Foundation Course in English for Computing

Note : Attempt all the questions.

1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
Sometimes solutions to large problems can be fairly simple. Take the energy problem. Solutions focus on redesigning the automobile, boosting the use of nuclear and other clean energy and so on. But we could make a simpler start, says Matt Precott, a British environmental scientist. He wants a complete ban on the traditional light bulb. The cheapest way for developing countries to make optimum use of limited energy supplies, and for developed countries to achieve cuts in their carbon dioxide emission, says Prescott, is to augment energy efficiency. As a first step, he suggests making light bulbs – a major source of waste in energy consumption – museum pieces. This could even encourage people to ‘aim higher’ in increasing efficiency in everything from hot water systems to home insulation, thereby cutting Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
After all, it is domestic energy consumption that causes more than 25 percent of the global GHG emission of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen dioxide. Recent research indicates that the wider use of ‘green lighting’ can cut this dramatically. Compact fluorescent light bulbs, for instance, use only about a quarter of the energy of incandescent bulbs to produce the same number or more lumens. That they also last about ten times longer than regular bulbsis a bonus. Compact fluorescents may be more expensive initially, but the long-term savings would surely offset this. Light emitting diodes (LEDs) also offer an excellent alternative to the light bulb.
It makes sense in energy-starved countries like India to have regulated energy-efficiency campaigns that could reduce waste and pollution, and stimulate innovation. Let’s start with light. The public should be made aware of concepts like ‘task lighting’: concentrating light only where it’s needed. This avoids waste of energy and since task lighting uses lower watt bulbs, you don’t annoy others in the area either with an intrusively bright light. The government could kick off the process by providing tax incentives to manufacturers to market more efficient fluorescent bulbs.
(i) What does the writer mean when he says that traditional light should be made ‘museum pieces’?
(ii) List three ways to conserve energy as suggested by the writer.
(iii) Give two reasons why compact fluorescent light bulbs are better.
(iv) What does ‘task lighting’ mean? What are its advantages?

Q.2.
(a) Change the following sentences into the passive voice:
(i) The President declared the exhibition open.
(ii) My mother gave me a book on my birthday.
(b) Fill in the blanks in the following sentences with the correct tense forms of the verbs given in brackets:
(i) She __________________ (go) to work every day. But she _____________ (not go) today.
(ii) He jumped off the train while it___________________ (move).

Q.3
(a) Correct the following sentences:
(i) This novel is too interesting.
(ii) She hanged the picture on the wall.

(b) Add a suitable tag-question to the following sentence:
You have paid him fully ___________________.

(c) Write a sentence using the phrasal verb ‘look after’.

(d) Rewrite the following in indirect speech:
She said, “Father, I have got a job.”

Q.4 Write a paragraph in about 150 words on any one of the following:
(i) Mobile phones can be a source or great nuisance.
(ii) Advantages and disadvantages of email.
(iii) Computer games.

Q.5.
(a) Fill in the blanks with suitable articles (a,an and the), wherever necessary:
(i) ___________________ girl in blue is my sister.
(ii) He is ________________ university employee.
(iii) It will be _____________ honour to meet her.

(b) Use the following words in one sentence each of bring out the difference in their meaning:
(i) except
(ii) accept

6. Write an essay of about 300 words on any one of the following topics:
(i) My Vision of India in 2020
(ii) Influence of Television Serials on our life
(iii) Computers have turned the world into a global village

7. Read the following passage and summarize it to one-third of its length. Give a suitable title.
We all start life as weak, helpless creatures, totally dependent for both our physical and mental well-being upon those who care for us. It has been demonstrated that, from the very beginning of its separate existence, the baby requires more than simple attention to its physical needs. If a baby is to develop satisfactorily, it is not enough merely to feed it and keep it warm; it needs a mother as a person who will play with it, caress it, and show it affection in all the hundred ways in which mothers do show love towards a child which has been desired and which is welcomed. Babies who are cared for physically, but whose emotional needs are neglected develop more slowly and may, in some instances, suffer permanent damage in that, in adult life, they may never be able to form close emotional ties with any other human being. Every psychiatrist has seen examples of people who were brought up in institutions and who, perhaps, were excellently fed and clothed, but whose emotional needs were left quite unsatisfied. As a result, they grew up into a kind of person who can never keep a friend because the demands which they make upon others are not those of friendship, but rather those of a lost child looking for a parent who can never be found.

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