Test Papers / Previous Question Papers of IGNOU DCE1 General Principles of Writing June 2005

DIPLOMA IN CREATIVE WRITING IN ENGLISH
Term-End Examination

June, 2005

DCE-1 : GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF WRITING

Time: 3 hours
Maximum Marks: 100
(Weightage 70%)

SECTION A

1. Write a short essay on the importance of "authenticity" to creative writing. (350 - 400 words) (20)

2. "A writer has to be his own first and foremost critic." Discuss. (350 words) (20)

3. It is generally said that the initial urges to write a story or a poem should be given time to mature and take root. Do you agree ? (350 - 400 words) (20)

SECTION B

6. Write a short story of not more than 400 words on any one of the following topics : (20)

(a) All that glitters is not gold

(b) There's many a slip between the cup and the lip

(c) A stitch in time saves nine

7. Write a short story beginning with the following lines. Build it to a climax but do not concluide it. (350 words) (20) The house was now burning fiercely. Both my mother and my father were trapped inside. I was the only one who could help but I was so exhaustd already I didn't know if I would last even a minute if I entered the burning house again....

8. Read the poem given below carefully and answer the questions given at the end : (10+10=20)

The Gentle Waves Pavilion

A pool as green as pea-soup. Four sleek fish,
Red as pimentos, push through bubbly scum.
A vagrant sparrow from a rocky niche
Looks critically on. Two lovers come
To gaze at fish and foreigner in the park
And talk and cuddle by the moss-tunked tree
And with a pen-knife hack their names through bark
For (if the tree survives) posterity.

Vikram Seth