Reading Comprehension - Practice Papers 4

 CBSE Class 11 English Core

Section – A
Reading Comprehension

Note making

  1. Reading Passage of 500 Words for Summary and Note Making (07 Marks)
    1. Note making - 5 Marks
    2. Summary - 2 Marks

Importance

  1. It is useful to save time, energy and the space at the working place, while attending lecture at school, in college, in a meeting, as a reporter..
  2. It enhances the confidence to revise the thing whenever we want .
  3. Notes help us to remember the information we have gathered.
  4. Notes help in understanding the text better

How to make notes

Step – 1. Read the passage carefully underline the important sentences
Step – 2. Read the passage again and note down the main point.
Two or three related ideas can be combined into one point.
Use of colons
Use of the long dash
Step – 3. Now go over the facts and number them.
Step – 4. Use the universally recognized abbreviations and symbols.

Characteristics of good notes

  1. Notes should be short. They should identify the main point.
  2. Notes should be in points and in an appropriate format.
  3. Information is logically divided and sub-divided by the use of figure and letters.
  4. Abbreviations and symbols are freely used. Extra examples, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions are omitted.
  5. Notes must make sense when they are read again.

How to present the notes in an appropriate format.

You can use different kinds of formats depending on the theme of the passage. It could be serial or sequential such as flow chart, pie chart, bar chart.

  1. Flow Chart
  2. Pie Chart
  3. Bar Chart
  1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:

    Research has shown that the human mind can process words at the rate of about 500 per minute, whereas a speaker speaks at the rate of about 150 words a minute. The difference between the two at 350 is quite large.
    So a speaker must every effort to retain the attention of the audience and the listener should also be careful not to let his mind wander. Good communication calls for good listening skills. A good speaker must necessarily be a good listener.
    Listening starts with hearing but goes beyond. Hearing, in other words is necessary, but is not a sufficient condition for listening, Listening involves hearing with attention. Listening is a process that calls for concentration. While listening, one should also be observant. In other words, listening has to do with the ears, as well as with the eyes and the mind. Listening is to be understood as the total process that involves hearing with attention, being observant and making interpretations. Good communication is essentially an interactive process. It calls for participation and involvement. It is quite often a dialogue rather than a monologue. It is necessary to be interested and also show or make it abundantly clear that one is interested in knowing what the other person has to say.

    Good listening is an art that can be cultivated. It relates to skills that can be developed. A good listener knows the art of getting much more than what the speaker is trying to convey. He knows how to prompt, persuade but not to cut off or interrupt what the other person has to say. At times the speaker may or may not be coherent, articulate and well-organised in his thoughts and expressions. He may have it in his mind and yet he may fail to marshal the right words while communication his thought. Nevertheless a good listener puts him at ease, helps him articulate and facilitates him to get across the message that he wants to convey. For listening to be effective, it is also necessary that barriers to listening are removed. Such barriers can be bolt physical and psychological. Physical barriers generally relate to hindrance to proper hearing whereas psychological barriers are more fundamental and relate to the interpretation and evaluation of the speaker and the message.

  1. On the basis of your reading of the above passage, make notes in points only, using abbreviations wherever necessary. Supply a suitable title.
  2. Write a summary of the above passage in about 80 words.
    Ans. NOTE MAKING
    Distribution of Marks
    Abbreviations / Symbols (with/without key)- any four - 1 mark
    Title -1 Mark
    Content (minimum 3 heading and sub-headings, with proper indentation and notes) -3 marks
    Suggested Notes
    Title: Good communication skills/ Good Listening/ Listening Skills/ Art of Listening /
    Good Communication and Listening/ any other relevant title.
    1. Research
      1.1 human mind processes 500 wpm
      1.2 speaker speaks 150 wpm
      1.3 difference between the 2
    2. A good speaker/ Good commun./ listng.
      2.1 must retain attention of audience
      2.2 stop not to let mind wander
      2.3 must be a good listener
    3. Listening / Requirement Of Listening/ listening Skills
      3.1 hearing with attention
      3.2 being observant
      3.3 making interpts.
      3.4 concentration
      3.5 participation
    4. A Good Listener / Good Listening – An Art/ Traits of Good Listening
      4.1 gets much more from speaker
      4.2 knows how to prompt and persuade
      4.3 puts speaker at ease
      4.4 helps him articulate
      4.5 facilitates speaker to convey thoughts
    5. Effective listening/ Barriers To Good Listening
      5.1 barriers – phy./psychological
      5.2 physical-hindrance to hearing
      5.3 psy.-interpretations & evaluation

