part a 32 marks 08 - agaram.lk

( This part carries

01). Comment briefly on any one of the following passages, explaining its significance to

the play from which it is taken.

(a) Come, let us to the castle.

Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;

my sweet, I prattle out of fashion, and I dote

Iago, Go to the bay and disembark my

(b) Believe me, King of shadows, I mistook.

Did not you tell me, I should know the man,

by the Athenian garments he had on?

And so far am I glad, it so did sort,

As this their jangling. I esteem a sport.

(c) The weather isn't getting me very kindly.

it drops, I'll go fishing on the lake. Besides, I want to have a look around the garden

and see the place where your play was acted you remember? I've subject for a story, I

only want to revive my memories of the

place.

(d) I can't stand this horrible house after the taste of this month. I'll be what he wants me

to be. Everybody in the village against me, burning me with their fiery fingers;

persued by those who claim

thorns that belongs to the mistress of a married man.

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Part A

( This part carries 32 marks. each question carries 08 marks)

Comment briefly on any one of the following passages, explaining its significance to

the play from which it is taken.

Come, let us to the castle. News, friends: our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd.

hall be well desired in Cyprus; I have found great love amongst them. O

out of fashion, and I dote In mine own comforts. I prithee, good

Go to the bay and disembark my coffers:

Believe me, King of shadows, I mistook.

Did not you tell me, I should know the man,

by the Athenian garments he had on?

And so far am I glad, it so did sort,

As this their jangling. I esteem a sport.

The weather isn't getting me very kindly. There's a cruel wind. Tomorrow morning, if



only want to revive my memories of the scene where the action is supposed to take

I can't stand this horrible house after the taste of this month. I'll be what he wants me


persued by those who claim they're decent ,and I'll wear, before them all, the crown of

thorns that belongs to the mistress of a married man.

marks)

Comment briefly on any one of the following passages, explaining its significance to

are done, the Turks are drown'd.

ound great love amongst them. O

e own comforts. I prithee, good

There's a cruel wind. Tomorrow morning, if



scene where the action is supposed to take

I can't stand this horrible house after the taste of this month. I'll be what he wants me


they're decent ,and I'll wear, before them all, the crown of

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(e) Recognize! What is there to recognize? All my lousy life I've crawled about in the

mud! Ad you talk to me about scenery. look at this muckheap! I've never stirred from

it.

02) Comment briefly on any one of the following passages, explaining its significance to

the novel from which it is taken.

(a) She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even touched .Assistance

was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if I reasonably fancied( I think I did)that

if I let her go, the fire would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the

surgeon's coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands

were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.

(b) "well then, when will you come back again?"

"I hope we shall see you at Barton, added her ladyship ,as soon as you can

conveniently leave town; and we must put off the party to whitwell till you return."

(c) "Everybody's taking water! They've found it comes out of the tap! Everybody's taking

it! I told them they're going to get hell ,but they don't understand…."

(d) 'What about you?' I asked, before she got started again.' Are you married?'

'No'

'Do you have a boyfriend?'

'No' she sad abruptly ,and then .'Well…yes.'

'Who is he? I asked. 'Is he another …activist?'

'No. He is a lecturer in the university.'

03) Comment briefly on the following passage, explaining its significance to the short

story from which it has been taken.

He told Shoba about the sweater on the third night, the picture on the fourth. She said

nothing as he spoke, expressed no protest or reproach. She simply listened, and then

she took his hand, pressing it as she had before.

04) Comment briefly on the following extract, explaining its significance to the poem

from which it has been taken.

I hold my honey and I store my bread

In little jars and cabinets of my will.

I label clearly and each latch and lid

I bid, Be firm till I return from hell,

I am very hungry. I am incomplete.

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Part B

(This part carries 68 marks. Each question carries 17 marks)

5. Drama

Answer any one of the following questions. Do not answer the question which is

based on the text you selected in question 1 of Part A above.

(a) "Too much of trust and humanity towards people is a weakness in Desdemona." Do

you agree?

(b) "Shakespeare foresees the problems/conflicts faced by teenage lovers in A

Midsummer Night's Dream and this element helps to call the drama as a 'universal

understanding of teenagers regarding romantic love'."

(c) What roles do the minor characters play in the drama The Seagull by Checkov. How

do they contribute to bring forth the 'main ideas' in the play?

(d) "House of Bernarda Alba is a play which shows the influence of male authority on

women without a single male appearing on stage."Comment.

(e) How does Beckett use the stage effects to bring out the main ideas conveyed through

the play Waiting for Godot

6. Novel

Answer any one of the following questions. Do not answer the question which is

based on the text you selected in question 2 of Part A above.

