Lost Spring class 12 CBSE MCQs term 1 exam

LOST SPRING

Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow. 

(A) "It is his karam, his destiny," says Mukesh's grandmother, who has watched her own husband go blind with the 

dust from polishing the glass of bangles. "Can a god-given lineage ever be broken?" she implies. Born in the caste of 

bangle makers, they have seen nothing but bangles — in the house, in the yard, in every other house, every other 

yard, every street in Firozabad. Spirals of bangles — sunny gold, paddy green, royal blue, pink, purple, every colour 

born out of the seven colours of the rainbow — lie in mounds in unkempt yards, are piled on four-wheeled handcarts, 

pushed by young men along the narrow lanes of the shanty town. And in dark hutments, next to lines of flames of 

flickering oil lamps, sit boys and girls with their fathers and mothers, welding pieces of coloured glass into circles of

bangles. Their eyes are more adjusted to the dark than to the light outside. That is why they often end up losing their 

eyesight before they become adults. 

(i) Choose the option that best demonstrates the relevant traits of the people based on the extract provided. 

(a) unlucky and poor 

(b) poor but quite skilful 

(c) poor but satisfied 

(d) unlucky and unsatisfied 

(ii) "Can a god-given lineage ever be broken?" This means Mukesh's grandmother wondered if 

(a) ancestral occupation be ever changed. 

(b) God save them from poverty. 

(c) they could go to another level of society. 

(d) Mukesh could live happily. 

(iii) 'It is his karam' indicated the grandmother's perspective for fate. Pick the option that correctly states these 

conditions. 

1. excitement 

2. ignorance 

3. acceptance 

4. interests 

5. worry for the future 

6. despair of the condition 

(a) 1 and 4 

(b) 2 and 5 

(c) 4 and 5 

(d) 3 and 6

(B) "I will learn to drive a car," he answers, looking straight into my eyes. His dream looms like a mirage amidst the 

dust of streets that fill his town Firozabad, famous for its bangles. Every other family in Firozabad is engaged in making 

bangles. It is the centre of India's glass-blowing industry where families have spent generations working around 

furnaces, welding glass, making bangles for all the women in the land it seems.

(i) The expression, 'His dream looms like a mirage' refer to 

(a) Mukesh's impossible dream of learning to drive a car. 

(b) Saheb's dream to play tennis. 

(c) Savita's dream to get married. 

(d) Anees Jung's dream to write a new book. 

(II) The literary device used in the line, 'looms like a mirage amidst the streets that fill his town Firozabad' is 

(a) pun. 

(b) metaphor. 

(c) simile. 

(d) transferred epithet. 

(iii) The people of Firozabad were engaged in the profession of 

(a) writing books. 

(b) collecting garbage. 

(c) helping people as tourist guides. 

(d) making bangles. 

(iv) What does the phrase, 'spent generations' indicate about the bangle makers of Firozabad? 

(a) Spent very little time 

(b) Spent only a couple of years 

(c) Even the ancestors of the people of Firozabad were engaged in making bangles. 

(d) Hardly spent any time

(C) Mukesh's family is among them. None of them know that it is illegal for children like him to work in the glass 

furnaces with high temperatures, in dingy cells without air and light; that the law, if enforced, could get him and all 

those 20,000 children out of the hot furnaces where they slog their daylight hours, often losing the brightness of 

their eyes. Mukesh's eyes beam as he volunteers to take me home, which he proudly says is being rebuilt. We walk 

down stinking lanes choked with garbage, past homes that remain hovels with crumbling walls, wobbly doors, no 

windows, crowded with families of humans and animals coexisting in a primeval state. He stops at the door of one 

such house, bangs a wobbly iron door with his foot, and pushes it open. We enter a half-built shack. In one part of it,

thatched with dead grass, is a firewood stove over which sits a large vessel of sizzling spinach leaves. On the ground, 

in large aluminium platters, are more chopped vegetables. A frail young woman is cooking the evening meal for the 

whole family. Through eyes filled with smoke she smiles. 

(i) The expression, 'Slog their daylight hours' philosophically means 

(a) struggle continuously during the daytime. 

(b) losing out the prime time of one's life. 

(c) live in areas where there is no light. 

(d) waste the daytime doing nothing. 

(ii) Why are the girl's eyes filled with smoke? 

(a) The air is foggy, and it is glazing her vision. 

(b) The girl is warning herself at the fireplace. 

(c) The men in the family are smoking. 

(d) The girl's eyes are engulfed in the smoke from the firewood stove. 

(iii) Choose the expression that best matches the statement— 'none of them know that it is illegal for children to 

work'. 

(a) empathy 

(b) ignorance 

(c) persuasion 

(d) immoral 

(iv) Which style, from those given below, is being used by the author, when she says, "losing the brightness of their 

eyes"? 

(a) cheerful 

(b) humorous 

(c) sarcastic 

(d) disappointed

(D) Food is more important for survival than an identity. “If at the end of the day we can feed our families and go to 

bed without an aching stomach, we would rather live here than in the fields that gave us no grain,” say a group of 

women in tattered saris when I ask them why they left their beautiful land of green fields and rivers. Wherever they 

find food, they pitch their tents that become transit homes. Children grow up in them, becoming partners in survival. 

And survival in Seemapuri means rag-picking. Through the years, it has acquired the proportions of a fine art. Garbage 

to them is gold. It is their daily bread, a roof over their heads, even if it is a leaking roof. But for a child it is even more.

(i) The phrase ‘transit homes’ refer to the dwellings that are

(a) unhygienic. 

(b) inadequate. 

(c) fragile. 

(d) temporary.

(ii) Identify the figure of speech used in the sentence “Garbage to them is gold”.

(a) hyperbole 

(b) simile 

(c) synecdoche 

(d) personification

(iii) Choose the term which best matches the statement ‘Food is more important for survival than an identity.””?

(a) immorality 

(b) necessity 

(c) obligation 

(d) ambition

(iv) What does ‘acquired the proportions of a fine art’ mean?

(a) Rag-picking has regained its lost status.

(b) A segment of ragpickers is skilled in fine arts.

(c) Rag-picking has attained the position of a skill.

(d) Only a few people are experts in rag-picking.