ISC 2020 English Literature Question Paper for Class 12

About this paper

This is the ISC Class 12 English Paper 2 (Literature in English) from the 2020 board examination, code 1220-801B. It carries 100 marks and lasts three hours, with an extra fifteen minutes for reading only. The paper has 18 questions. Candidates answer one from Section A and four from Section B, on at least three textbooks, and on only one play: Shakespeare's The Tempest or Bernard Shaw's Candida. Section A is a reference-to-context question in which two of three passages are chosen. Section B sets twenty-mark essays, some of them in parts, on those plays and on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the essay collection Contemplations, the short-story collection Echoes and the poetry collection Reverie. This copy has the questions only.

Exam

ISC Class 12

Subject

English Literature

Year

2020

Paper code

1220-801B

Maximum marks

100

Time allowed

3 hours + 15 min reading

Questions

18

Pages

7

Answers included

No, questions only

Paper pattern

• Section A

  20 marks

  One context question on either The Tempest or Candida: two passages chosen from three, with short questions on each

• Section B

  80 marks

  Four essays of 20 marks each, on at least three textbooks, which may include only one of the two plays

Topics covered

• The Tempest
• Candida
• Things Fall Apart
• My Visions of India
• On Being Idle
• On the Decay of the Art of Lying
• B. Wordsworth
• The Sound Machine
• Salvatore
• Dover Beach
• We Are the Music Makers
• John Brown

Questions from this paper

1. Prospero calls Caliban "a devil, a born devil". In this context, evaluate Caliban's character and role in The Tempest.
2. In Act III of Candida, describe the conflict between Marchbanks and Morell, and the auction Candida initiates. Why does she call it an auction?
3. In Candida, Shaw presents Candida as an unconventional woman. Discuss.
4. "His whole life was dominated by fear of failure and of weakness." Do you think this is true of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart?
5. How does Roald Dahl depict obsession in the short story The Sound Machine?
6. The poem John Brown presents two attitudes to war. Describe the two attitudes.