(a) comment on how Pip's character transformed through "Innocence to snobbishness" in

Great Expectations. What changes are made in his life through these

transformations?

(b) What issues of contemporary society are depicted through Sense and sensibility by

Austen. How are these ideas conveyed to the readers effectively.

(c) "The events in July's People take place in the future in a hypothetical South African

Revolution".How does Gordimer present this?

(d) "Two rival enemies are put into densely forested Wilpattu jungle and the outcome is

two understanding persons."How far do you agree with this statement when reading

The Road from Elephant Pass by Nihal de Silva.

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7. Short story

(a) out of the six short stories in the A/L anthology, write a critical appreciation to the

most moving story you have read.

(b) What insights do the short stories you have studied offer about human conflicts.

(c) Using detailed examples from at least three short stories in your syllabus, describe

how symbols are used to bring forth the 'general ideas' in them.

8. Poetry

(a) Identify both shared and distinctive elements of atmosphere and setting in modern

poetry in depicting Human Degeneration.

(b) Discuss the treatment of isolation and alienation in at least three poems in your

syllabus.

(d) Write a brief introduction to one of the following topics,

i) Donne's poetry Good Morrow and Go and catch a falling star

ii) How local language is used to bring forth authenticity in the setting in Sri Lankan

poetry.

iii) Elements of satire in Augustan poetry

1. Write a composition on ONE

and supporting evidence, structure,

and expression.

1. Working Part time Jobs.

2. Technology; How it decides our day to day life.

3. Travelling and visiting new countries: an extremely new experience.

4. A review of a film / teledrama dealing with Human Weaknesses.

5. A report on steps taken to help the displaced after the adverse weather

May, Sri Lanka

6. Your friend wants to leave his/her home after having a conflict with his/her parents.

Advise your friend regarding this decision.

2. Reading comprehension and précis

(a) Read the following passage and answer the questions given below

The terms “intelligence augmentation” and “intelligence amplification” evoke

images of human beings with computer chips embedded in their skulls or bizarre

accoutrements attached to their heads. However, according to an article entitled

Smart by Jamais Cascio, human beings’ ability to augment their intelligence is

precisely the prowess which has empowered us to survive “a series of convulsive

glacial events” evinced by the last ice age.

Neurophysiologist William Calvin asserts that the human specie

evolve cognitively and to create its own cognitive evolution in two basic ways:

external and internal.

Cascio states that humans have been externally augmenting their intelligence for

millennia. By developing written language, we boosted o

information over space and time. Other advancements, such as agricultural and

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ONE of the following topics, paying attention to r

evidence, structure, organization, coherent argument

Working Part time Jobs.

How it decides our day to day life.

Travelling and visiting new countries: an extremely new experience.

/ teledrama dealing with Human Weaknesses.

A report on steps taken to help the displaced after the adverse weather

Your friend wants to leave his/her home after having a conflict with his/her parents.

Advise your friend regarding this decision.

Reading comprehension and précis

Read the following passage and answer the questions given below it.



accoutrements attached to their heads. However, according to an article entitled

Cascio, human beings’ ability to augment their intelligence is


glacial events” evinced by the last ice age.

Neurophysiologist William Calvin asserts that the human specie



millennia. By developing written language, we boosted our capacity to share


of the following topics, paying attention to relevant facts

organization, coherent argument accurate language

(30 marks)

Travelling and visiting new countries: an extremely new experience.

A report on steps taken to help the displaced after the adverse weather conditions in

Your friend wants to leave his/her home after having a conflict with his/her parents.

it. (10 marks)



accoutrements attached to their heads. However, according to an article entitled Get

Cascio, human beings’ ability to augment their intelligence is


Neurophysiologist William Calvin asserts that the human species continues to



ur capacity to share


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industrial technologies, reduced the exigencies of manual labor. Current external

digital systems augment human intelligence by allowing us to perform tasks that

would be unfeasible with recourse only to the rational skills of a singular human

brain. Cascio cites as examples the “powerful simulations and massive data sets

(which) allow physicists to visualize, understand, and debate models of an –

dimension universe, real–time data from satellites, global environmental databases,

and high–resolution models (which) allow geophysicists to recognize the subtle signs

of long–term changes to the planet,” and similar man–made interactions which have

the functional effect of augmenting human intelligence. Conceivable potential

software could incorporate individual “attention filters” or “focus assistants” which

would discern and highlight your individual preferences in a computer display,

permitting you to focus and direct your computer searches more efficiently than you

do now. It could incorporate individualized planning and foresight systems which

could allow people to play “what–if” with their life choices. Such systems could co–

evolve with people to produce intimate technologies which would become “something

akin to collaborative intuition,” through web–based information systems with

personalized components, according to Cascio.

