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AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY EXAMINATION BOARD

SECONDARY SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

CLASS X EXAMINATION

APRIL/ MAY 2018

English Compulsory Paper II

Time: 2 hours 10 minutes Marks: 50

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INSTRUCTIONS
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Please read the following instructions carefully.

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1. Check your name and school information. Sign if it is accurate.

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I agree that this is my name and school.

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Candidate's signature
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2. RUBRIC. There are THREE questions. Answer ALL questions. Question 2 offers TWO
choices and Question 3 offers THREE choices. Attempt any ONE of the options in each.

3. When answering the questions:

Read each question carefully.

Use a black pointer to write your answers. DO NOT write your answers in pencil.
Use a black pencil for diagrams. DO NOT use coloured pencils.
DO NOT use staples, paper clips, glue, correcting fluid or ink erasers.
Complete your answer in the allocated space only. DO NOT write outside the answer box.

4. The marks for the questions are shown in brackets ( ).

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Q.1. (Total 18 Marks)

Read the passage carefully and answer all the questions that follow.
Fat, once a dirty word when it came to diet, has been edging back toward respectability. New
results from a huge international study help continue to reshape its image while at the same
time casting doubt on the wisdom of eating lots of carbohydrates and questioning the ‘more is
better’ recommendations for eating fruits and vegetables.
5 The latest evidence comes from data released by the international Prospective Urban Rural
Epidemiology (PURE) study. Its research team recorded the eating habits of 135,000 adults in
18 countries — including high-income, medium-income, and low-income nations — and
followed the participant’s health for more than seven years on average.
Among the PURE participants, those with the highest intake of dietary fat (35 percent of daily
10 calories) were 23 percent less likely to have died during the study period than those with the
lowest fat intake (10 percent of calories). The rates of various cardiovascular diseases were
essentially the same across fat intake, while strokes were less common among those with a high
fat intake.

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Challenging conventional wisdom, the findings for carbohydrate intake went in the opposite
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15 direction. PURE participants with the highest carbohydrate intake (77 percent of daily calories)

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were 28 percent more likely to have died than those with the lowest carbohydrate intake (46
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percent of calories). The results were presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting
in Barcelona, and published in a well-known research journal, Lancet.
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“These results point to the fact that human biology is very similar across the globe,” said Dr
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20 Eric Rimm, Professor of Nutrition Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
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“It’s not healthy to eat highly processed carbohydrates no matter where you live.”
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In a related paper, the PURE results challenged two widely held beliefs about fruits and
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vegetables. While most dietary guidelines stress the importance of eating more vegetables,
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among the PURE participants, eating more fruits, and more seeds and beans, was associated
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some fruits and vegetables is good, more must be better. But among the study participants,
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those whose diets included five to six servings of fruits and vegetables a day were not more
healthy than those who ate one or two servings of fruits.
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In a nutshell, a healthy diet based on the PURE results would be rich in fruits, beans, seeds,
30 vegetables, and fats, include portions of whole grains, and be low in refined carbohydrates and
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sugars. As an observational study, PURE can’t prove cause and effect. In an effort to eliminate
the biases that are common in observational studies, the researchers took blood samples from
the majority of the study participants and analysed them for cholesterol and other lipids.
Participants with higher intakes of fats, or lower intakes of carbohydrates, had lower levels of
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Hence, cutting back on starch and sugar and adding more fat and more foods from plants,
especially bioactive fruits and seeds, is where we should be headed.

Adapted from Huge New Study Casts Doubt on Conventional Wisdom about Fat and Carbs
published in PBS News Hour

Disclaimer: The article reports the results of a research study; these recommendations should
not be adopted without consultation with nutrition experts. Any change in diet may have
implications for individuals with medical conditions.

