PREVIOUS QUESTIONS OF B.A. HONOURS PART : I, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL

PREVIOUS QUESTIONS OF B.A. HONOURS PART : I,  ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,  EXAM: 2010

 [According to the Syllabus of 2009-10]

Subject Code : 1152 (English Reading Skills)

Time—4 hours

Full marks—100

[N. B. —The  figures in the margin indicate full marks.]

Part A

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow :

It is a mystery which has baffled parents and teachers for years  how to persuade children to eat more fruit and vegetables and not to eat unhealthy ‘junk’ food.

But a video of fruit arid vegetable loving cartoon characters may provide the answer. The four friends are having the same effect on school children as Popeye once had on Spinach consumption. Popeye appeared in an American cartoon strip in the 1920s, A sailor who developed superhuman strength by eating Spinach had a huge effect on children’s eating habits. Sales of Spinach increased and it became one of the most popular foods among American youngsters.

The characters are devised by psychologists who carried out research with 1,000 children over three years. The experimental programme proved such a success that it is now being used as pilot study in 20 schools. The latest study at a primary school in South London found fruit and vegetable intake among the children had doubled, A study at another school, where children were offered fruit during their morning break and at lunch time without showing the video found no change in the children’s eating habit.

The four characters in the video have a favourite fruit or vegetable. Charlie eats carrots, ‘Font prefers tomatoes. Raz eats raspberries and Rocco broccoli. Fruit and vegetables give the characters the life force they need to save the world from General Junk and his army of vegetable-hating “Junks-Punks”.

The experiment was reinforced by offering the children rewards, such as stickers and pencils for eating fruit and vegetables. Katy Tapper, who led the research, said “it is recommended that children eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but they arc usually eating less than half of this. There is evidence that if you taste something many times you learn to like the taste. The intervention gets the children to repeatedly taste fruit and vegetable, so they develop a liking for them.”

The video shown in school for six minutes a day, worked in conjunction, with the rewards. Either method on its own was not as effective.

Answer any twenty questions from the following :— 1×20=20
(a)  What has worried adults for years about children’s food habit?
(b)  How does video help develop children’s eating habits?
(c)  Who developed the research?
(d)  What were the effects of the project at a London school?
(e)  What was the finding of the study where no video was used?
(f)   What was the most effective method of encouraging children to
eat more fruit and vegetables?
(g)  Mention the major difference between Popeye and the four video characters.
(h) What was the use of stickers and pencils?
(i) Give another word or phrase for the word “in conjunction with.”
(j)   Give a suitable title for the passage.

Match Column A with Column B according to correct meaning :—
A                                                                      B
(k) sustain                                make an idea stronger
(l) pilot                                    to make believe that is true
(m) persuade                           amount of food body can
(n) reinforce                            take to provide evidence to support an
(o) intake                                 opinion to test new idea
keep something going

Find Suitable words in the passage to complete the sentences :—
(p) Popeye become superhuman by——–.
(q) The devised cartoon characters became——–.

Put the verbs in brackets into their correct form :—
The psychologists (research) on children for three years and they (success).
(s) Spinach (sale) highest which (become) popular food in America.
(t) Children (reward) stickers and pencils for (eat) vegetables.

Fill in the blanks with appropriate preposition ;—
(u) Children are influenced  ——-cartoon characters.
(v) Children were offered fruit———–the morning.

Fill in the blanks with needn’t, need must, mustn’t:—
(w) No, she—-eat Spinach. She has an allergy to it,
(x) Parents and teachers ——–  have patience and they———force children.

Part B

Cricket is, in a sense, warfare in miniature and a cricket match should be fought by both sides with all the resources of spirit and technique at their command. At the same time it should always be recreation, a game, to be played not only according to written laws but in harmony with an unwritten code of chivalry and good temper.

A cricket team should feel that they are playing with, as well as against, there opponents. The home side should remember that they are hosts, the visitors that they are guests, and both should realize that the true greatness of the game lies in combat and comradeship combined.

Persued in such a spirit, victory, and nothing short of victory, should be the object of both teams from the first over of the match. The bowlers and fielders of the one, the batsman of the other, should go on to the field determined to attack and to go on attacking until they are really forced to fall back on defense, even then they are able to resume the offensive as the rules of the game permits.

