DELHI PUBLIC SCHOOL NEWTOWN

SESSION 2018-2019
HALF YEARLY EXAMINATION

CLASS: VII FULL MARKS: 80

SUBJECT: ENGLISH PAPER I (SET A) TIME: 2 HOURS

● The paper consists of four printed pages.

● Answers should be to the point.
● Copy the question numbers carefully before answering the questions.
● Marks will be deducted for spelling errors.

Question 1
(Do not spend more than 30 minutes on this question)

Write a composition (250-300 words) on any one of the following topics: [20]

a) You have been asked to manage your class for a day. Write a detailed account of
your experience.
b) Imagine that you are given the power to change two things which you think are the
greatest obstacles in the development of your country. Which two things would you
choose and why?
c) Study the picture given below. Write a short story or a description or an account of
what the picture suggests to you. Your composition may be about the subject of the
picture or you may take suggestions from it; however, there must be a clear
connection between the picture and your composition.

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 Question 2
[10]
(Do not spend more than 20 minutes on this question.)

Select any one of the following:

a) You made an appointment with a friend but unfortunately you could not keep it.
Write a letter of apology to him/her explaining fully what prevented you from
keeping the appointment.
b) Write a letter to your friend describing him/her about your first experience in the
kitchen.

Question 3
Write a notice on the following topic:
You are the Head Girl/Head Boy of your school. Write a notice for the school notice
board asking the students of classes VI to VIII to submit their names for an
educational tour to Mount Abu to be organized by your school during the Summer
holidays. Give all the necessary details. [5]

Question 4
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

Silence is unnatural to man. He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness. In the
interval, he does all he can to make a noise in the world, and there are few things of
which he stands in more fear than of the absence of noise. Even his conversation is a
desperate attempt to prevent a dreadful silence.
He knows that ninety-nine percent of human conversation means no more than the
buzzing of a fly, but he longs to join in the buzz, and to prove that he is a man and
not a waxwork figure. The object of conversation is not, for the most part, to
communicate ideas: it is to keep up the buzzing sound. Very few human beings join
in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new. Some of them are content if
they are merely allowed to go on making a noise into other people’s ears, though
they have nothing to tell them except that they have seen two or three new plays or
that they had bad food in a Swiss hotel.
Many of us, indeed, do not enjoy conversation unless it is we ourselves who are
making the most conspicuous noise. This, I think, is a vice in conversation, but has
its origin in a natural hatred of silence. The young man was so much afraid of
silence that he dared not risk being silent about himself lest a universal silence
should follow. If he failed as a talker, it was because he did not sufficiently realise
that conversation should be not only a buzz but a sympathetic buzz. That is why the
weather is so useful a subject. It brings people at once to an experience which is
generally shared and enables them as it were, to buzz on the same note.
Reminiscences are the best conversation in the world for two; they warm the heart
and excite the brain. But the third man is all the more conscious of being out in the
cold. A conversation of this kind is bad indeed, because it condemns the third man
to the torture of compulsory silence.

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 We love noise more than we know, even when no other human being is present.
When we go from town to live in the country we deceive ourselves if we think we are
doing so in order to exchange noise for quietness. We go into the country, not in
order to escape from noise, but in search of a different kind of noise. Sit in a country
garden in May, and you will notice that the noise is continuous. The birds are very
loquacious: the bees as inimical to silence as children. Cocks crow, hens cackle, dogs
bark, sheep baa, cart wheels crunch, and the whole day passes in a succession of
sounds which would drive us to destruction if we were really devotees of silence.
Noise is companionship, and I remember that, I as a child, liked even the ticking of a
clock in the bedroom. Sometimes we speak of the silence of the grave, and without
noise the world would be no better than a grave. To survive along upon its lifeless
surface would be to be buried alive.

a) Give the meaning of each of the following words as used in the passage. One word
answers or short phrases will be accepted. [3]
i) desperate
ii) conspicuous
iii) reminiscences

b) Answer the following questions briefly in your own words :

i) Why is silence said to be unnatural to man? [2]
ii) What is the objective of conversation for most of the people? [2]
iii) Why is weather considered as a useful subject for conversation? [1]
iv) Why are reminiscences the best form of conversation between two people?
How do they affect the third person? [2]
v) What kind of noise is heard in the country? [2]
c) In not more than 50 words, state how human beings love noise more than silence. [8]

Question 5
Fill in the blanks with appropriate prepositions: [½x6=3]

a) His teacher is very pleased _____ him.

b) The old woman could not get _____ the shock.
c) He made a living _____ selling old tyres.
d) You should not deviate _____ your objective.
e) She looked _____ me as if I were a thief.
f) Arun walked ahead _____ me without noticing me.

Question 6
Join the following sentences to make one complete sentence without using and, but or so:
[4]

a) My grandfather is very old. He is very active.

b) Take a cheque. The cash may not be sufficient.
c) The men went out to see if anyone was missing. The women stayed behind to care
for the injured.

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 d) She is an actor. She is a painter.

Question 7
Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the words given in brackets: [½x10=5]

a) A large sum of money _______ stolen. (was/were)

b) The teacher, as well as her students _______ present. (is/are)
c) A lot of houses _______ collapsed in the storm. (has/have)
d) One of my sisters _______ going on a trip to France. (is/are)
e) _______ the news on at five or six? (is/are)
f) Your trousers _______ at the cleaners. (is/are)
g) Neither the serving bowl nor the plates ______ on the shelf. (go/goes)
h) Either Mary or Alice _______ responsible for this. (is/are)
i) Many a candidate ________ been selected for the interview. (has/have)
j) Much ______ been spoken about the incident. (has/ have)

Question 8
Identify and explain the figure of speech in the given sentences: [4]

a) There was an employee in the office who was regularly irregular.

b) The vehicle was parked right in front of the no-parking sign.
c) The curtain of night fell upon us.
d) When the wind blew the leaves rustled.

Question 9
Underline the phrases in the following sentences and name them: [4]

a) She succeeded by virtue of her hard work and sincerity.

b) To apologise for one’s mistakes is a noble quality.
c) We have in our library all the books written by Ruskin Bond.
d) The captain wanted to win the toss and bat first.

Question 10
Do as directed: [5]

a) I shall always remember this kindness of yours. (Change to negative)

b) What an innocent smile the baby has! (Change to assertive)
c) It was a really narrow escape. (Change to interrogative)
d) Who was there to help me? (Change to assertive)
e) We do not sell books other than prescribed texts. (Change to affirmative)

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