Class 11English · Reading SkillsFull chapter

Reading, Note-Making and Summary

Q: Pick out the remedies in the urban-heat passage that specifically help people who work outdoors, and explain why the writer singles them out.

The two are shaded bus stops and shaded footpaths . Reflective roofs and cleaned lakes help a whole neighbourhood, but shade at a bus stop or on a footpath protects the person who has no indoor refuge at all. The writer singles them out because of the argument built in the third paragraph. That paragraph has just shown that heat falls unevenly: a family in an air-conditioned flat can shut it out, while a construction worker, a delivery rider or a vendor cannot. Having named those three people, the passage then chooses remedies that reach exactly them. The structure is deliberate — the problem paragraph names the victims, and the solution paragraph answers them. Method point. This is an analysis question, not a fact question. The marks are for showing the link between two paragraphs, so an answer that only lists the remedies has done half the work.

Q: From the survey table in the case-based passage, describe in your own words what happens to study-related and entertainment use in Class X, and state what the passage allows you to conclude about the reason.

What the table shows. Class X breaks the pattern of the other groups. Study-related use rises to its highest point on the table, 1.6 hours, against 0.9 hours in Classes VIII-IX. At the same time entertainment falls to 1.5 hours from 2.1 hours. The total stays unchanged at 3.9 hours, so the shift is invisible if you read only the total column. What you may conclude about the reason. Nothing. The survey recorded how the phone was used and did not ask why, and the principal's note to parents states this plainly — it says the survey has told the school what students are doing but not why. Board-year pressure is a reasonable guess, but it is your knowledge, not the data. Method point. In an evaluation question, "the passage does not say" is often the answer the examiner wants. Students lose the mark by supplying a sensible explanation the data never supported.

Q: Make notes on the practice passage on teenage sleep in a suitable format, using recognisable abbreviations, and supply a key.

Teenage Sleep — Causes, Costs, Cures 1. The deficit 1.1 Most sr. sch. stu. sleep 5-6 hrs 1.2 Doctors' recmnd. for adolescents: 8-10 hrs 1.3 ∴ steady daily shortfall 2. Causes 2.1 Body clock shifts later @ puberty → not sleepy by 10 pm 2.2 Sch. starts earlier than in middle sch. 2.3 Coaching stacked b/f & after sch. 2.4 Bright lt. at night → brain reads day ≠ over 2.5 Phone by pillow → broken sleep 3. Costs 3.1 Sleep files away the day's learning → short night erases study 3.2 Attn., mood & immunity ↓ 3.3 More irritability & minor illness 3.4 Sleep in the very classes they stay up for 4. Remedies 4.1 Fixed sleep/wake time, incl. Sun. 4.2 Screens away 30 min b/f bed 4.3 Charge phone outside bedrm. 4.4 No caffeine after late aftn. 4.5 Naps 20 min, not 2 hrs 4.6 Sch. timetable must stop borrowing sleep time Key Short form Full form Short form Full form sr. senior bedrm. bedroom sch. school min minutes stu. students Sun. Sunday hrs hours @ at recmnd. recommendation & and b/f before → leads to lt. light ↓ falls attn. attention ≠ is not incl. including ∴ therefore aftn. afternoon Marks: Title 1, Numbering and indenting 1, Key 1, Notes 2 = 5/5 . The four headings come straight from what each paragraph of the passage does — the deficit, the causes, the costs, the remedies. Every one of the nineteen shortenings in the key is used somewhere in the notes, which is what the key mark actually tests.

Q: Thinking about language: the sleep passage uses "deficit", "unglamorous" and "borrowing" in ways that are not their most ordinary sense. Explain what each means in its sentence and why the writer chose it.

Word What it means here Why the writer chose it deficit — "running a steady deficit" A shortfall between the sleep needed and the sleep taken. It is a word from accounts and budgets. Using it makes sleep sound like a balance that must be settled, which sets up the last line of the passage about time being borrowed. unglamorous — "The remedies are unglamorous but they work." Dull, ordinary, without any appeal or excitement. It concedes the reader's likely objection before the reader can make it. By admitting the remedies are boring, the writer earns the right to insist they are effective. borrowing — "sleep as time available for borrowing" Taking hours from sleep to spend on study or coaching. Borrowed time has to be repaid, and the passage has already shown the repayment — lost learning, falling attention, illness. The word carries the argument without stating it. Method point. Two of the three — deficit and borrowing — come from the language of money, and reading them together shows the passage arguing that lost sleep is a debt that falls due. Unglamorous is doing a different job: it manages the reader rather than building the image. Noticing which words a writer has borrowed from another field, and which are there to disarm you, is exactly what an appreciation question rewards.

Q: Write a summary of the passage on electronic waste in Question 1 in not more than 50 words. (3 marks)

Model answer. Indian homes store dead electronics because devices are replaced rather than repaired, owners cannot judge their value, and the scrap dealer seems wrong for a laptop. Delay is harmful: lead, cadmium and mercury reach soil, water and unprotected workers. Take-back counters, municipal drives and an annual society collection solve it. (50 words) How it was built. Four note headings became four units of the paragraph — what is stored, why it is stored, what the delay costs, what fixes it — joined with because and a colon. The passage was not looked at again; only the notes were used, which is what keeps the wording original and the length inside fifty. Mark breakdown: Content 2 — all four main headings appear, none dropped. Expression 1 — one paragraph, own words, no illustrative detail, no quotation, no opinion, exactly fifty words. Total 3/3 . What a weaker attempt does. It opens with the passage's own image of the drawer, spends fifteen words listing chargers and remotes, and then has no room left for the section on dangers. That loses one Content mark for the missing heading and the Expression mark for lifted wording — 1/3 for an answer whose author understood the passage perfectly well.

Q: Refer to the practice passage on urban heat in Section 2 of this chapter. Why does the writer insist that "design faults are corrected by design, not by endurance"? Answer in 40-50 words. (2 marks)

Pattern note: in the CBSE pattern the two comprehension tasks in Section A are objective type, so a written short answer like this one belongs to school papers and to older board papers. It is kept here because it is the sharpest test of whether you can prove an answer from the text instead of recognising it among four options. Model answer. Because treating city heat as bad weather makes it something to be suffered patiently. The writer has shown that concrete, narrow streets and lost trees created it, so the remedy is also human — reflective roofs, cleaned lakes, shaded footpaths. Endurance falls on those who cannot afford escape. (47 words) Why this scores. A short answer of 40-50 words carries roughly two ideas, no more. Here they are: first, that the heat was made rather than inherited; second, that endurance is unjust because it is unequally distributed. Both are drawn from the passage, and the specific remedies are named rather than gestured at. What loses marks. Rewriting the quoted line in slightly different words without explaining it. Also, drifting into general advice about planting trees to save the environment — accurate in life, unsupported in this passage, and outside the question.