Key to abbreviations

  1. wpm – word per minute
  2. commun.- communication
  3. listng. – Listening
  4. interpts. – interpretations
  5. phy. - Physical
  6. psy. - psychological

    Summary
    The summary should include all the important points given in the notes
    Content -1 mark
    Expression -1 mark

    Human mind processes 500 word per minutes but a speaker speaks 150 words. It reveals the co-relation between listening and speaking skills. As you listen shall you speak. Listening and speaking are the two sides of same coin. Speaker should draw the attention of listener. listening skills requires hearing with attention, being observant, making interpretations and being concentrate. Good listening is and art when we restore faith in speaker and remove physical and psychological barriers.

  1. Read the passage carefully and complete the notes:

    Anything printed and bound in book size can be called a book, but the quality or mind distinguishes the value of it.

    What is a book? This is how Anatole France describes it: "A series of little printed signs-essentially only that. It is for the reader to supply himself the forms and colors and sentiments to which these signs correspond. It will depend on him whether the book be dull or brilliant, hot with passion or cold as ice. Or if you prefer to put it otherwise, each word in a book is a magic finger that sets a fibre of our brain vibrating like a harp string and so evokes a note from the sounding board of our soul. No matter how skillful, how inspired' the artist's hand, the sound it makes depends on the quality of the strings within ourselves."

    Until recently books were the preserve of a small section-the urban upper classes. Some, even today, make it a point to call themselves intellectuals. It would be a pity if books were meant only for intellectuals and not for housewives, farmers, factory workers, artisans and, so on.

    In India there are first-generation learners, whose parents might have been illiterate. This poses special challenges to our authors and to those who are entrusted with the task of disseminating knowledge. We need much more research in the use of language and the development of techniques by which knowledge can be transferred to these people without transmission loss.

    Publishers should initiate campaigns to persuade people that a good book makes a beautiful present and that reading a good book can be the most relaxing as well as absorbing of pastimes. We should aim at books of quality no less than at quantitative expansion in production and sale. Unless one is constantly exposed to the best, one cannot develop a taste for the good.

    Title______________________________________

  1. Value of Bks. acc. to Anatole France
    1. Not merely printed signs
    2. Reader gives
      1. Colours
      2. ______________
      3. Sentiments
        1. _____________
        2. ___________
        3. Touches solution
  2. Bks. Means for diff. sections
    1. intellect.
    2. housewives
    3. ___________
    4. ___________
  3. Books for 1st gen. learners
    1. Challenge for authors
    2. _________________
    3. _________________
  4. Publisher’s role
    1. _________________
    2. _________________
    3. _________________
    4. _________________
  5. Abbreviations used
ACC.According1stFirst
Bks.BooksGen.Generation
Diff.DifferentGen.Generation
Intellect.Intellectuals  
  1. Read the passage below carefully and complete the notes:

    India has stood for freedom: Even before Independence we viewed our own struggle and difficulties on the larger canvas of global problems. If democracy is basically tolerance for others' opinions, the concept of co-existence is democracy on the international plane, for it embodies tolerance of other nations and systems. Similarly non-alignment gives depth to our independence and self-reliance for it enables us to retain our freedom of judgment and action on international issues in the light of our national interests. We avoid involvement in the conflicts and disputes of others and this helps to blunt conflict between power blocs. I should like to think that it has also helped world stability.

    A country is an extended family. When income and resources are limited, one must budget to ensure that waste is avoided, resources husbanded, priorities established, education and other social needs catered to, special provision made for those who are weaker or smaller. Industry has to be balanced with agriculture; technology with culture; state ventures with private initiative; economic growth with social justice; the large with the small. Every section of society must be stimulated to creative activity.

    That is our planning. In no way is it totalitarian or coercive. Industrializing, modernizing arid transforming an ancient society of immense size, population and diversity is a daunting venture and inevitably, a gradual one. Otherwise there will be resentment. Transformation should not cause too much dislocation or suffering for the people nor should it jettison the basic spiritual and cultural values of our civilization.

    India's planning experience sums up the successes and problems of our democratic

    development. The magnitude and significance of democracy's operation in India are not well understood, for it is often treated as an adventitious or borrowed growth. Why has democracy worked in India? Our national leadership was dedicated to it and we wanted it to work, but, also, because in our society there were elements and traditions which supported the growth of democracy.

    In our democratic system, there may be differences in many spheres but we rise above them.

