Tribhuvan
University
Faculty of
Management
BBS First
Year
C. English
2071
Full Marks: 100 Time: 3 hours
Candidates are expected to answer
the questions in their own words as far as practicable.
The figures in the margin indicate
full marks.
Answer all the questions.
Question 1. Answer any two of the following: (15 marks each)
(a) Read the following passage and
answer the questions below:
It is many months now since I found
myself obliged by conscience to end my silence and to take a public stand
against my country’s war in Vietnam. The considerations which led me to
that painful decision have not disappeared; indeed, they have been
magnified by the course of events since then. The war itself is
intensified; the impact on my country is even more destructive. I cannot
speak about the great themes of violence and non-violence, of social change and
of hope for the future, without reflecting on the tremendous violence of
Vietnam. Since the spring of 1967, when I first made public my opposition
to my government’s policy, many persons have questioned me about the
wisdom of my decision. “Why you?” they have said. “Peace and civil rights
don’t mix. Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” And when I hear
such questions, I have been greatly saddened, for they mean that the
inquirers have never really known me, my commitment, or my
calling. Indeed, that question suggests that they do not know the world in
which they live.
In explaining my position, I have
tried to make it clear that I remain perplexed—as I think everyone must
be—by the complexities and ambiguities of Vietnam. I would not wish to
underrate the need for a collective solution to this tragic war. I would
wish neither to present North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front as
paragons of virtue nor to overlook the role they can play in the
successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have
justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United
States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that
conflicts are never resolved without trustful give-and-take on both sides.
Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I
had several reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral
vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection
between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging
in America.
(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The
Trumpet of Conscience”)
i. Why did Dr. King feel that he had
to clarify his position against the war?
ii. Why didn’t Dr. King feel the
United States could solve the problems between the two sides in Vietnam by
fighting there?
iii. Why did Dr. King bring Vietnam
into the field of his moral vision?
iv. Was Dr. King as concerned about
Vietnamese victims as he was about U.S. victims? Explain.
v. When a government starts a war,
its position is that it is acting justly and morally. If a citizen refuses
to participate in the war because of personal moral principles, is he/she
less moral than the government?
Explain.
(b) Apply the four levels of reading
a text to Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” or Lekhanath Paudyal’s “The
Parrot in the Cage”.
(c) Who would you argue are more
intelligent: men or women? Why? You can base your answer, if you wish, on
Bertrand Russell’s essay “Keeping errors at
Bay”.
OR
Are good manners a matter of how we
look at ourselves or how we look at other people? Explain. You can use Dr.
Peale’s ideas as given in the essay “Courtesy: Key to a Happier World”
Question 2. Answer any five of the
following: (10 marks each)
(a) What do you think: If two people
from two different linguistic groups, or religions, or tribes, or
nationalities, or castes, fall in love, should they marry, even if their
families are opposed? Give reasons for your answer.
(b) Edit this paragraph for
coherence.
English, like other languages, has
conflicting sayings about important matters like love, friendship, and
work. In English we say about work, “Never put off till tomorrow what you
can do today.” The message is that one can and should always work more—at
least until all the work is done. In English we have this proverb: “All
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” The advice is not to work too
much. Life without recreation makes one an uninteresting person. How is it
that the language has two sayings that give opposite messages? We can
assume that work is important to native English speakers. They respect
it a lot—perhaps too much. The second saying may be a kind of safety
valve. It warns people against going too far in following the advice of
the first saying.
(c) Describe a famous building or
structure? Where is it? Who built it? When? What is it used for? What do
you like or dislike about it?
(d) Tell a story from your life that
supports the saying, “Experience is the best teacher.”
(e) Explain the unconventional
interpretation in each joke below:
(i) STRAIGHT MAN: Would you call me
a taxi, please.
COMEDIAN: Okay. You’re a taxi.
(ii) STRAIGHT MAN: Who was that lady
I saw you with last night.
COMEDIAN: That was no lady. That was
my wife.
(f) A café owner wants to attract
children to he café. She has devised an icecream dish wit cream, chocolate
sauce, and strawberries in it. Invent two
different two- or three-word phrases
for
(i) the title for the café (specially
catering for ice cream, for children)
(ii) the name of the ice-cream (on
the menu, containing cream, chocolate sauce, and strawberries)
Question 3. Answer any ten of the
following: (2 marks each)
(a) Condense the main point of
Parijat’s “New Year” into one sentence.
(b) Edit the sentence: “He resembles
his brother, who is such a handsome man, and who has been known for a long
time to be a hard working kind of guy.”
(c) Choose the better of the two
words shown in parentheses and rewrite each item as one sentence: “Some
people feel that total honesty is essential in a
loving relationship others feel it
as dangerous to be completely honest. (however / therefore)
(d) The best meaning of the
underlined phrase in the sentence: “I recognize this attitude as a healthy
component of our survival instinct and one that enables us to carry on so
we can make additional choices that sustain us.” is
a. part of our will to live
b. part of the law of the world
c. part of our need to take care of
others
(e) Write down the topic and the
controlling idea in the sentence: “There are several ways to reduce
stress.”
(f) Write down four adjectives to
describe the smell of a food.
(g) Match the likely purpose to the
audience:
Audience Purpose
1. ------ friends a. to show what I
have learned
2.------ younger relatives b. to
show my ability to do a job
3. ------ instructors c. to teach by
example
4. ------ employers d. to entertain
(h) Rewrite the following headline,
so as to make it less formal and more “tabloid”: TEENAGERS BURN CAR
(i) What does the word “halo”
suggest in the sentence: “The rock singer sang in a halo of spotlight.”
(j) Give any two content words along
with their contexts.
(k) Write the sentence “Once there
was a poor widow” in four different ways as possible openings for a
fairytale.
(l) What is the effect of the mime
in “with beaded bubbles winking at the brim"?
