SSC ENGLISH Mock Test 1

1.      Combine each of the following sets of sentences into one simple sentence:

a)      The policemen arrived. The mob dispersed.

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b)      I have some duties. I must perform them.

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2.      Fill in the blanks with appropriate prepositions:

a)      He keeps an eye .................. his profit.

b)      Hide the book ................ the boy.

c)      He readily complied .................... my request.

d)     A teacher should be tolerant .................... criticism.

3.      Correct the following sentences:

a)      She daily comes late.

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b)      We rushed at once to the station.

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c)      Meera respects his brother.

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d)     He insists me to visit the book stall.

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4.      Do as directed:

a)      There is no mystery so great as misery. (Make it comparative)

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b)      You are the only person fit for the post. (Change into negative)

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c)      A man who is diligent is sure to success. (Turn into a simple sentence)

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d)     He must not be late to avoid his punishment. (Make it a compound sentence)

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5.      Report the following in Indirect Speech:

a)      “Congratulations!”  She said.

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b)      He said, “Could you help me?”

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6.      Give the noun forms of the followings:

a)      Immediate: .......................................c) notorious: ....................................................

b)      Diurnal: ............................................d) masculine: ...................................................

7.      Give the adjective forms of the followings:

a)      Fate: ..............................................c) silver: ...............................................

b)      Cycle: ............................................d) mass: .................................................

8.      Change the voice of the following sentences:

a)      Who did this?

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b)      Don’t open the door.

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9.      Define a clause.

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10.  Write a paragraph on “Why do you want to be a teacher?”

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Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day

SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER'S DAY

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

SUMMARY:

The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to the beloved: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparison. In line 2, the speaker stipulates what mainly differentiates the young man from the summer’s day: he is “more lovely and more temperate.” Summer’s days tend toward extremes: they are shaken by “rough winds”; in them, the sun (“the eye of heaven”) often shines “too hot,” or too dim. And summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as “every fair from fair sometime declines.” The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in that respect: his beauty will last forever (“Thy eternal summer shall not fade...”) and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloved’s beauty will accomplish this feat, and not perish because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live “as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.”

ANALYSIS:

This sonnet is certainly the most famous in the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets; it may be the most famous lyric poem in English. Among Shakespeare’s works, only lines such as “To be or not to be” and “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” are better-known. This is not to say that it is at all the best or most interesting or most beautiful of the sonnets; but the simplicity and loveliness of its praise of the beloved has guaranteed its place. On the surface, the poem is simply a statement of praise about the beauty of the beloved; summer tends to unpleasant extremes of windiness and heat, but the beloved is always mild and temperate. Summer is incidentally personified as the “eye of heaven” with its “gold complexion”; the imagery throughout is simple and unaffected, with the “darling buds of May” giving way to the “eternal summer”, which the speaker promises the beloved. The language, too, is comparatively unadorned for the sonnets; it is not heavy with alliteration or assonance, and nearly every line is its own self-contained clause—almost every line ends with some punctuation, which affects a pause. Sonnet 18 is the first poem in the sonnets not to explicitly encourage the young man to have children. The “procreation” sequence of the first 17 sonnets ended with the speaker’s realization that the young man might not need children to preserve his beauty; he could also live, the speaker writes at the end of Sonnet 17, “in my rhyme.” Sonnet 18, then, is the first “rhyme”—the speaker’s first attempt to preserve the young man’s beauty for all time. An important theme of the sonnet (as it is an important theme throughout much of the sequence) is the power of the speaker’s poem to defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to future generations. The beloved’s “eternal summer” shall not fade precisely because it is embodied in the sonnet: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,” the speaker writes in the couplet, “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”