Somewhat more problematic in social terms might be pharmacological

intelligence augmentation, evoking Brave New World nightmares – pharmaceutically

placated people tranquilized to zombie–like subservience to the collective and a

central bureaucracy dedicated to its own continued survival. However, as with

external cognitive augmentation, the future has arrived –– in the form of, for example,

ADD drugs, pharmaceutical agents which mitigate sleep disorders, and

antidepressants, all of which enhance human problem–solving ability and cognitive

efficiency. According to Cascio, “people who don’t know about (such drugs) or don’t

want to use them will face stiffer competition from people who do. From the

perspective of a culture immersed in athletic doping wars, the use of such drugs may

seem like cheating. From the perspective of those who find they’re much more

productive using this form of enhancement, it’s no more cheating than getting a faster

computer or a better education.”

Cognitive amplification, whether by external or internal means, may constitute

evolution, if Calvin’s assertion is correct. Some societies may readily embrace it,

while others may shy away. As science fiction writer William Gibson observes, “The

future is already here; it’s just unevenly distributed.”

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�Write the letter of the correct answer in your answer script against the number of

the relevant question.

1. Computer chips are embedded in,

a.) Skulls of animals.

b.) Bizarre accoutrements

c.) Heads

d.) skulls of human beings

2. According to William Calvin,

a.) Human species continues to be external.

b.) Human species fail to create its own cognition.

c.) Externally and internally human beings create cognitive evolution.

d.) Internal cognitive evolution is more precise.

3. Agricultural and industrial technologies,

a.) are advances

b.) advancing the mental labour.

c). reduced technologies.

d.) minimize high amount of manual labour.

4. The author is mainly concerned about

a) various dangers of intelligence augmentation.

b) the advantages of intelligence augmentation.

c) the basic methods of intelligence augmentation.

d) some scientists who are working on intelligence augmentation.

5. The author’s use of the phrase “somewhat more problematic in social terms” refers to

a) the difficulty of making cognitive enhancement widely available.

b) the difficulty of making pharmacological enhancement socially acceptable.

c) equalizing cognitive competitive advantages among social groups.

d) bureaucracies which hamper cognitive enhancement activities.

6. As it is used in the underlined word , the word placated most closely means

a) deprived.

b) enhanced.

c) cured.

d) quieted.

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7. In the context of the passage, which of the following best articulates the author’s

opinion?

a) Intelligence amplification by external means might be more difficult to achieve than

by internal means.

b) Cognitive augmentation does not really constitute evolution.

c) Some people consider intelligence enhancement to be a form of cheating.

d) External and internal intelligence enhancement might constitute evolution in cultures

that accept them.

8. The primary purpose of the passage is to

a) describe different kinds of intelligence enhancement.

b) discuss society’s reactions to pharmacological cognitive augmentation.

c) examine the differences between external and internal intelligence enhancement.

d) dispel misgivings about humanity’s attempts at creating its own evolution.

9. A more suitable title to this passage would be,

a.) Cognitive Development.

b.) Human Intelligence.

c.) Internal Intelligence.

d.) External Augmentation.

10. The Overall presentation of the passage is,

a.) Descriptive.

b.) Argumentative.

c.) factual.

d.) Opinionated.

(b). Write a précis summarizing the passage given in question number 2 above, following

the instructions given below. Use your own words as far as possible. (20 marks)

1. Begin the précis on a new sheet. Divide your page into 5 columns, number the lines.

2. Write the précis in approximately 200 words.

3. State the number of words you have used.

3. Read the following passage and answer the questions given below it, using your own

words as far as possible. (20 marks)

Lida sat outside her great aunt’s hotel watching the steam engines go by and

listening to the clop-clop of horses as they pulled wagons down the cobbled road. She

was taking a short break from her chores at the inn: mopping the ballroom, fixing

cornbread for the guests, and tending the fire in the wood-burning stove. She enjoyed

working there and was happy to help her illustrious aunt bolster her growing business

and notoriety around the city. Lida had always had an assiduous nature and applied