Q: Refer to the case-based passage and survey table in Section 3 of this chapter. Describe the pattern the table shows, and explain what the school could reasonably conclude from it and what it could not. Answer in 120-150 words. (5 marks)

Pattern note: the board paper asks this kind of thinking through objective questions. Written out at length, as school papers often do, it shows you exactly where the interpretation marks end and the evaluation marks begin. Model answer. Total reported phone use climbs across the school, from 2.4 hours in Classes VI-VII to 5.4 hours in Classes XI-XII, but the climb is not smooth. Classes VIII-IX and Class X share an identical total of 3.9 hours while behaving quite differently: Class X records the highest study-related use on the table, 1.6 hours against 0.9, and the lowest entertainment use of the three senior groups, 1.5 hours against 2.1. Entertainment is the largest single figure anywhere in the table, 2.6 hours in Classes XI-XII. The school can reasonably conclude that senior students spend longer on phones than junior ones, and that Class X uses its phone differently rather than less. It cannot conclude why. The figures are self-estimates, not measurements; they come from one school; and no outcome such as marks or sleep was recorded, so no cause can be claimed. (142 words) Why this scores full marks. The answer separates the two halves of the question cleanly — description first, evaluation second — and quotes exact figures rather than saying "much higher". Crucially, it names the three specific limitations, which is where the evaluation marks sit, and it resists the tempting explanation about board-year pressure. A confident guess about the reason would cost marks here even though it sounds intelligent.

The whole chapter in one place — read it, then test yourself. Clear notes, a reference sheet, a practice quiz, and worked NCERT solutions & PYQs.

In this chapter

What Section A Asks For — 26 Marks, Three Tasks The Unseen Passage — Reading for 10 Marks The Case-Based Passage With Data — 8 Marks Note-Making — 5 Marks, Three of Them for Format The Summary in 50 Words — and Exam Day

What Section A Asks For — 26 Marks, Three Tasks

Quick answer Section A carries 26 of the 80 written marks and splits into three separately marked tasks — a 10-mark unseen passage, an 8-mark case-based passage with data, and note-making plus summarising worth 5 + 3.

Section A is worth 26 marks in the 80-mark written paper. Section B (Grammar and Creative Writing Skills) carries 23 and Section C (Literature and Supplementary Reading) carries 31. So Section A is not the biggest section, but it is the one you cannot revise for, because every word of it is unseen. There is no chapter to learn. What you can learn is the shape of the section, so that nothing on the paper surprises you. Check the current year's syllabus before your exam: the shape of Section A has been stable for several years, while the split inside Sections B and C has moved more than once.

It is three tasks, not one. They are marked in completely different ways, and students lose marks mainly by treating them as the same thing.

Task	What you are given	Marks	How you answer
1. Unseen passage	A passage that may be factual, descriptive or literary	10	MCQ / objective type
2. Case-based factual passage	A passage with verbal or visual input — statistical data, a chart, a table	8	MCQ / objective type
3. Note-making and summarising	One passage of roughly 200-250 words	5 + 3	Written, in a fixed format

Word limits. The syllabus fixes a combined limit of 600-750 words for the first two passages together. You will therefore not face two long passages: expect the first to run to roughly 400-450 words and the case-based one to roughly 200-250. The note-making passage is separate and short — about 200-250 words.

Task 3 is one passage, not two. This is the single most useful fact in the section and many students miss it. The notes and the summary are based on the same passage. That means the summary is not a second reading job at all — it is your own notes rewritten as sentences. Get the notes right and the summary is almost free.

The marking split for Task 3. These figures follow the CBSE marking scheme for the task, and they are worth memorising, because three of the five note-making marks are for format alone.

Component	Marks	What it actually means
Title	1	A short heading that names the whole passage, not one paragraph
Numbering and indenting	1	One consistent system, sub-points set in from the margin
Key / glossary	1	At least four abbreviations, listed with full forms, all of them used
Notes	2	The content itself — in phrases, in your own shortened form
Note-making total	5
Summary — Content	2	Every main heading of your notes appears
Summary — Expression	1	One paragraph, own words, up to 50 words
Summary total	3

If your school's paper prints a different summary limit — some internal papers still ask for 80 words — follow the paper in front of you. The syllabus figure is 50.

"Objective type" is not the same as "easy". A 10-mark descriptive answer gives you partial credit for partial understanding. An MCQ does not. Eighteen of the twenty-six marks here are all-or-nothing per question. That is exactly why the reading method in the next two sections matters more than the size of your vocabulary.

A note on the passages in this chapter. Every practice passage below was written for this chapter. None of them is taken from a textbook or reproduced from a board paper, so mark them up, underline them, and use them as many times as you like.

Section A total 26 = 10 + 8 + 5 + 3 marks · Passage 1, case-based passage, note-making, summary. Know which task you are in before you start writing.

The whole paper A 26 + B 23 + C 31 = 80 marks · Plus 20 marks of school-based internal assessment. Section A is the only unseen part of the written paper.

Combined passage length 600-750 words for both unseen passages together words · So roughly 400-450 for the first and 200-250 for the case-based one. Do not budget time for two long passages.

Note-making passage approximately 200-250 words words · Short by design. It will have a clear three-or-four-part structure — find that structure before writing a single note.

Summary limit up to 50 words words · Going over costs the Expression mark, not the Content marks. Count and write the count.

Question type in Tasks 1 and 2 MCQ / Objective Type only No partial credit. Eighteen all-or-nothing marks — precision beats fluency here.

Remember

Section A = 26 marks, split 10 + 8 + 5 + 3, and every mark comes from material you have never seen before.
The two comprehension passages share a combined 600-750 word budget; the note-making passage is a separate 200-250 words.
Note-making is marked Title 1 + Numbering and indenting 1 + Key/glossary 1 + Notes 2 = 5. Summary is Content 2 + Expression 1 = 3, in up to 50 words.
Notes and summary are built on the SAME passage — the summary is your notes rewritten, not a fresh reading job.
Three of the five note-making marks are pure format. They are the most rehearsable marks in the whole paper, so secure them first.

The Unseen Passage — Reading for 10 Marks

Quick answer A 400-450 word factual, descriptive or literary passage followed by objective questions worth ten marks, testing comprehension, interpretation, analysis, inference and vocabulary — answered by three short reading passes and a rule that every answer must be underlinable.

The first passage may be factual, descriptive or literary. The skills listed for it are comprehension, interpretation, analysis, inference and vocabulary. Those are five different jobs, and recognising which one a question is doing is most of the work.

Read it in three short passes.

Pass one — no pen. Read straight through at normal speed. You are finding out what the passage is about and where it is going. Do not stop at a hard word; the context will usually give it to you later.
Pass two — read the questions. Now you know what to hunt for. Mark which ones are simple read-offs and which need thinking.
Pass three — with a pencil. Go back for each answer and underline the exact words that prove it. If you cannot underline anything, you are guessing.