    To achieve the objective of keeping the country united, we have to transcend political and party-based differences, which create dissensions. If we cannot remain united and the country does not remain strong, with whom shall we have differences? Against whom shall we fight? With whom shall we be friends? Brothers and sisters, if the country falls, nobody survives. When we were fighting for the freedom of our country, it did not mean only political freedom. It also meant social justice, equality and economic justice. Only one phase is over and another one is under way. We have to cover a long and difficult path. Whereas the enemies were visible during those days; now they are in disguise. Some of them are openly our enemies, but many become unintentional pawns of others.

    _________________________Title

  1. What democ.y envisages
    1. Tolerance for other's opinions
    2. ________________________
    3. Non alignm.t
      1. _______________________
      2. _______________________
      3. _______________________
  2. Country - an extended family
    1. Society to stimulate creative activ.y by:
      1. ______________________
      2. ______________________
      3. ______________________
      4. ______________________
      5. ______________________
  3. Challenges in promoting democ.y:
    1. Avoid being ________________
    2. __________________________
    3. __________________________
    4. __________________________
  4. Factors contributing to democ.y:
    1. __________________________
    2. __________________________
  5. How to promote democ.y:
    1. ___________________________
    2. ___________________________

      Key to Abbreviations used
      democ.y - democracy
      non alignm. t – non alignment
      activ.y - activity

  1. Read the passage carefully and complete the notes below using meaningful short forms.

    Swimming pools were once considered a luxury limited only to the rich. Today, thanks to plastics and plenty, they number in the millions. Few, of course are of Olympic size where a swimmer can quickly do his laps and stay in shape. Most are above-ground, round mini-pools, line for a cool-off and a' frolic. But, health experts have come to realize that exercises created specially for such swimming pools can tone the muscles, strengthen the heart and pacify the spirit of people of all ages and conditions. And these exercises aren't restricted to small pools alone. Any type of pool, including a crowded municipal one, will do.

    Designer of the principal popular exercises is C. Carson Conrad, executive director of the California Bureau of Health. Physicians approve of Conrad's exercises for three reasons.

    First, since water pressure, even on a nonmoving body, stimulates the heart to pump blood throughout the body, exercise in the water promotes thorough circulation still more effectively. Second, water exercise is rhythmic. And continuous, rhythmic exercises, authorities agree, are one of the best defenses against circulatory ailments which might cause athersclerosis, often the precursor of coronary attacks and strokes.

    Third, water exercise can be enjoyed with benefit by both young and old, healthy and infirm, swimmers, and in shallow water, non swimmers. Dr. Ira H. Wilson and Fred W. Kasch, a physician-and-physiologist team, assert that even persons with paraplegia, rheumatic heart, asthma, emphysema, victims of polio or strokes, or amputation can exercise in water and enjoy weightless movement. Arthritics move easily under water. Some physicians use hydrocalisthenics for their cardiac patients.

    At the University of Illinois Prof. Richard H. Pohndori studied the effect of water exercise on a "typical" couple. He chose as subjects a man-and-wife team of physicians, 43 and 41 years old respectively, who had been sedentary for years. His program was simple: "Swim from one end of the pool to the other until you can swim 1000 yards a day. Swim every day for ten weeks." Before they started, the couple took 151 physical tests. At the end of ten weeks, they were tested again: their pulse rate had dropped, their rate of breathing had dropped, their blood pressure had come down to normal, the cholesterol level in their blood had dropped 20 percent. Further, more than half of the broken blood vessels disfiguring the woman's thighs had vanished, her husband had improved in all his physical-fitness tests; he reduced the size of his heart, making it more efficient. Both felt younger, more vigorous.

    Title________________________________

  1. Swimming pools
    1. today, within every body's reach - innumerable
    2. of diff. types - above ground mini polls to Olympic size
    3. ex.s immaterial of size
  2. Conrad’s principal popular ex.s – approved by physicians for
    3 reasons
    1st reason - water pressure stimulates heat
    2nd reason - Prevent.n of circulatory ailment efficient circulation of blood & atherosclerosis
    3rd reason ex beneficial to all
    1. Young & old
    2. Healthy & infirm even for Arthritic & cardiac patients
  3. the effect of water ex.s on a couple
    1. the prog.
      1. ________________
      2. __________________
      3. ___________________
    2. effect on the couple after 10 wks:
on bothon the wife aloneon the husband only
a. …….
b. ……
c. ……
d. ……
e. ……		a. ………..
b. ………..		a. ………………

Key to abbreviations
diff.:- different
ex.s:- exercises
prevent.n:- prevention
prog.:- programme
& ;- and
Wks .:- Week