It would seem that in recent years this instinct for attack has tended to give place to a premature concern with defense in which the batsman’s chief aim is to stay at the wicket rather than to make runs.

The bowlers are to keep down the rate of run getting rather than to get wickets. With the resulting development of defensive technique in batting, bowling, and field placing the game is in danger of becoming less vital and less enjoyable for players and spectators alike.

The coaches of today can do cricket no greater service than by helping the cricketers of the future to re-capture the spirit and the armoury of attack: only then they can win from the game the best that it has to give them.

In no other game perhaps is the individual and his team so closely integrated. One man virtually win a match, not necessarily by technical skill, but by intelligence, concentration and character. One man loses it by a failure in those qualities. Conversely, the morale of each member of an eleven can be largely built up and sustained by the atmosphere of the whole.

Answer any five of the following questions :— (4+4)x5=40
2.         (a) Why is cricket like “warfare in miniature”?
(b) How does cricket become a recreation.?
3.         (a) What is meant by “an unwritten code of chivalry”?
(b) What is the role of the home side?

4.         (a) How is the game balanced?
(b) What is the objective of both teams in the first over?
5.         (a) What does the writer of this passage consider to be wrong with modern cricket?
(b) What is the batman’s chief aim in cricket?
6.         (a) How many members of a cricket team influence the whole outcome of a match?
(b) How far coaches are responsible in the game?
7.         (a) How can the boys become worthy of a place in their school team?
(b) Explain “to recapture the spirit and the armoury of attack.
8.         (a) Do you enjoy cricket or not? Give your reasons.
(b) Write a summary of this passage.
9.         (a) What does the passage say about a bowler?
(b) What does the passage say about the batsman?

Part C

Read the given poem and answer the following questions:-                                        10×4= 40

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

10.  Write a summary of the poem.
11. What is the author’s position and attitude?
12. Who is being compared to whom?
13.  Scan the poem.
14. Give the rhyme-scheme of the poem.
15. How would you compare the summer in Bangladesh with the summer described in the poem?
16. What do you come to know about the poet’s friend from the poem?

PREVIOUS QUESTIONS OF B.A. HONOURS PART : I,  ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,  EXAM: 2010

[According to the Syllabus of 2009-10]

Subject Code : 1153 (English Writing Skill)

Time—4 hours

Full marks—100

[N. B. —The  figures in the margin indicate full marks.]

Part A

1.    Correct any 20 sentences using proper punctuation marks, tense,  gerund, participles, prepositions, agreement between subject and verbs and infinitives :—                        1×20=20
(a)        If you will study hard, you will pass.
(b)        I went to Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and others.
(c)        She made the baby to take medicine.
(d)        Each boy and each girl have answered the question.
(e)        She is not as pretty like her mother.
(f)        I shall wait of the opportunity.
(g)        I wish I can help you.
(h)        I bought three dozens of bananas.
(i)         Had I been a rich man, I help the poor.
(j)         Would you mind have a cup of tea?
(k)        Having the rain stopped, we returned home.
(l)         He was so angry he could not work.
(m)       We went to the field despite of our exams.
(n)        Rafiq sorted the book^r nicely he was efficient about it.
(o)        The boy was tired, hungry and needed sleep.
(p)        The wind stopped to blow.
(q)        She was married with a police officer.
(r)        His carelessness and behaviour irritates me.
(s)        a box of eggs are on the table.
(t)        Neither John or I are to receive the award.
(u)        He is teaching early history of England since a year.
(v)        He is too dull to learing anything.
(w)       She has been confined at bed because of sickness.
(x)        It was them who beat the boy mercilessly.

