ENG101 Midterm Past Paper Fall 2007 Session 3

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MIDTERM EXAMINATION

FALL 2007 ENG101 - ENGLISH COMPREHENSION (Session - 3 ) Marks: 30 Time: 120min

Student Name:

Center Name/Code:

Exam Date: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Instructions

3. Read the passage given below carefully before answering any question.
4. USE A PEN FOR ATTEMPTING THE PAPER.ANY PAPER SOLVED IN PENCIL WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Do not use any erasable material for attempting the paper.

Q5. Do not ask any question about the contents of this examination from anyone.

1. If you think that there is something wrong with any of the question, attempt it to the best of your understanding.

Passage

Alexander the Great had placed himself before the relief at Persepolis, the richest city in all Persia. He had just come through rooms in which beautiful tapestries covered the walls. Earlier he had seen, in one of the several palatial residences, caskets made from Lebanon cedar, their wooden sides engraved, and decorated with gold and silver. He had admired the high ceilings, supported by fluted columns that held aloft carvings of bulls and griffins.

Now he carefully studied the figures that had been chiseled into the outer stone walls. The dress on some of the figures represented the attire in lands that Alexander had already claimed for himself. The costumes on yet other carved figures represented people in lands that were still part of the vast Persian Empire. These were lands that Alexander planned to conquer. The people shown taking tributes to the Persian King were people whom Alexander intended to subjugate.

Alexander the Great was eager to move on to these distant lands, but his colleagues, who had downed large amounts of wine, stumbled around in a drunken stupor. Their inebriated minds stirred up within them a desire for revenge. They wanted to make the Persians pay for the damage a former Persian king, Xerxes, had done after invading Athens, more than 150 years earlier. Goaded by these drunken men and beguiled by members of his harem, Alexander the Great ordered the burning of Persepolis. Men and women, holding aloft flaming torches, raced up and down the terraces of Persepolis.

Flames ignited the wooden beams of the palaces once built by Xerxes. Looters fought off the heat of the inferno in order to drag out gold vessels, and to tear silver rings from heavy draperies.

When the fires had died out, all that remained were the tall stone columns and the exquisite stone carvings on the outer walls. Alexander the Great had left, for discovery by future visitors, the Persian soldiers who were untouched by the leaping flames. These “Immortals” still march today in precise formation across the chiseled stone remains of Persepolis.

Question

Question Marks

Q1. Use the information in the given passage to answer these questions: (2 marks)

Which Persian city did Alexander the Great set afire?

Q2. How did the Persians decorate the tall columns of Persepolis? (3 marks)

Q3. The burning of Persepolis was intended as? (2 marks)

Q4. Are the ruins of Persepolis something you would like to see? Briefly comment. (3 marks)

Q5. Write a précis of the given passage. (Précis should be precise and must not have quotes from the passage) (10 marks)

Q6. Choose the best option from the choices given below: (1 marks)

Which of the following did Alexander the Great not find at Persepolis?

tapestries hanging on walls · fluted columns · none of the above

Q7. Which of the following did Alexander’s men take from Persepolis? (1 marks)

gold vessels · silver rings · both a and b

Q8. Alexander the Great set fire to Persepolis because Xerxes put a torch to: (1 marks)

Athens · Alexandria · Rome

Q9. The Persians brought cedar from _____________________ to Persepolis. (1 marks)

1. Lebanon