Class-12 English Unseen Passage 

Unseen-1

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:-

While there is no denying that the world loves a winner. It is important that you recognize the signs of stress in your behavior, and be healthy enough to enjoy your success. Stress can strike anytime, in a fashion that may leave you unaware of its presence in your life. While a certain amount of pressure is necessary for performance, it is important to be able to recognize your individual threshold. For instance, there are some individuals who accept competition in a healthy fashion. There are others who collapse into weeping wrecks before an exam, or on comparing mark sheets and finding that their friend has scored better. It is a body reaction to any demands or changes in its internal and external environment. Whenever there is a change in the external environment such as temperature, pollutants, humidity and working conditions, it leads to stress. In these days of competition when a person makes up his mind to surpass what has been achieved by others, leading to an imbalance between demands and resources, it causes psycho-social stress. It is a part and parcel of everyday life. Stress has a different meaning depending on the stage of life you're in. The loss of a toy or a reprimand from the parents might create a stress shock in a child. An adolescent who fails an examination may feel as if everything has been lost and life has no further meaning.In an adult, the loss of his or her companion, job or professional failure may appear as if there is nothing more to be achieved. Such signs appear in the attitude and behaviour of the individual, as muscle tension in various parts of the body, palpitation and high blood pressure, indigestion and hyperacidity and ultimately in self destructive behaviour such as eating and drinking too much, smoking excessively, relying on tranquilisers, trembling, shaking, nervous blinking, dryness of throat and mouth and difficulty in swallowing. 

A) State whether the following statements are True or False. Write 'T' for True and 'F' for False :-

i) Stress tells upon the health of a person unknowingly. 

ii) Competition leads to psycho-social stress. 

iii) Stress carries the same meaning for human beings of all age. 

iv) Relying on tranquilizer is a symptom of stress. 

B) Answer each of the following questions in about 30 words:- 

i) What role stress or pressure plays on human beings? 

ii) What is stress? 

iii) What are the signs of stress on a human being?

Unseen-2

 Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:

Time is invaluable. It flows ceaselessly on without any consideration for the convenience of any man, however important or high-placed he may be. And time once gone is gone forever. Lost wealth may be regained by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance and medicine but lost time cannot be recovered by any means.

Men do not realise this. They waste their time, thinking that they would make up the loss in future. But the hope may never be realised. Every moment of our time has its particular duty. Putting off our works therefore, means over-burdening us, that is making our tasks heavier and more difficult in future. This is why students who neglect their studies from day to day often fail in spite of very hard labour befor the examination. They can neither quire knowledge nor build up character and suffer all their life in consequence. Besides, who can say what this future will be, -whether it will not be worse than the present? Some unforeseen obstacles may arise, we may be suddenly taken ill; there may be some family calamity; financial difficulties may fell upon us, and then we shall find that the task has become much {harder, if not too hard.. Moreover, if we begin to put off things, we shall soon get into the habit of indolence and thus slowly bring about our own ruin.

(a) State whether the following statements are True or False. Write 'T' for True and 'F' for False:

(You need not write the sentences, write only the numbers) 1x4=4

 (i) The loss of time can be regained. 

(ii) A wise man always wastes time.

 (iii) A man cannot make up his health.

 (iv) A lost moment is loss forever.

(b) Answer each of the following questions in about 30 words: 2x3=6

i) Name the things that can be recovered by man. 

(ii) How can one make one's task harder?

 (lii) How can a student fail in the examination?