9th Cbse English Sa 1 Paper

Q1. Read the following passage carefully:

l Our house is filled with photos. They cover the walls of my kitchen, dining room and den. I see

our family’s entire history, starting with my wedding, continuing through the births of both sons,

buying a home, family gatherings and vacations. When my sons were little, they loved to pose.

They waved, danced, climbed trees, batted balls, hung upside down from the jungle gym and

did anything for a picture. But when they reached adolescence, picture-taking changed into

something they barely tolerated. Their bodies were growing at haphazard speeds. Reluctantly

they stood with us or with their grandparents at birthday celebrations and smiled weakly

at the camera for as short a time as possible.

l I am the chronicler of our photographs. I select those to be framed and arrange the others in

albums. The process is addictive, and as the shelves that hold our albums become fuller and

fuller, I wonder what will become of them. Will anyone look at these photographs in future

years? If my sons look at them, what will they think of us and of themselves? One bright afternoon,

I took some photographs of my father with my husband as they fished in a lake near our

vacation house. As my sons and I sat on the shore and watched them row away, I picked the

camera up and photographed the beautiful lake surrounded by green trees. The two men I

loved gradually grew smaller until all I could see were my father’s red shirt, and the tan and

blue caps on their heads.

10

l My father died a week later, and suddenly those photos became priceless to me. I wept when

I pasted them in our album. I wept again afterwards when I saw my younger son looking at

them. It was a few days before he went away to college. He had taken all our albums down

from the bookshelves in the den and spread them out on the carpet. It had been a very long

time since I had seen him doing this. Once he stopped posing for pictures, he seemed to lose

interest in...