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herself to almost any task unremittingly. Today, however, she took this quick respite to

daydream about the dance she would be attending that evening. At 17, it would be her

first. Her friends had all purchased brightly colored, ornate dresses to wear. Lida, as a

reflection of her demure personality, had chosen a modest, yet elegant dress in a

charcoal gray. “Are you ready, Miss Lida?” Hattie asked as she burst through the parlor

doors and into the kitchen. Mary and Florence were in step right behind her. “Hattie, I

done told you never to come in that way. You disturb the guests having cocktails in the

parlor!” “Oh, hush, Lida. You worry too much. Let’s go.” “I need to put a few more logs

in the stove so Auntie can boil water for the dishes,” Lida said. “Then we can go.” Hattie

gave a sigh, but did not bother to argue. She knew that when Lida had something to do,

she didn’t rest until it was done. “Let’s take the tracks,” Hattie said when they finally

headed out to the party. Daylight was turning into dusk. “Naw, Hattie,” Lida said. "You

know that’s too dangerous in the night.” “Look, Lida,” Hattie said impatiently. “We’re

runnin’ late ‘cause of you. The tracks will take 15 minutes off our walk.” Mary and

Florence both mumbled in agreement. “We can take the carri. The girls clumsily

navigated the moonlit tracks and talked excitedly about the dance: who would be there,

who was the best-looking, who was the smartest, and if anyone had remembered money

for a carriage ride home. Then Lida heard a whistle in the distance. It seemed to get

louder as it persisted and then cut out in a shock of tender silence. “We’ve gotta get off

the tracks. Train’s coming,” said Lida. age back.” Against her better judgment, Lida

agreed to take the train tracks. After all, it was her first real dance ever. Why adulterate it

with acrimony?

The girls scurried to the side but found the decline too precipitous. They made

their way forward along the tracks and finally found a suitable place to descend. Lida

tiptoed nimbly from the precipice. Finding herself safely below, she heard a sudden thud.

She gasped and turned about. “Help!” she heard a voice cry, “Help…down here!” Hattie

had fallen in the ash pit, an 8 foot trench between the rails, about 20 feet long, where

trains stopped to empty ashes from the engine’s fire box when they pulled through town.

Hattie screamed and tried frantically to climb out, but the pit was too deep. Lida

scrambled to the edge, grabbing for her hand, the train getting closer, the whistle

growing evermore piercing. Not wanting to appear scared herself, Lida’s calm voice

belied the panic-stricken beating of her heart. “Just give me your hand, Hattie, and I’ll

pull ya right out.” They fumbled for each other’s hands in the dark. Lida lay down on the

rails and hooked her feet under the track to give herself more leverage. She had Hattie in

her fingertips. Then she lost her. Then she had her again. Lida pulled and she could feel

the joints in Hattie’s hands popping. In this instant, Hattie found better purchase—on

what, no one could be sure—and her hands came into view. Wearing a mask of anguish,

her teeth clenched and reflecting the pale moonlight, Lida pulled and pulled. Hattie’s

amorphous form appeared from below the surface like some stygian phantom. Mary and

Florence’s screams could be heard intermittently in the night, watching helplessly as the

train lights grew brighter. Hattie’s torso finally eclipsed the edge of the pit and there she

lay, catching her breath. The girls hoisted her to her feet and hobbled away from the

tracks like a collection of frenzied grave robbers, their treasure in tow. It was there that

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they stood, caked in ash, watching as the train screeched to a stop and dropped its load of

glowing cinders.

1. What type of characters are Mary and Florence?

2. What insight do you get about Lida and her living background?

3. How do Hattie and Lida differ in the story?

4. Comment on the use of irony in the poem.

5. What is the central idea depictetd through the story?

4. Read the following poem and answer the questions given below it, using your own

words as far as possible. (20 marks)

The Victims

When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and

took it in silence, all those years and then

kicked you out, suddenly, and her

kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we

grinned inside, the way people grinned when

Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South

Lawn for the last time. We were tickled

to think of your office taken away,

your secretaries taken away,

your lunches with three double bourbons,

your pencils, your reams of paper. Would they take your

suits back, too, those dark

carcasses hung in your closet, and the black

noses of your shoes with their large pores?

She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it

until we pricked with her for your

annihilation, Father. Now I

pass the bums in doorways, the white

slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their

suits of compressed silt, the stained

flippers of their hands, the underwater

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fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the

lanterns lit, and I wonder who took it and

took it from them in silence until they had

given it all away and had nothing

left but this.

1. Explain the attitude of the children regarding their father.

2. Do you think the title "The Victims" is suitable for the poem? Why do you say so?

3. What led to the downfall of the father?

4. Do you think the speaker is hurt? Justify your views.

5. Is the father to be sympathized with? Why?

part a 32 marks 08 - agaram.lk

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