English Olympiad Class 9 - Sample question paper 14

Passage 1 - For more than a generation, people have been trying to make machines, all machines, automated. That is to say, machines that can do their tasks without the help of people to guide them. Nowadays, we are entering a period of near madness when it comes to self-driving cars. Companies ranging from car manufacturers like General Motors and Toyota to private-hire taxi companies like Uber, and even Internet search giant Google, are all desperately trying to be the first to bring them to market. The efforts are so intense that the University of Michigan has even established a 23-acre town to help the cause. Dubbed Mcity, it allows manufacturers to safely test their autonomous cars using human props.

However, while the pretend city can be used to simulate many real-life road conditions, it cannot help test the way drivers use their hands and faces to communicate their intent to fellow drivers, pedestrians or bicyclists. These include gestures like waving a car into a lane or nodding at a person walking or on a bike, to indicate they can cross the road safely.

To try to come up with a solution for these everyday issues that self-driving vehicles would face, US car manufacturer Ford, teamed up with researchers from a university in Virginia. The team originally thought of using text as a way to communicate the car’s intention but decided it would probably not work universally given that people would have to be able to read and understand the same language. The option of using symbols was also discarded, because research shows that a majority of people do not have a good understanding of what they mean.

After some thought, the researchers settled on light signals, that are understood by people worldwide. A solid white light served as a warning that there were no humans in the car. A slow blinking one indicated that the car was coming to a stop, while a rapidly flashing light cautioned passersby that the car was about to accelerate.

Then came the big challenge – testing the signals on real roads. They really needed to try the light system out on regular roads but where and how could they do that. Should they go somewhere with a small population like Alaska or should they test out the system in big cities like New York. The problem was really that they needed to test the system on roads where there were real people doing real things and it would be too dangerous to actually use driverless cars, so they came up with a genius idea.

Taking inspiration from a similar study conducted two years ago, the team designed a car seat costume that the driver would wear to over their face and upper body. The drivers could see very clearly through a plastic mask, which was concealed by a thin reflective fabric making them invisible to people looking in.

The researchers then added the light system to a Ford van with cameras all over it to capture human reactions to a light bar at the front, which flashed one of the three signals when appropriate. Six drivers, all keeping their hands low on the wheel so as not to be seen, took turns test driving the van through the busy streets of northern Virginia in August. They drove for 1,500 hours, covered 1,800 miles and tested the light cues at more than 1,650 locations, including intersections, car parks, and airport roads. Although final details of the study have not been revealed, Ford have said that the overall reaction to the flashing lights was very encouraging. The car manufacturer plans on sharing the information with 11 other companies and collaborating with them in further research. The aim of this is that they all work together to design a signaling system that would be understood by everybody.

Passage 2 - If we take nine-and-twenty sunny English May days and steal from March as many still, starry nights. And to these we add two rainy mornings and evenings, the product would resemble a typical Indian January. This is the coolest month in the year, a month when the climate is invigorating and the sunshine temperate. But even in January the sun’s rays have sufficient power to cause the thermometer to register 21°C in the shade at noon, except on an occasional cloudy day. Sunset is marked by a sudden fall of temperature. The village smoke then hangs a few feet above the earth like a blue-grey diaphanous cloud. The cold increases throughout the hours of darkness. Towards dawn, mists collect which are not dispersed until the sun has shone upon them for several hours. The birds await the dissipation of these vapours before they ascend to the upper air, there to soar on outstretched wings and scan the earth for food.

On New Year’s Day, the wheat, the barley, the lentils, and the other spring crops are well above the ground. When January has given place to February, the emerald shoots of the corn attain a height of fully sixteen inches. Light showers usually fall in January. These are welcome to the agriculturalist because they impart vigour to the young crops.

In the seasons when the earth is not blessed with the refreshing winter rain, men and oxen are kept busy irrigating the fields. The cutting and the pressing of the sugarcane employ thousands of farmers and their cattle. In almost every village little sugarcane presses are being worked by oxen from sunrise to sunset.

January is also the month in which the avian population attains its maximum. Geese, ducks, teal, pelicans, cormorants, snake-birds and ospreys abound in the rivers and streams. The marshes and swamps are the resort of millions of waders. The fields and groves swarm with flycatchers, starlings, warblers, finches, birds of prey and the other migrants which in winter visit the plains from the Himalayas and the country beyond. The activity of the feathered folk is not at its height in January. Birds are warm-blooded creatures and they don’t love the cold. Comparatively few of them are in song, and still fewer nest, at this season. Song and sound are expressions of energy. Birds have more vitality, more life in them than has any other class of organism. They are, therefore, the noisiest of beings.

Passage 3: Archaeology is an un-applied science. Apart from its connection with what is called culture, some are inclined to judge it as a pleasant and worthless amusement. Others tell us that there is nothing of pertinent value to be learned from the past which will be of use to the ordinary person of the present time.

The archaeologist brings to light by pick and spade the relics of bygone ages. He is often accused of devoting his energies to work which is of no material profit to mankind. The archaeologist can offer acceptable information to the painter, the theologian, and to most of the followers of the arts and sciences.

Archaeology is the study of the facts of ancient history and ancient lore. It is the study of all ancient documents and objects which may be classed as antiquities. The archaeologist is the man who deals with a period for which the evidence has to be excavated or discovered.

Every chronicler of the events of the less recent times, who goes to the original documents for his facts, as true historians must do as part of their studies, is an archaeologist. Conversely, every archaeologist who in his work states a series of historical facts becomes a historian. Archaeology and history are inseparable.

Antiquities are the relics of human mental energy. There is the attitude of the archaeologist who does not study the story of the periods with which he is dealing. He may be unwilling to construct, if only in his thoughts, living history out of the objects discovered by him.

There is only one thing worse. And that is the attitude of the historian who has not familiarized himself with the actual relics left by the people of whom he writes, or has not, when possible, visited their lands. Surprising as this may appear, there are many “archaeologists” who do not care a snap of the fingers for history.