One extra habit is worth thirty seconds. After pass one, write two or three words in the margin beside each paragraph saying what that paragraph does — "the problem", "why it happens", "who suffers", "the fix". Best-title and main-idea questions are then answered from your margin, not by re-reading four hundred words.

Practice passage (about 330 words, written for this chapter — shorter than the exam's, to keep the worked answers manageable).

Anyone who has stepped off a train at a small-town station and then reached a big city the same evening knows the difference in the air. The city is hotter, and it stays hotter long after dark. This is not imagination. Built-up areas absorb heat through the day and release it slowly through the night, so a city can remain several degrees warmer than the open country around it. Planners call the effect an urban heat island.

The causes are ordinary and visible. Concrete, brick and asphalt hold heat far better than soil or grass. Tall buildings trap warm air in narrow streets, blocking the breeze that would otherwise carry it away. Air conditioners, vehicles and kitchens pump their own heat outdoors. Above all, cities have fewer trees than they used to. A mature neem or peepal does two things at once: it blocks sunlight before the ground can absorb it, and it cools the air by releasing water vapour. Replace that tree with a parking bay and both services are lost together.

The consequences fall unevenly. A family in an air-conditioned flat can shut the heat out. A construction worker, a delivery rider or a vendor cannot, and it is these households that live in the tin-roofed, treeless parts of a city where the effect is strongest. Heat is therefore not only a weather problem but a question of who can afford to escape it.

What can be done is also ordinary. Roofs painted white or covered with reflective sheeting bounce sunlight back instead of storing it. Lakes and stepwells, when they are cleaned rather than filled in, cool the neighbourhoods around them. Bus stops with shade, and shaded footpaths, protect exactly the people who most need protection. None of this is dramatic engineering. It is maintenance, planting and paint.

The mistake is to treat the heat island as a summer inconvenience. It is a design fault, and design faults are corrected by design, not by endurance.

Worked questions. Notice that the third column, not the second, is the part you are learning.

Question	Answer	The reasoning — and the trap
What two services does a mature tree provide, according to the passage?	It blocks sunlight before the ground absorbs it, and it cools the air by releasing water vapour.	A read-off. "Absorbs carbon dioxide" is true of trees and completely wrong here — the passage never says it. Your biology lesson is not evidence in Section A.
"Heat is therefore not only a weather problem but a question of who can afford to escape it." What is the writer arguing?	That the burden falls on poorer households, who cannot buy their way out of the heat.	Inference. The two sentences before it set an air-conditioned flat against a construction worker under a tin roof. Test the trap option — "air conditioners should be taxed" — by asking: could the writer disagree with that? Yes. So it is not in the passage.
The most suitable title would be —	Something like "Why Our Cities Stay Hot, and What Would Cool Them".	A title must cover the first paragraph and the last. "The Death of the Neem Tree" takes one vivid detail from one paragraph. That is the standard wrong title.
"None of this is dramatic engineering." Here "dramatic" means —	Large-scale and impressive.	Vocabulary in context. The very next sentence contrasts it with "maintenance, planting and paint". "Theatrical" is the dictionary's first meaning and therefore the trap. Always substitute the option back into the sentence.
Why does the writer end with "design faults are corrected by design, not by endurance"?	To reject the idea that people should simply put up with the heat, and to place the responsibility on planning.	A purpose question. Ask what the sentence does in the argument, not what it says. It closes the passage by rejecting an attitude.
The writer's tone in the last paragraph is best described as —	Firm and corrective.	Tone comes from word choice: "the mistake is", "design fault", "not by endurance". Nothing here is angry or humorous, so avoid options that overstate the feeling.

The six question families. Every objective question in Section A belongs to one of these.

Family	What it sounds like	How to answer it
Fact / detail	"According to the passage…"	It is stated. Locate it and match it. Do not paraphrase it into a different meaning.
Inference	"It can be concluded that…", "The writer implies…"	Not stated, but forced by what is stated. For each option ask: could the writer disagree with this? If yes, reject it.
Vocabulary in context	"The word X in paragraph 3 means…"	Put each option back into the original sentence. Only one will still make sense.
Reference	"'It' in line 12 refers to…"	Read the sentence before. The referent is almost always the nearest preceding noun that fits.
Main idea / best title	"The most suitable title is…"	It must cover the opening and the closing paragraph, not the most memorable one.
Tone, attitude, purpose	"The writer's tone is…", "Why does the writer mention…?"	Read the adjectives and verbs the writer chose. Ask what a sentence is doing, not what it reports.

The four distractors that do most of the damage.

True but irrelevant. A correct statement about the world that the passage never makes.
Too extreme. Watch for always, never, only, all, proves. Passages hedge; options that do not hedge usually overstate the passage.
Reversed. Cause and effect swapped, or two groups exchanged. Reread slowly — this one survives fast reading.
From your own knowledge. The most tempting of all, because it feels like being well-read. The passage is the entire universe of evidence.

If the instruction says "in your own words", copying the sentence scores nothing even when the content is right. Change the vocabulary and the sentence shape, keep the meaning.

Reading order Passage (no pen) → questions → passage (with pencil) Reading the questions first ruins the map; reading the passage twice without the questions wastes minutes.

The underline rule Every answer must be underlinable in the passage The single habit that removes guessing. Applies to inference too — the proof is there, just spread over two sentences.

Inference test Could the writer disagree with this option? If yes, reject it. An inference must be forced by the text, not merely compatible with it.

Extreme-word alarm always / never / only / all / proves Passages qualify their claims. An unqualified option is usually a stretched version of a real sentence.

Vocabulary method Substitute the option into the original sentence "Dramatic engineering" sits opposite "maintenance, planting and paint", so it means large-scale — not theatrical.

"In your own words" Paraphrase, do not lift Copying the source sentence scores zero even when the content is completely correct.

Remember

Three passes: read without a pen, read the questions, then reread with a pencil underlining the proof for each answer.
If you cannot underline the words that prove your answer, you are guessing — reread rather than commit.
Test an inference by asking whether the writer could disagree with the option. If yes, it is not the answer.
For vocabulary-in-context, substitute each option back into the original sentence; the dictionary's first meaning is usually the trap.
A best-title answer must cover the opening and closing paragraphs, not one vivid detail from the middle.

The Case-Based Passage With Data — 8 Marks

Quick answer A short factual passage carrying visual input — a table, chart or set of figures — where marks are lost by comparing totals instead of rows, importing outside knowledge, and turning a pattern into a cause.

The second task is an unseen case-based factual passage carrying verbal or visual input — statistical data, a chart, a table. It is the shorter of the two comprehension passages, running to roughly 200-250 words with its table included, and it leans hard on one thing the first passage may never touch: evaluation. That is, not only what the data shows but what it cannot show.

Read the sentence above the table first. It tells you three things you need before a single number means anything: what is being counted, in what unit, and who counted it. Students who dive at the figures answer confidently in the wrong unit.

Practice passage (written for this chapter).

