Bihar Intermediate English (BSEB) case studies
Bihar Intermediate English (BSEB) · Put your knowledge to work in context.
Bihar Intermediate English is the compulsory English paper of the BSEB Class 12 (Intermediate) examination, taken by students across the arts, science and commerce streams in Bihar. It is a school-leaving board paper, not a competitive entrance test: the aim is to show that you can read a prescribed lesson or poem, explain it in your own words, answer grammar items correctly, translate between English and Hindi, and write a short composition. The Bihar Intermediate English (BSEB) case studies are 5 cases and about 3,725 words.
1Grammar: grading your own voice-and-narration script
You have just finished the 20-mark Grammar section of your own practice paper and no answer key is available yet, so you must judge your script against the rules you have been taught. The eight transformation items carried one mark each.
783 words, about 4 min2Reading comprehension: the literal answer and the inference answer
Your Reading section carries an unseen passage on urban flooding followed by five questions. The passage opens: 'Patna's storm drains were laid for a city of four lakh people; the city now holds more than twenty lakh within the same old limits.
736 words, about 4 min3Translation: word-for-word, idiom and honorifics
Your Translation section has four items worth two marks each: two English sentences to render into Hindi and two Hindi sentences to render into English. Your draft answers are these.
702 words, about 4 min4Composition: a précis fifty words too long and a letter with the wrong format
The Composition section offers a précis and a formal letter, 15 marks in all, and you have twenty minutes left. The passage for précis runs to about 300 words and the instruction says: 'Make a précis to about one-third of the passage and give a suitable title.' Your draft is 150 words: it keeps the opening example of the 1978 flood, keeps the closing metaphor of a leaking roof, and copies two sentences almost word for word from the passage.
738 words, about 4 min5Poetry: a paraphrase is not a central idea
In the half-yearly paper the Poetry section asked a five-mark question on Rupert Brooke's 'The Soldier' and a four-mark explanation of four lines. Three candidates began their long answers like this.
766 words, about 4 min