,’ he said, ‘so that everyone who looks in the forest will be able to read how sweet and good Rosalind is’.
Rosalind and Celia found some of these poems pinned on the trees. At first they were puzzled, wondering who could have written them; but one day Celia came in from a walk with the news that she had seen Orlando sleeping under a tree, and she and Rosalind guessed that he must be the poet. Rosalind was happy to think that Orlando had not forggoten her, because she loved him as much as he loved her.

A1. Complete - (2)
Complete the following sentences:
(i) Rosalind was happy to think _______
(ii) The Duke and his followers helped Orlando to bring _________
(iii) Orlando pinned the poems written about Rosalind on ______
(iv) When the Duke cam to know that Orlando was a son of his old friend, he _________

A2. Write a gist: (2)
Write a gist of the above given extract in about 50 words.

Expansion of Idea:

Expand the following idea in about 100-150 words by using the points.

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'.

• Meaning of the proverb
• Significance of the proverb
• Add your own points.

Read the extract and complete the activities given below:

A1. Rewrite the following sentences as per their occurrence in the extract:   (2)

1. He was appointed as the Director-in-charge of the National Radio and Electronics Company Limited.
2. Tata Group launched its passenger car 'Tata Indica in the year 1998.
3. Billi Ford said to Ratan Tata, "You are doing a big favour for us by buying Jaguar-Land Rover."
4. He graduated from Riverdale country from New York.

A2. Explain:   (2)

The writer says, "I don't believe in taking right decisions. I take decisions and then make them right."

A3. Give reasons:  (2)

Ratan Tata decided to sell his passenger car business.

A4. Personal Response:  (2)

Right decision at the right time is important success. Express your opinion.

A5. Grammar:   (2)

Do as directed:

1. He worked hard building a better consumer electronics division.
   (Rewrite the sentence using the infinitive form of the underlined word)
2. Tata Group launched the passenger car Tata Indica.
   (Rewrite it beginning with 'The passenger car Tata Indica......')

A6. Vocabulary:

Give antonyms.

1. Profit × ______
2. Prevent × ______

Match the following items from column-A with those column-B:

Read the extract and complete the activities given below:

A1. Rewrite the following as per their sequence in the extract:    (2)

1. I also had to collect a comprehensive range of facts and information about this sea.
2. I have swam in all these places and have felt the thrill.
3. All that one needed was money.
4. Despite all the information I had gathered, I soon found that very little was known about the Palk Strait.

A2. Explain:    (2)

What does the writer man by saving, "Steeped in the history and tradition of this nation, practically unconquered, teeming with hair-raising hazards, the sea between India and Sri Lanka had all the elements of challenge, danger and difficulty that tempted me"?

A3. Give reason:   (2)

The narrator had an intense desire to swim in the Palk Strait. Explain the reasons for it.

A4. Personal Response:    (2)

Do you like to have an adventurous life? Express your opinion.

A5. Grammar:

Do as directed:   (2)

1. Very little was known about the Palk Strait. (Rewrite as a negative sentence)
2. I had to collect a comprehensive range of facts. (Rewrite the sentence beginning with 'A comprehensive ........)

A6. Vocabulary:   (2)

Give the synonyms of the following words:

1. rigorous - ______
2. thrill - ______

Read the following extract and extend it by adding an imaginary paragraph of your own in about 120 words:

[You may begin with: Mrs. Green: May I come in.......]
"May I come in?" asked the pink lady.
"Please come in," said my mother. "Do sit down. Do you require a room'?"
"Not today, thank you. I'm staying with Padre Dutt.
He insisted on putting me up. But I may want room for a day or two -- lust for old time's sake."
"You've stayed here before."
''A long time ago. I'm Mrs. Green, you know. The missing
Mrs. Green. The one for whom you put up that handsome tombstone in the cemetery. I was very touched by it. And I'm glad you didn't add 'Beloved wife of Henry Green' because I didn't' love him any more than he loved me.''
''Then - then - you aren't the skeleton?'' stammered my
mother.
''Do I look like a skeleton?''
''No!'' we said together.
· ''But we heard you disappeared,'' I said, ''and when we found that skeleton -''
''You put two and two together.''
''Well, it was Miss Kellner who convinced us,'' said my
mother. ''And you did disappear mysteriously. You were missing for years. And everyone knew Mr. Green was a philanderer!''
''Couldn't wait to get away from him," said the pink lady.
'Couldn't stand him anymore. He was a lady-killer, but not a real killer.''
''But your father ca1ne looking for you. Didn't you get in touch with him?''