A school in Nashik asked 400 of its students, from Class VI to Class XII, to record how they used a phone on an ordinary school day. Students filled in their own figures, so the numbers are self-estimates rather than measurements. The averages, in hours per day, are given below. These figures are invented for practice. Do not quote them anywhere as real data.

Class group	Study-related use (hrs)	Entertainment (hrs)	Messaging and calls (hrs)	Total (hrs)
VI-VII	0.6	1.4	0.4	2.4
VIII-IX	0.9	2.1	0.9	3.9
X	1.6	1.5	0.8	3.9
XI-XII	1.3	2.6	1.5	5.4

The school's response was to leave the phones alone and change the timetable instead: a supervised study hour after lunch, and no homework set on a Saturday. The principal's note to parents said that the survey had told the school what students were doing but not why, and that the school would ask the "why" question before making any rule.

Worked questions.

Question	Answer	The reasoning — and the trap
Which group reports the highest total use?	Classes XI-XII, at 5.4 hours.	A read-off, but check the column heading. "Highest" in a total column is a different question from "highest" in a single-activity column.
What is the largest single figure in the table?	2.6 hours — entertainment in Classes XI-XII.	5.4 is a total, not a use. Deciding whether a figure is a component or a sum is half of data reading.
Classes VIII-IX and Class X report the same total. How do they differ?	Class X reports much more study-related use (1.6 against 0.9) and less entertainment (1.5 against 2.1).	The equal total hides the shift. This is the commonest trap in a data question: two rows can agree in the total column and disagree everywhere else.
What does the passage let you conclude about why Class X studies more on the phone?	Nothing. The passage gives no reason, and the principal's note says explicitly that the survey shows what, not why.	"Board exams" is a sensible guess, and it is your knowledge, not the data. In an evaluation question the honest answer is often "the data does not say", and that is the marked answer.
State one limitation of the survey that the passage itself mentions.	The figures are self-estimates supplied by students, not measurements.	You could also note that it covers one school only. Both are stated. Do not invent a limitation the passage does not raise.
Which statement is NOT supported by the data?	Any statement that phone use is causing some outcome — for example lower marks.	The survey measured hours, nothing else. A pattern in two columns is not a cause, and no outcome was recorded at all.

The families of data question.

Read-off. Straight from the table. Check the unit and the row label.
Comparison. Which is more, by how much, which is double. Subtract, do not estimate by eye.
Trend. Rising, falling, steady, uneven. Remember that "rises steadily" and "is highest" are different claims — a row can rise every year and still be the smallest row.
Odd one out. The row that breaks the pattern. In our table it is Class X, which interrupts the climb in entertainment.
Inference. What must follow from the numbers, expressed carefully.
Evaluation. What the data cannot show. This is where the eighth mark usually is.

Three rules that carry most of the evaluation marks. Self-reported is not measured. One school is not the country. And a pattern in the numbers is not a cause. If an option in an MCQ contains the words "because", "leads to" or "proves", check whether the passage actually established a cause or only a pattern.

Read this first The line above the table It states what is counted, the unit and who collected it. Everything you answer depends on all three.

Component vs total Largest single figure 2.6 ≠ largest total 5.4 hours · In the practice table, 5.4 is a sum. "Highest use" and "highest total" are two different questions.

The equal-total trap VIII-IX and X both total 3.9 hrs hours · Yet X studies 1.6 against 0.9 and entertains 1.5 against 2.1. Always compare rows column by column.

Trend is not size "rises steadily" ≠ "is highest" A row can climb every year and still be the smallest row on the table. Check which claim the option is making.

Evaluation rule Self-reported ≠ measured; one school ≠ the country; pattern ≠ cause Most evaluation questions come down to one of these three.

Outside knowledge Worth zero marks A true fact from your own reading is still an unsupported answer. The passage is the whole evidence base.

Remember

Read the sentence above the table before the numbers — it gives you what is counted, in what unit, and by whom.
Distinguish component figures from totals: the largest number in a table is often a sum, not a use.
Two rows can share an identical total and differ in every single column; never answer a comparison from the total column alone.
The evaluation question asks what the data CANNOT show. "The passage does not say" is frequently the correct, marked answer.
Self-reported is not measured, one school is not the country, and a pattern is not a cause.

Note-Making — 5 Marks, Three of Them for Format

Quick answer Title 1, Numbering and indenting 1, Key 1 and Notes 2 — a fixed rubric that rewards a rehearsed layout, shown here as a full-mark worked answer set beside a marked-down attempt on the same passage.

Note-making carries 5 marks on a passage of about 200-250 words, split as Title 1, Numbering and indenting 1, Key/glossary 1, Notes 2. Read that split again. Only two of the five marks are for the content. Three are for a layout you can rehearse at home until it is automatic — which makes this the most reliable block of marks in the entire paper.

The format, rule by rule.

Title. Short — three to six words. Centred at the top. No full stop. It must name what the whole passage is about, not the first paragraph. It need not be a sentence.
Structure. Four or five main headings, each with two to four sub-points. Give a heading more only when the paragraph genuinely lists more, as the remedies paragraph below does. Add sub-sub-points only if the passage really has that layer.
Numbering. One system, all the way down. Either 1 → 1.1 → 1.1.1, or I → A → i, or 1 → (a) → (i). Mixing systems is what loses the indenting mark.
Indenting. Every level moves further right, and every number begins inside the margin. The examiner should be able to see the shape without reading a word.
No sentences. Notes are phrases. Drop articles, drop linking verbs, use a noun where a verb will do. "Body clock shifts later @ puberty" — not "At puberty the body clock shifts later, so a fifteen-year-old does not feel sleepy."
Abbreviations. At least four, and only ones you actually used. Shorten by cutting the middle or the end (govt., edn., recmnd.), and use standard symbols: → ↑ ↓ ∴ ≠ & @ < >.
Key. A separate list, boxed or clearly headed, giving the full form of each shortening. Widely accepted forms such as UN or Dr. are usually accepted without a key entry, but listing them costs you nothing.

Practice passage (about 240 words, written for this chapter). The same passage is used for the summary in the next section — exactly as the paper does it.

Ask a group of Class 11 students how much they slept last night and the honest answers cluster around five or six hours. Doctors who study adolescent sleep put the requirement at eight to ten hours, so most senior-school students in Indian cities are running a steady deficit.

The reasons are partly biological and partly ours. At puberty the body clock shifts later, so a fifteen-year-old genuinely does not feel sleepy at ten at night. School, meanwhile, starts earlier than it did in middle school, and coaching classes are stacked on either side of it. Screens finish the job: bright light late at night tells the brain that the day is not over, and a phone kept beside the pillow guarantees interruption.

The cost is not only tiredness. Sleep is when the day's learning is filed away, so a shortened night quietly erases part of what was studied. Attention, mood and immunity all suffer. Students who sleep badly report more irritability and more minor illness, and they are more likely to fall asleep in the very classes they are staying up to prepare for.