Part B

Answer any five questions :— (4+4)x5=40
2.         (a) What is an expository essay?
(b) How is it different from a “   descriptive essay?
How many parts are there in a formal letter?
3.   (a) Write a topic sentence for each of the following topics :—
Road accident, Patriotism, Your Department, Study of Science.
(b) Give the possible structures of a comparison contrast paragraph.
4.         (a) Young generation of our time has many positive qualities. Write   four more sentences to develop it into a complete paragraph.
(b) English is used for global communication. It is the major library language of the world. It is also used for trade, commerce and many other purposes.
5.         Punctuate the following :—
(a) William Shakespeare was born in the small market town of Startford-on-avon in April 1564 his father a successful glove maker landowner money lender and dealer in agricultural commodities was elected to several important posts in local government but later suffered financial reverses possibly as a result of adherence to the catholic faith.

(b) Studies serve for pastimes for ornaments and for abilities their chief use for pastime is in privateness and retiring for ornament is in discourse and for ability is in judgement for expert men can execute but learned men are fittest to judge or censure.

6.         (a)  Explain with example the differences between formal and informal writing.
(b) Write a short letter to your friend refusing his/her invitation for a dinner.
7.         (a) Name different types of paragraphs.
(b) How are listing and cause and effect paragraphs developed.
8.         (a) Rearrange the following sentences :—
John Keats died at the age of twenty six. He wrote some very famous odes. He was born in England. John Keats is a romantic poet. Ode to Nightingale is one of his best known odes.
(b) Give a list of sentence linkers or connectors used to write coherent paragraphs.
9.         (a) Give the format of a report.
(b)  Write an effective introduction of an essay in five sentences on the following topic :
Gender disparity.

Part C

Answer any four questions :—                                                                                  10×4=40
10. Amplify the idea contained in the following statement:—
‘Grass is always green on the other side of the fence.’

11.   Write a paragraph on :—
Life without a computer today.
12. Write a story using the following moral—Honesty is the best policy.
13. Write an essay on—
Higher education in Bangladesh.
14. Write a letter to your brother advising him to read daily newspaper and listen to the news as well.


15.   Write an application to the Chairman of the department seeking permission to use the seminar library in the afternoon for drama rehearsals.
16.   Write a report on celebrating of International Mother language day in your college.

PREVIOUS QUESTIONS OF B.A. HONOURS PART : I,  ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,  EXAM: 2010

[According to the Syllabus of 2009-10]

Subject Code: 1154 (Introduction to Poetry)

Time—4 hours

Full marks—100

[N. B. —The  figures in the margin indicate full marks.]

Part A

Answer any twenty of the following questions :— 1 x20=20
1.         (a) What kind of person was Ozymandias?
(b) What kind of fish is a pike?
(c) What sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand?
(d) What does Wordsworth compare the daffodils to?
(e) What does the snake symbolize in the poem by D.H. Lawrence?
(f)Which bird is mentioned in the poem ‘Snake’?
(g) Who is Grandpa Walt in ‘Ode on a Lungi’?
(h)Who is the person referred to in ‘No Second Troy’?
(i)  What do you know about ‘Seven Sleeper’s Den’?
(j)  What does the word ‘sleep’ symbolize in the following line? ‘And miles to go before I sleep’
(k) What kind of poem is a sonnet?
(l) What is a hyperbole?
(m) What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor?
(n) Why is William Wordsworth famous?
(o) Give an example of the use of onomatopoeia by Keats.
(p) What is a lyric?
(q) What is personification?
(r) What is metonymy?
(s) Who first used blank verse in English?
(t) Why is Dylan Thomas called a Womb-tomb poet?
(u)What is scansion?
(v) What is accent?
(w) Whom did the carriage of Death hold?
(x) Who is Aunt Jennifer?

Part: B

(Answer any five questions)                                                                           Marks—(4+4)x5=40
2.         (a) What is sensuousness?
(b) Name some elements of sensuousness in ‘To Autumn’.
3.         (a) What is mysticism?
(b) What mystic elements do you find in ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’?
4.         (a) What is symbolism?
(b) Comment on the symbols used by Frost in ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’.
5.         (a) Describe ‘Pike’ as an animal poem.
(b) Comment on the imagery used in the poem ‘Fern Hill’.
6. Explain with reference to the context :—
(a)       With beauty like a tightened bow a kind ‘
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
(b)        I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to mc had brought.
Explain with reference to the context :—
(a)        ‘All clothes have equal rights’
this nobody will deny                                           ^
and yet, some obviously
are more equal than others

(b)        If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die

8.         (a) Write a short note on accent.
(b) Scan the following :—
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Write short notes on :—
(a) Pun
(b) Imagery.

