(Download) CBSE Class-12 Sample Paper (Creative Writing and
Translation Studies) 2015
Time: 3 hours
Maximum Marks: 80
SECTION A- Reading Comprehension (20 Marks)
Q1. Read the following passage and answer the questions
that follow:
(7 marks)
For bizarre items floating in the ocean, try topping this:
The upper half of a set of false teeth, seen bobbing around in the South China
Sea.
“I remember thinking: ‘How on earth did it get there?”’ said
Lindsay Porter, a marine scientist.
The teeth, gripped in their plastic gums, are part of the
millions of tons of plastic trash that somehow ends up in oceans around the
world every year. Mostly, it is more mundane stuff, the flotsam and jetsam of
everyday life: picnic plates, bottles, cigarette lighters, toys, spoons,
flip-flops etc.
Taken together, the virtually indestructible mass is now so
large that it is causing environmentalists, government officials and the
plastics industry itself to sit up and take note. Many scientists believe marine
plastic pollution is one of the major issues — along with climate change —
facing the planet.
The problem is not the plastic itself: Even those who lobby
against plastic pollution acknowledge that plastic materials help combat climate
change, for example by reducing the weight — and thus fuel consumption — of
vehicles, or by helping to insulate buildings.
Most of that ends up in landfills. Some is recycled. But a
significant amount ends up in the sea, swept there via rivers or sewage drains,
discarded on beaches or dumped from ships. Exact figures are hard to come by,
but some researchers estimate that 4.7 million tons reaches the sea each year,
according to Plastic Oceans, a London-based charity that has enlisted numerous
scientists to create a full-length documentary film on the topic.
Bear in mind that this stuff does not just biodegrade like
food waste, wood or paper. Scientists believe it takes decades, if not
centuries, for most types of plastic to degrade. That means virtually all the
plastic material that has ever ended up in the ocean is still out there.
“When a plastic crate or bottle floats around in the ocean,
it does not biodegrade. It only breaks into smaller and smaller pieces — which
are still plastic,” said Peter Kershaw of the British marine science center
Cefas, who helps advise the United Nations on marine environmental protection
issues.
Some of the debris sinks to the ocean floor. Some washes back
onto land, sometimes in remote and once-pristine parts of the world.
But most is gradually swept up by ocean currents, which have
assembled the assorted mess into five “gyres,” or garbage patches, in the
Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Do not imagine these to be vast, tangible floating islands of
trash that you can walk across. Yes, there are visible chunks of debris — some
large enough to trap or choke wildlife.
Mostly, however, the plastic soup consists of tiny fragments,
some the size of a fingernail, some much smaller, floating on or below the
surface across thousands of kilometers.
New York Times
On the basis of your understanding of the passage answer
the following questions:
a) What is the chief concern of the author in this article? 1
b) Can plastic be advantageous to society in any way? 1
c) What is alarming about plastic soup? 1
d) Find a word in the passage which means the opposite of impure 1
e) Name a material that is biodegradable. 1
f) What is a gyre and how does it impact marine wildlife? 2