The remedies are unglamorous but they work. A fixed sleeping and waking time, including on Sundays. Screens put away half an hour before bed and charged outside the bedroom. Caffeine stopped by late afternoon. Short daytime naps of twenty minutes, not two hours. And a school timetable that does not treat sleep as time available for borrowing.

Before you write anything, find the structure. Read the passage once and name what each paragraph does. Here it is obvious: the deficit, the causes, the costs, the remedies. Those four names are your four main headings. Ninety per cent of note-making is done at that moment.

The full-mark answer.

Teenage Sleep — Causes, Costs, Cures

1. The deficit
- 1.1 Most sr. sch. stu. sleep 5-6 hrs
- 1.2 Doctors' recmnd. for adolescents: 8-10 hrs
- 1.3 ∴ steady daily shortfall
2. Causes
- 2.1 Body clock shifts later @ puberty → not sleepy by 10 pm
- 2.2 Sch. starts earlier than in middle sch.
- 2.3 Coaching stacked b/f & after sch.
- 2.4 Bright lt. at night → brain reads day ≠ over
- 2.5 Phone by pillow → broken sleep
3. Costs
- 3.1 Sleep files away the day's learning → short night erases study
- 3.2 Attn., mood & immunity ↓
- 3.3 More irritability & minor illness
- 3.4 Sleep in the very classes they stay up for
4. Remedies
- 4.1 Fixed sleep/wake time, incl. Sun.
- 4.2 Screens away 30 min b/f bed
- 4.3 Charge phone outside bedrm.
- 4.4 No caffeine after late aftn.
- 4.5 Naps 20 min, not 2 hrs
- 4.6 Sch. timetable must stop borrowing sleep time

Key to abbreviations

Short form	Full form	Short form	Full form
sr.	senior	incl.	including
sch.	school	aftn.	afternoon
stu.	students	bedrm.	bedroom
hrs	hours	min	minutes
recmnd.	recommendation	Sun.	Sunday
b/f	before	@	at
lt.	light	&	and
attn.	attention	→	leads to
∴	therefore	↓	falls, decreases
≠	is not

The same passage, done badly. This is the answer a rushed student writes, and it is worth seeing exactly where each mark goes.

The marked-down attempt:

Sleep

Students sleep only five or six hours a night but doctors say they need eight to ten hours of sleep.
At puberty the body clock shifts later, so a fifteen-year-old genuinely does not feel sleepy at ten at night.
Screens are bad.
Fixed sleeping time, no screens, no caffeine, naps.

Side by side.

Criterion	Marked-down attempt	Why the mark goes	Full-mark attempt
Title (1)	"Sleep"	Names a subject, not the passage's argument. It would fit a hundred passages, so it shows nothing. In most schemes it scores nothing, and at best half a mark.	"Teenage Sleep — Causes, Costs, Cures" — three to six words, covers all four sections. 1/1
Numbering and indenting (1)	Four flat dashes	No hierarchy exists, so there is nothing to number and nothing to indent. The mark cannot be given. 0/1	1 → 1.1 → 1.2 throughout, one system, sub-points set in from the margin. 1/1
Key / glossary (1)	None	No abbreviations were used, so there is no key to give. This mark is lost twice over — once for not abbreviating, once for no key. 0/1	Nineteen shortenings listed with full forms, every one of them used in the notes. 1/1
Notes (2)	Two sentences lifted whole; "Screens are bad"; one crammed line of remedies	Copying is not noting. "Screens are bad" is an opinion, not the passage's point — the passage says bright light late at night keeps the brain awake. The third section (costs) is missing entirely. 1/2 at most.	Phrases only, all four stages present, no articles, no finite verbs where a noun serves. 2/2
Total	1 to 1.5 out of 5		5 out of 5

The content knowledge in both answers is roughly the same. The difference of nearly four marks is entirely layout and discipline — which is why this is the part of the paper you should practise with a stopwatch rather than a dictionary.

Note-making split Title 1 + Numbering/indenting 1 + Key 1 + Notes 2 = 5 marks · Only 2 of 5 marks are content. Secure the other 3 before you have even understood the passage fully.

Title test 3-6 words, no full stop, covers the whole passage "Sleep" is too vague and would fit any passage. "Teenage Sleep — Causes, Costs, Cures" names the argument.

Numbering system 1 → 1.1 → 1.1.1 (or I → A → i) Pick one and never switch. Every number starts inside the margin; every level indents further right.

Structure to aim for 4-5 main headings × 2-4 sub-points Take the headings from what each paragraph does. A paragraph that genuinely lists more, like the remedies below, may carry five or six.

The no-sentence rule "Body clock shifts later @ puberty → not sleepy by 10 pm" Not "At puberty the body clock shifts later, so a fifteen-year-old does not feel sleepy." Copying costs the Notes marks.

Key requirement minimum four abbreviations, all of them used A key listing symbols you never used is padding, not a key. Standard forms (Dr., UN) are usually accepted unlisted.

Remember

The split is Title 1 + Numbering and indenting 1 + Key 1 + Notes 2 = 5, so three marks are format and can be secured by rehearsal.
Name what each paragraph DOES before writing — those names become your four main headings and the answer builds itself.
Never write a full sentence in notes, and never copy one from the passage; use phrases, drop articles, use symbols.
Use at least four abbreviations and key every one you used. No abbreviations means the key mark is lost automatically.
One numbering system all the way down (1 → 1.1 → 1.1.1); mixing systems is the usual way the indenting mark is lost.

The Summary in 50 Words — and Exam Day

Quick answer Content 2 plus Expression 1 for up to fifty words, written from your own notes rather than the passage — with a marked-down attempt beside a full-mark one, and a minute-by-minute plan for the whole 26-mark section.

The summary carries 3 marks — Content 2, Expression 1 — in up to 50 words. It is written on the same passage you have just noted, and that is the whole trick.

Write from your notes, never from the passage. If you go back to the passage you will start lifting its sentences, and its sentences are far too long. Your notes are already filtered, already shortened and already in your own words. Cover the passage with your hand and look only at what you wrote.

What each mark is for.

Content (2). Every main heading of your notes must appear. Four headings and only three represented means a content mark has gone before you wrote a single bad sentence. Sub-points can be compressed or merged; headings cannot be dropped.
Expression (1). One paragraph, connected sentences, your own words, within the word limit, third person, present tense. Length is judged here — so an over-long summary loses Expression, not Content.

The method, in four steps.

Cover the passage. Look only at the notes.
Turn each main heading into one clause. Four headings, four clauses, roughly 45 words.
Join them with connectives — because, so, therefore, while, however, although. This is what turns a list into a paragraph and earns the Expression mark.
Count the words and write the count in brackets at the end.