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a. Describe the author’s purpose in writing this article. Support your answer with TWO reasons.
(3 Marks)

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b. “Challenging conventional wisdom, the findings for carbohydrate intake went in the opposite
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Explain the given phrase in your own words. What does the author mean by ‘conventional
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wisdom’? Support your explanation with TWO reasons. (4 Marks)

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c.
i. A friend of yours needs to lose weight. S/he is morbidly obese, has high blood sugar and,
hence, is at a risk of being affected by heart disease. Based on the information given in
this article, recommend THREE of the following food items that s/he should include in
their diet plan. (3 Marks)

• A meat dish with fat-rich cream

• Eating green vegetables in every meal for one month
• Sweet potatoes, soft drinks and cereal having high carbohydrates
• Serving of fruit once a day
• A meal of processed meat and vegetables with chapatis
• Vegetables with fat-rich yoghurt

(Note: Select only relevant food items which fit the diet recommended in this article.)

ii. Convince your friend by using TWO reasons (given in the passage) for following this

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diet. (2 Marks)

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d. Summarise the article in no more than 150 words. (6 Marks)

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PLEASE TURN OVER THE PAGE

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Q.2. (Total 14 Marks)

Compose a response of about 200-250 words to any ONE of the options a or b.

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a. You study in a school where teachers’ turn-over rate is very high. During the past six months,
four teachers have left and have been replaced by new teachers. Your classmates have mixed
feelings about this issue. However, you feel that your studies have been negatively impacted by
this high turn-over of teachers.

Write a letter to your school Principal highlighting this issue. In your letter, discuss the
following.

• How change of teachers impacted your studies.

• What should be done to make teachers stay.
• How it will benefit the students.

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b. Agriculture sector is the mainstay of Pakistan’s economy. However, like many developing
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countries of the world, Pakistan is faced with the problem of low agricultural productivity.

Write a report for a donor agency which provides funds for developing higher educational
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institutes in Pakistan and persuade them to provide funds for education related to advances in
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agriculture. In your report, discuss the following.

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• Number of students from your school who are interested in pursuing higher education in
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agricultural sciences
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• Benefits it would have for Pakistan’s economy

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Recommendations for the donor agency to provide funds

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Make your notes below. Write the final draft on pages 7 and 8.
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Q.3. (Total 18 Marks)

Write a composition of about 200-300 words on any ONE of the options a, b or c.
Remember to compose the final draft in complete sentences.

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a. Survival skills are techniques that a person may use in order to sustain life in any type of natural
environment. These techniques are meant to provide basic necessities for human life which
include water, food, and shelter. Survival skills like knowing how to make fire from stones,
making tree bed and hunting are often associated with the need to survive in a disaster situation.

Write a persuasive essay about whether schools should teach survival skills to students as a part
of the regular curriculum. Support your answer with FOUR reasons and/ or examples.

OR

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b. The importance of advertising is steadily on the increase in modern society. It has been observed

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that advertisements only focus on selling products, often ignoring the ethical sensitivities like
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targeting race, marginalised groups, ways of dressing, colours of skin and obesity.

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Write an essay expressing your views about it. In your essay, describe the following.
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How you feel about this
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Any TWO examples of adverts that ignore ethical sensitivities

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Aspects that should be kept in mind while producing good quality adverts
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OR
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c.
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¾ Almost 40% of commercially cooked food is wasted in Pakistan while in some other
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developing countries 50% of food goes to waste.

¾ It is reported that on average 870 kg of food is wasted at most five star hotels each day.
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¾ Food is lost or wasted throughout the supply chain, from initial agricultural production
down to final household consumption.
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Write a persuasive essay on ‘Food Wastage Must Be Stopped’. You can use the above points to
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support your essay; however, new points must be included about the following.

• From your observation, where does most food wastage occur.

• Mention THREE reasons due to which food wastage must be reduced and eventually
stopped.
• What should be done about the leftover food in hotels/ weddings/ homes/ flights.

Make your notes on the page given for rough work. Write the final draft on pages 10 and 11.

PLEASE TURN OVER THE PAGE

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END OF PAPER
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