Read the following extract and complete the table given below :
   Computer Assisted Language Leaming (CALL) materials come in two main formats: CD/DVD RO Ms and Web-based. Some are tailored to the content to be used in the classrooms whereas others can be used independently. CALL materials allow you to work at your own pace.
   Multimedia materials offer you the opportunity to take part in other computer-assisted activities, such as text-based gap-filling, multiple-choice and text reconstruction activities. Language teachers often develop such text-based CALL activities to accompany a particular course. CALL materials can be regularly updated.
   Because CALL learning activity types are usually designed from a template, they can sometimes be repetitive.
   A major advantage of CALL materials is that they offer instant feedback on your spoken or written performance. However, such feedback can be limited. If you are more interested in creating your own responses or elaborating on your ideas, you may find this type of Facebook frustrating. Web-based CALL materials can offer more variety through the use of hyperlinks, but feedback is still limited.
Just as representations of the cultures of the target language offered by courses using books; audio and videotapes can perpetuate stereotypes.

Read the following extract and complete the tree – diagram given below:

Read the following extract and extend it by adding an imaginary paragraph of your own in about 120 words :

    Someone was standing in the doorway. An elderly woman,
very fluffy, very pink. Her cheeks were pink, her dress was pink,
her hair was bunched up and white. She was straight out of Agatha Christie.
        "Miss Marple!" I exclaimed.
        ''May I come in?" asked the pink lady.
       "Please come in " said my mother. ''Do sit down. Do you
  require a room?" '
     ''Not today, thank you. l'm staying with Padre Dutt. He insisted on putting me up. But I may want a room for a day or two - just for old times' sake."
     "You've stayed here before."
     "A long time ago. I'm Mrs Green, you know. The missing
Mrs Green. The one for whom you put up that handSome tombstone in the cemetery. I was very touched by it. And I'm glad you didn't add ' Beloved "wife of Henry Green ', because I didn't love him any more than he loved me."

(i) Read the following tree diagram and find out more information about opportunities in ‘on and off the shore’ the Indian Navy.

(ii) Required qualifications and various fields/opportunities for women to join in the Navy.

(iii) Colleges that provide education in oceanography - 

• National Institute of Oceanography, Goa
• National Institute of Oceanography, Mumbai
• MBA (Logistic Shipping Management), IIKM Business School, Calicut, Kerala
• Indira Gandhi College of Distance Education IGCDE Tamil Nadu.

Read the following extract and rewrite it from the point of view of the friend of the narrator : 

[You may begin with: My friend was scheduled to die on May 1945.]
"Don't call me Herman anymore," I said to my brother.
"Call me 94983 ".

I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator I, too, felt dead. Hardened, I had become a number.
Soon my brother, and I were sent to Schlieben, one or Buchelwald's sub -camps near
One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice.
"Son," she said softly but clearly, "I am going to send you an angel."
Then I woke up. Just a dream. A beautiful dream.
But in this place there could be no angels. There was only work. And hunger. And fear.
A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp, around the barracks, near the barbedwire
fence where the guards could not easily see. I was alone.
On the other side of the fence, I spotted someone : a little girl with light, almost luminous
curls. She was half hidden behind a birch tree.
I glanced around to make sure no one saw me. I called to her softly in German. "Do you
have something to eat?"
She didn't understand.
I inched closer to the fence and repeated the question in Polish. She stepped forward. I was
thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet, but the girl looked unafraid.
In her eyes, I saw life.
She pulled an apple from her woollen jacket and threw it over the fence.
I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away, I heard her say faintly, "I'll see you
tomorrow."

Both the partners have signed this agreement in haste.         ...(Identify the correct ‘Passive Voice’ form of the above sentence from the alternatives given below)

As I entered the post office, the Post Master presented me with a telegram.

(Being the sentence with "No sooner......)