What must never appear in a summary: illustrative examples, minor statistics, quotations, your own opinion, the phrases "the passage says" or "the writer tells us", bullet points, a second paragraph, or a heading. One exception is worth knowing: a figure that is a main point — the size of the sleep deficit, five or six hours against eight to ten — belongs in the summary. A figure that only illustrates does not.

Full-mark summary of the sleep passage.

Most senior-school students sleep five or six hours instead of eight to ten, because the adolescent body clock shifts later while early school hours, coaching and late-night screens squeeze the night. The shortfall erases learning and harms mood and health. Fixed timings, screens off before bed and short naps help. (50 words)

Check it against the notes: the deficit, the causes, the costs, the remedies — all four headings are there, in fifty words.

The marked-down attempt.

Ask a group of Class 11 students how much they slept last night and the honest answers cluster around five or six hours. Doctors say eight to ten. I think students should sleep more because it is very important for health and they should not use phones at night, which is a very bad habit. (55 words)

Criterion	Marked-down attempt	Why the mark goes	Full-mark attempt
Content (2)	Covers the deficit and one remedy	Two of the four headings are missing: the biological cause and the whole section on costs. Coverage is half. 1/2	All four headings present. 2/2
Expression (1)	Opens with a copied sentence, adds an opinion, runs to 55 words	Three separate faults, any one of which loses the mark: lifted wording, personal opinion ("I think", "a very bad habit"), and over-length. 0/1	One paragraph, own words, connected by because and while, exactly 50 words, no opinion. 1/1
Total	1 / 3		3 / 3

Notice the specific error at the start of the weak version: it copies the passage's opening sentence. Opening sentences are usually a hook, not the main idea — that is what makes "copy the first and last sentence" such an expensive shortcut.

Exam day: the whole of Section A in about 45 minutes. The paper runs three hours for 80 marks, so by simple proportion 26 marks is worth about 58 minutes. Aim to finish Section A in 45 and bank the difference for Section C, where the long answers eat time.

Task	Minutes	How to spend them
Note-making and summary	18	Do this first if you are a slow writer. 4 reading, 2 naming the paragraph jobs, 8 writing notes and the key, 4 on the summary.
Unseen passage (10 marks)	15	4-5 reading, the rest answering. Underline the proof for each answer as you go.
Case-based passage (8 marks)	10	3 on the introduction and the column headings, 7 answering. Do the arithmetic, do not eyeball it.
Check	2	Recount the summary. Confirm every MCQ has exactly one clear mark and no double answers.

The mark-losers, ranked by how often they happen.

What students do	Where it costs	The fix
Answer from general knowledge instead of the passage	Both objective tasks	Underline the proof. No underline, no answer.
Copy sentences into the notes	Notes (2 marks)	Phrases only. If it has an article and a finite verb, shorten it.
Use no abbreviations, so give no key	Key (1 mark)	Decide four shortenings before you start writing.
Write a flat list with dashes	Numbering and indenting (1 mark)	Main heading, then indented sub-points. Always.
Write the summary from the passage	Expression (1 mark), often Content too	Cover the passage. Work only from your own notes.
Exceed 50 words	Expression (1 mark)	Count. Write the number in brackets.
Compare rows using the total column only	Case-based passage	Compare column by column; equal totals hide opposite patterns.
Turn a pattern in the data into a cause	Case-based passage	Ask whether the passage established a cause or only a pattern.

Nothing on that list is about English ability. All of it is about method — which is the real reason Section A is the most improvable 26 marks on the paper.

Summary split Content 2 + Expression 1 = 3 marks · Content is coverage of your main headings. Expression is one paragraph, own words, within the limit.

Source of the summary Notes → summary, never passage → summary Working from the passage is what produces copied wording and a 70-word answer.

Length formula 4 headings → 4 clauses → about 45 words words · Leaves you five words of slack under the fifty-word ceiling.

Banned in a summary illustrative examples, quotations, opinions, bullets, headings Each one is an Expression fault. Keep a figure only when it is the point itself, not when it decorates.

Time budget 45 min ≈ 18 (notes + summary) + 15 + 10 + 2 minutes · 26 marks of an 80-mark three-hour paper is worth about 58 minutes by proportion. Finish in 45 and bank the rest.

Finish line Write the word count in brackets It costs three seconds and shows the examiner you stayed inside the limit deliberately.

Remember

Summary = Content 2 + Expression 1, in up to 50 words, on the same passage you have just made notes on.
Build it from your notes with the passage covered — one clause per main heading, joined with connectives.
Over-length costs the Expression mark, not the Content marks; missing a main heading costs Content.
Never include illustrative examples, quotations, opinions, bullets or a second paragraph; a figure stays only when it is itself a main point.
Budget roughly 45 minutes for all of Section A and do note-making first if you write slowly, since three of its five note-making marks are pure format.

The formula sheet

Every formula in this chapter, in one place — screenshot it before your exam.

26 = 10 + 8 + 5 + 3

Section A totalmarks

A 26 + B 23 + C 31 = 80

The whole papermarks

600-750 words for both unseen passages together

Combined passage lengthwords

approximately 200-250 words

Note-making passagewords

up to 50 words

Summary limitwords

MCQ / Objective Type only

Question type in Tasks 1 and 2

Passage (no pen) → questions → passage (with pencil)

Reading order

Every answer must be underlinable in the passage

The underline rule

Could the writer disagree with this option?

Inference test

always / never / only / all / proves

Extreme-word alarm

Substitute the option into the original sentence

Vocabulary method

Paraphrase, do not lift

"In your own words"

The line above the table

Read this first

Largest single figure 2.6 ≠ largest total 5.4

Component vs totalhours

VIII-IX and X both total 3.9 hrs

The equal-total traphours

"rises steadily" ≠ "is highest"

Trend is not size

Self-reported ≠ measured; one school ≠ the country; pattern ≠ cause

Evaluation rule

Worth zero marks

Outside knowledge

Title 1 + Numbering/indenting 1 + Key 1 + Notes 2 = 5

Note-making splitmarks

3-6 words, no full stop, covers the whole passage

Title test

1 → 1.1 → 1.1.1 (or I → A → i)

Numbering system

4-5 main headings × 2-4 sub-points

Structure to aim for

"Body clock shifts later @ puberty → not sleepy by 10 pm"

The no-sentence rule

minimum four abbreviations, all of them used

Key requirement

Content 2 + Expression 1 = 3

Summary splitmarks

Notes → summary, never passage → summary

Source of the summary

4 headings → 4 clauses → about 45 words

Length formulawords

illustrative examples, quotations, opinions, bullets, headings

Banned in a summary

45 min ≈ 18 (notes + summary) + 15 + 10 + 2

Time budgetminutes

Write the word count in brackets

Finish line

Test yourself

Tap an answer to check it instantly — you'll see why it's right, and what to revise if it isn't.