Part C

(Answer any four questions)

Marks—10×4=40

10. How does Kaiser Haq present the Lungi in his Poem ‘Ode on the Lungi’?
11. Comment on the intensity of passion expressed in ‘How do I Love thee?’
12. How does Herrick find delight in disorder?
13. What are the major images that Shakespeare used to glorify his friend in Sonnet XVIII?
14. What are the different stages of love that you find in ‘The Good Morrow’?
15. Critically comment on Dickenson’s obsession with Death.
16. What elements of modernism do you find in the poem ‘Snake’?

PREVIOUS QUESTIONS OF B.A. HONOURS PART : I,  ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,  EXAM: 2010

[According to the Syllabus of 2009-10]

Subject Code: 1155 [Introduction to Prose (Fiction & Non-Fiction)]

Time—4 hours

Full marks—100

[N. B. —The  figures in the margin indicate full marks.]

Part A

Answer any twenty of the following questions :—                                                   1×20=20
(a)        Why is ‘Gettysburg Address’ famous?
(b)        Who is Raghu?
(c)        What does ^‘Araby’ stand for?
(d)        What style did Bacon use in writing his essay ‘Of Studies’?
(e)        What do you understand by the word’ imperialism’?
(f)         “It’s not fair, I tell you, its not fair”—Who is the speaker and to whom does he/she speak?
(g)        What, according to George Orwell, does a white man destroy when he turns tyrant?
(h)        What is ‘Knighthood’?
(i)         Locate the following sentence, ‘Having disappeared from the scene, he had disappeared from their minds’.
(j)         Who is Mrs. Sheridan?
(k)        What is the main cause behind American civil war?
(l)         What does the narrator buy at the bajaar in  Araby’?
(m)       What is autobiography?
(n)        What is the meaning of the title “The Tell-Tale Heart”?
(o)        What historical incident inspired Rabindranath Tagore to reject Knighthood?
(p)        What is “Gatto” in ‘Cat in the Rain’?
(q)        Which country did Catherine Mansfield belong to?
(r)        Name the book of which The River and the Rain’ is a part.
(s)        Name a famous Indian novelist and short story writer included in your syllabus.
(t)         What is fable?
(u)        When was the speech ’1 have a dream’ delivered?
(v)        What do studies serve for?
(w)       Why does Laura want to stop the party?
(x)        “To compare small things with great, it was our Nile”— Who is the speaker here?

Part B

(Answer any five of the following questions)                                                                        (4+4)x5=40
Write short notes on :—
2.        (a) The boat race
(b) Lord Chelmsford.
3.         (a) Anita Desai (b)  Ravi
4.         (a)  What is a beast fable? (b)  How far “The Ant and the Grasshopper’ is a beast fable ?
5.         (a)  What discriminations between the White and the Black does Martin Luther King find ?
(b)  Discuss the use of foreign language in the story ‘Cat in the Rain’.
6.         (a) Point out some elements of irony in ‘The Games At Twilight’.
(b) Mention some sweet memories of childhood as described in ‘The River and the Rain’.
7.         (a) How did the death affect Laura?
(b) Write in brief about the guilt conscience in ‘Tell-Tale Heart’.

Explain with reference to the context:—
8.          (a)  ‘Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider’.
(b)          ‘Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming’.
9.          (a) Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice’.
(b)  ‘………this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’.

Part  C

(Answer any four of the following questions) 10×4=40

10. Critically analyse the relation between the American husband and the wife as reflected in ‘Cat in Rain’.
11. What picture of Kishoreganj do you get from your study of ‘The River and the Rain’?
12. How does Edgar Allan Poe create an atmosphere of horror and suspense in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’?
13. Consider Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ as a charter of freedom and equality for the black people of America.
14. Tagore’s ‘Letter Rejecting Knighthood’ is a protest against the British rule in India”.—Elucidate.
15. Describe the preparation and arrangements made by the Sheridan for the garden party.
16. Make a comparative study of the characters of two brothers in “The Ant and the Grasshopper.”