FEDERAL PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION FOR RECRUITMENT
TO POSTS IN BPS-17 UNDER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, 1978
ENGLISH (Précis and Composition)
Time allowed: 3 hours Maximum marks: 100
- Make a precis of the following passage and suggest a suitable title.
“I was a firm believer is democracy, whereas he (D.H. Lawrence) had developed the whole philosophy of Fascism before the politicians had thought of it. ‘I don’t believe”, he wrote, “in democratic control. I think the working man is fit to elect governors or overseers for his immediate circumstances, but for no more. You must utterly revise the electorate. The working man shall elect superiors for the things that concern him immediately, no more. From the other classes, as they rise, shall be elected the higher governors. The thing must culminate in one real head, as every organic thing must — no foolish republics with no foolish presidents, but an elected king, something like Julius Caesar.” He, of course, in his imagination, supposed that when a dictatorship was established he would be the Julius Caesar. This was the part of the dream-like quality of all his thinking. He never let himself bump into reality. He would go into long tirades about how one must proclaim “the truth” to the multitude, and he seemed to have no doubt that multitude would listen. Would he put his political philosophy into a book? No in our corrupt society the written word is always a lie. Would he go in Hyde Park and proclaim “the truth” from a soap box? No: that would be far too dangerous (odd streaks of prudence emerged in him from time to time). Well, I said, what would you do? At this point he would change the subject.
Gradually I discovered that he had no real wish to make the world better, but only to indulge in eloquent Soliloquy about how bad it was. If anybody heard the soliloquies so much the better, but they were designed at most to produce a little faithful band of disciplines who could sit in the deserts of New Mexico and feel holy. All this was conveyed to me in the language of a Fascist dictator as what I must preach, the “must” having thirteen under-linings
(Lord Russell)
- “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin built there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine beam rows will I have there, a hive of the honey bee,
And live alone in bee loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow.
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the crickets sing;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray.
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
(i) Using about 50 words, bring out the reason why the poet wants to go Innisfree and what he intends to do there.
(ii) Critically comment on the main idea and language of the poem.
- (a) Use FIVE of the following pair of words in your own sentences so as to bring out their meaning:
(i) Affection, Affectation (ii) Urban, Urbane (iii) Official, Officious (iv) Beside, Besides (v) Casual, Causal (vi) Pour, Pore (vii) Humiliation, Humility (viii) Wreck, Wreak (ix) Bare, Bear (x) Temporal, Temporary
(b) Use the following expressions and idioms in your own sentences so as to bring out their meaning:
(i) The acid test (ii) A bad hat (iii) In a blue funk (iv) Set one’s cap (v) Down at heel (vi) To die in harness (vii) Dead as door nail (viii) To raise coin (ix) To strike one’s colours (x) To carry the day
- Write a short story of about 200 words illustrating the moral,
“A fool may learn a wise man wit.”
OR
Write a letter to a foreign friend giving him a few reasons why Muslims demanded Pakistan. -
Discuss the statement that the vacuum of values which we are experiencing today has come about because those who should have surrendered without a struggle.
OR
Write a note on the deteriorating standards of education in our country. Suggest some remedies.