0 correct · 0/12 answered

In the practice passage on urban heat, the writer says a mature neem or peepal "does two things at once". Those two things are that it —

"Heat is therefore not only a weather problem but a question of who can afford to escape it." The writer's point is that —

The most suitable title for the urban-heat passage would be —

In the practice survey table, Classes VIII-IX and Class X report the same total of 3.9 hours. The pattern differs because Class X reports —

Which of these statements is NOT supported by the practice survey?

The five marks for note-making are divided as —

A student's note reads: "At puberty the body clock shifts later, so a fifteen-year-old does not feel sleepy at ten at night." The main problem with it is that —

The key is worth one mark. It earns that mark when —

A summary contains every main idea from the notes but runs to 75 words against a 50-word limit. Under the usual marking scheme it will most likely lose —

Q10

The safest way to write the 50-word summary is to —

Q11

In the sleep passage the writer says students "are more likely to fall asleep in the very classes they are staying up to prepare for". The effect of putting it this way is to —

Q12

"Replace that tree with a parking bay and both services are lost together." Here "services" means —

NCERT solutions & previous-year questions

Step-by-step model answers — tap a question to reveal the full solution.

NCERT questions 6

1 Read the practice passage on urban heat. What does the writer mean by calling the urban heat island "a design fault"? Answer in about 40 words.Unseen passage — inference

A note on this section: Reading Skills in Class 11 English Core is examined entirely from unseen material, so there is no Hornbill or Snapshots chapter with end-of-chapter questions attached to it. The six tasks below therefore follow the CBSE question shapes for Section A, set on the practice passages printed in this chapter.

Answer. The writer means the heat is produced by choices — concrete surfaces, narrow streets, felled trees, sealed lakes — and not by nature. A fault built by design can be undone by design, through paint, shade and planting, rather than simply endured each summer. (42 words)

2 Pick out the remedies in the urban-heat passage that specifically help people who work outdoors, and explain why the writer singles them out.Unseen passage — analysis

The two are shaded bus stops and shaded footpaths. Reflective roofs and cleaned lakes help a whole neighbourhood, but shade at a bus stop or on a footpath protects the person who has no indoor refuge at all.

The writer singles them out because of the argument built in the third paragraph. That paragraph has just shown that heat falls unevenly: a family in an air-conditioned flat can shut it out, while a construction worker, a delivery rider or a vendor cannot. Having named those three people, the passage then chooses remedies that reach exactly them. The structure is deliberate — the problem paragraph names the victims, and the solution paragraph answers them.

Method point. This is an analysis question, not a fact question. The marks are for showing the link between two paragraphs, so an answer that only lists the remedies has done half the work.

3 From the survey table in the case-based passage, describe in your own words what happens to study-related and entertainment use in Class X, and state what the passage allows you to conclude about the reason.Case-based passage — data interpretation and evaluation

What the table shows. Class X breaks the pattern of the other groups. Study-related use rises to its highest point on the table, 1.6 hours, against 0.9 hours in Classes VIII-IX. At the same time entertainment falls to 1.5 hours from 2.1 hours. The total stays unchanged at 3.9 hours, so the shift is invisible if you read only the total column.

What you may conclude about the reason. Nothing. The survey recorded how the phone was used and did not ask why, and the principal's note to parents states this plainly — it says the survey has told the school what students are doing but not why. Board-year pressure is a reasonable guess, but it is your knowledge, not the data.

Method point. In an evaluation question, "the passage does not say" is often the answer the examiner wants. Students lose the mark by supplying a sensible explanation the data never supported.

4 Make notes on the practice passage on teenage sleep in a suitable format, using recognisable abbreviations, and supply a key.Note-making

Teenage Sleep — Causes, Costs, Cures

1. The deficit
- 1.1 Most sr. sch. stu. sleep 5-6 hrs
- 1.2 Doctors' recmnd. for adolescents: 8-10 hrs
- 1.3 ∴ steady daily shortfall
2. Causes
- 2.1 Body clock shifts later @ puberty → not sleepy by 10 pm
- 2.2 Sch. starts earlier than in middle sch.
- 2.3 Coaching stacked b/f & after sch.
- 2.4 Bright lt. at night → brain reads day ≠ over
- 2.5 Phone by pillow → broken sleep
3. Costs
- 3.1 Sleep files away the day's learning → short night erases study
- 3.2 Attn., mood & immunity ↓
- 3.3 More irritability & minor illness
- 3.4 Sleep in the very classes they stay up for
4. Remedies
- 4.1 Fixed sleep/wake time, incl. Sun.
- 4.2 Screens away 30 min b/f bed
- 4.3 Charge phone outside bedrm.
- 4.4 No caffeine after late aftn.
- 4.5 Naps 20 min, not 2 hrs
- 4.6 Sch. timetable must stop borrowing sleep time

Key

Short form	Full form	Short form	Full form
sr.	senior	bedrm.	bedroom
sch.	school	min	minutes
stu.	students	Sun.	Sunday
hrs	hours	@	at
recmnd.	recommendation	&	and
b/f	before	→	leads to
lt.	light	↓	falls
attn.	attention	≠	is not
incl.	including	∴	therefore
aftn.	afternoon

Marks: Title 1, Numbering and indenting 1, Key 1, Notes 2 = 5/5. The four headings come straight from what each paragraph of the passage does — the deficit, the causes, the costs, the remedies. Every one of the nineteen shortenings in the key is used somewhere in the notes, which is what the key mark actually tests.

5 Write a summary of the passage on teenage sleep in not more than 50 words.Summarising

How it was built. Each of the four note headings became part of the paragraph — deficit, causes, costs, remedies — joined by because and while. Nothing was taken from the passage itself, so no sentence is lifted and nothing runs long. The two figures stay because the size of the deficit is the passage's first point; the passage's examples and details do not.

Marks: Content 2 (all four headings represented), Expression 1 (one paragraph, own words, within fifty) = 3/3.

6 Thinking about language: the sleep passage uses "deficit", "unglamorous" and "borrowing" in ways that are not their most ordinary sense. Explain what each means in its sentence and why the writer chose it.Thinking about language

Word	What it means here	Why the writer chose it
deficit — "running a steady deficit"	A shortfall between the sleep needed and the sleep taken.	It is a word from accounts and budgets. Using it makes sleep sound like a balance that must be settled, which sets up the last line of the passage about time being borrowed.
unglamorous — "The remedies are unglamorous but they work."	Dull, ordinary, without any appeal or excitement.	It concedes the reader's likely objection before the reader can make it. By admitting the remedies are boring, the writer earns the right to insist they are effective.
borrowing — "sleep as time available for borrowing"	Taking hours from sleep to spend on study or coaching.	Borrowed time has to be repaid, and the passage has already shown the repayment — lost learning, falling attention, illness. The word carries the argument without stating it.

Method point. Two of the three — deficit and borrowing — come from the language of money, and reading them together shows the passage arguing that lost sleep is a debt that falls due. Unglamorous is doing a different job: it manages the reader rather than building the image. Noticing which words a writer has borrowed from another field, and which are there to disarm you, is exactly what an appreciation question rewards.

Previous-year board questions 4

Q1 Read the passage on electronic waste printed at the top of the answer below, and make notes on it in a suitable format using recognisable abbreviations. Supply a suitable title and a key to the abbreviations used. Cover the model answer while you work. (5 marks) 2025-26 pattern (Section A, note-making)

This is not a reproduced board question. The passage and the task were written for this chapter in the current Section A pattern, so you may practise on them freely.

The passage.

Open the bottom drawer of almost any Indian household and you will find a small graveyard: a dead feature phone, two chargers that fit nothing, a keyboard, a remote with a corroded battery. Electronic waste is the fastest-growing kind of household rubbish, and most of it never leaves the house until the family moves.

It piles up for understandable reasons. Devices are replaced long before they fail, because a new phone costs less than a repair. Nobody is sure whether the drawer full of gadgets is rubbish or valuables, so the decision is postponed. And the kabadiwala who takes newspaper and bottles is not obviously the person to hand a laptop to.

The delay matters. Circuit boards and batteries carry lead, cadmium and mercury. When such items reach an open dump or an unprotected recycling yard, those metals enter soil, water and the lungs of the people doing the dismantling — often without gloves and often young.

The alternatives already exist. Manufacturers and large retailers run take-back counters. Municipal corporations in several cities hold collection drives. Schools and housing societies can run a single annual drop-off box, which is the least effort for the largest result. What the drawer needs is not technology. It is a date in the calendar.

Find the structure first. The four paragraphs do four jobs — the problem, why it piles up, why the delay is dangerous, what can be done — and those four jobs are your four headings.

Model answer.

E-Waste at Home — Causes, Dangers, Solutions

1. The problem
- 1.1 Almost every hsehold. keeps dead phones, chargers, k/boards, remotes
- 1.2 E-waste = fastest-growing hsehold. rubbish
- 1.3 Usually stays till family moves house
2. Why it piles up
- 2.1 Devices replaced b/f failure — new phone < cost of repair
- 2.2 Unsure: rubbish or valuables? → decision postponed
- 2.3 Kabadiwala takes paper & bottles, not laptops
3. Why delay is dangerous
- 3.1 Boards & batteries carry lead, cadmium, mercury
- 3.2 Open dumps / unsafe yards → metals into soil, water, lungs
- 3.3 Dismantlers often w/o gloves, often young
4. What can be done
- 4.1 Manufctr. & big retailers: take-back counters
- 4.2 Municipal collectn. drives in several cities
- 4.3 Schools / hsg. societies: 1 annual drop-off box = least effort, largest result
- 4.4 Needs a date in the calendar, not new tech.

Key

Short form	Full form	Short form	Full form
hsehold.	household	manufctr.	manufacturers
k/boards	keyboards	collectn.	collection
b/f	before	hsg.	housing
w/o	without	&	and
tech.	technology	→	leads to
<	is less than	=	is / equals

Mark breakdown: Title 1 (short, covers all four sections) + Numbering and indenting 1 (one system, sub-points indented) + Key 1 (twelve shortenings, every one used) + Notes 2 (phrases only, all four stages present) = 5/5.

Q2 Write a summary of the passage on electronic waste in Question 1 in not more than 50 words. (3 marks) 2025-26 pattern (Section A, summarising)

Model answer.

Indian homes store dead electronics because devices are replaced rather than repaired, owners cannot judge their value, and the scrap dealer seems wrong for a laptop. Delay is harmful: lead, cadmium and mercury reach soil, water and unprotected workers. Take-back counters, municipal drives and an annual society collection solve it. (50 words)

How it was built. Four note headings became four units of the paragraph — what is stored, why it is stored, what the delay costs, what fixes it — joined with because and a colon. The passage was not looked at again; only the notes were used, which is what keeps the wording original and the length inside fifty.

Mark breakdown: Content 2 — all four main headings appear, none dropped. Expression 1 — one paragraph, own words, no illustrative detail, no quotation, no opinion, exactly fifty words. Total 3/3.

What a weaker attempt does. It opens with the passage's own image of the drawer, spends fifteen words listing chargers and remotes, and then has no room left for the section on dangers. That loses one Content mark for the missing heading and the Expression mark for lifted wording — 1/3 for an answer whose author understood the passage perfectly well.

Q3 Refer to the practice passage on urban heat in Section 2 of this chapter. Why does the writer insist that "design faults are corrected by design, not by endurance"? Answer in 40-50 words. (2 marks) 2025-26 pattern (school-style short answer)

Pattern note: in the CBSE pattern the two comprehension tasks in Section A are objective type, so a written short answer like this one belongs to school papers and to older board papers. It is kept here because it is the sharpest test of whether you can prove an answer from the text instead of recognising it among four options.

Model answer.

Because treating city heat as bad weather makes it something to be suffered patiently. The writer has shown that concrete, narrow streets and lost trees created it, so the remedy is also human — reflective roofs, cleaned lakes, shaded footpaths. Endurance falls on those who cannot afford escape. (47 words)

Why this scores. A short answer of 40-50 words carries roughly two ideas, no more. Here they are: first, that the heat was made rather than inherited; second, that endurance is unjust because it is unequally distributed. Both are drawn from the passage, and the specific remedies are named rather than gestured at.

What loses marks. Rewriting the quoted line in slightly different words without explaining it. Also, drifting into general advice about planting trees to save the environment — accurate in life, unsupported in this passage, and outside the question.

Q4 Refer to the case-based passage and survey table in Section 3 of this chapter. Describe the pattern the table shows, and explain what the school could reasonably conclude from it and what it could not. Answer in 120-150 words. (5 marks) 2025-26 pattern (school-style long answer)

Pattern note: the board paper asks this kind of thinking through objective questions. Written out at length, as school papers often do, it shows you exactly where the interpretation marks end and the evaluation marks begin.

Model answer.

Total reported phone use climbs across the school, from 2.4 hours in Classes VI-VII to 5.4 hours in Classes XI-XII, but the climb is not smooth. Classes VIII-IX and Class X share an identical total of 3.9 hours while behaving quite differently: Class X records the highest study-related use on the table, 1.6 hours against 0.9, and the lowest entertainment use of the three senior groups, 1.5 hours against 2.1. Entertainment is the largest single figure anywhere in the table, 2.6 hours in Classes XI-XII.

The school can reasonably conclude that senior students spend longer on phones than junior ones, and that Class X uses its phone differently rather than less. It cannot conclude why. The figures are self-estimates, not measurements; they come from one school; and no outcome such as marks or sleep was recorded, so no cause can be claimed. (142 words)

Why this scores full marks. The answer separates the two halves of the question cleanly — description first, evaluation second — and quotes exact figures rather than saying "much higher". Crucially, it names the three specific limitations, which is where the evaluation marks sit, and it resists the tempting explanation about board-year pressure. A confident guess about the reason would cost marks here even though it sounds intelligent.

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