I Sell My Dreams Class 12 English Kaleidoscope PYQ PDF 2026

38 real CBSE previous year questions from I Sell My Dreams, the Gabriel Garcia Marquez story that opens the Class 12 Kaleidoscope textbook, are collected here as a free 7-page PDF. The questions are sorted by marks, from the 1-mark Section A set up to the 6-mark extract questions, and every question carries the year the CBSE board paper asked it. This is a practice set, so the PDF ships the questions only, with no answer key.

• 38 questions in total, and 22 of them come from the 2024 and 2025 board papers alone.
• Marks-wise buckets: 22 one-mark, 2 two-mark, 4 three-mark, 3 four-mark and 7 six-mark questions.
• Every question is tagged with its exam year, so you can practise the newest pattern first.

Every question in this Collegedunia practice set is lifted from an actual CBSE Class 12 English Elective board paper and tagged with the year it appeared, according to the 2026-27 syllabus for Kaleidoscope.

What the I Sell My Dreams Previous Year Questions PDF Contains

The PDF is a plain question bank. It opens with a contents card that lists the five marks buckets, then prints each bucket in order with a red year tag under every question. Nothing is summarised for you and nothing is answered for you.

• 7 pages of questions, with the marks bucket printed as an orange band above each set.
• The four multiple-choice vocabulary questions keep their original four options, exactly as CBSE printed them.
• Long extracts are reproduced in full, so you can read the passage and attempt the question without opening the textbook.
• Years run from 2009 to 2025, which lets you see how the wording of the same idea changed over time.

Because there is no answer key, the PDF works best as a self-test. Write your answers in a notebook first, then open the Kaleidoscope chapter and mark yourself.

Marks-wise Split of the I Sell My Dreams Previous Year Questions

The heaviest bucket by far is the 1-mark Section A set. That matches how the Class 12 English Elective paper treats a short story: a cluster of quick recall and vocabulary questions, then one or two longer questions.

More than half the question bank sits in the 1-mark bucket, so the fastest scoring gain on this chapter comes from knowing small factual details: names, places, objects and single words.

Year-wise Spread of CBSE Questions from I Sell My Dreams

Two years carry the paper. 2024 alone accounts for 14 of the 38 questions, and 2025 adds 8 more. If you are short on time, start at the top of this table and work downwards.

Frau Frieda and Pablo Neruda: The Two Characters Most of These Questions Ask About

Almost every question in the set points at one of two people. Frau Frieda is the Austrian woman who sells her dreams for a living. Pablo Neruda is the Chilean poet the narrator meets in Barcelona. Knowing what each one does in the story answers most of the 1-mark set.

• Frau Frieda: her talent, how she earned a living during the Viennese winters, the house in Vienna, the snake ring with emerald eyes, and the fortune she took over from her patrons.
• Pablo Neruda: his manner of eating, his sacred siesta, the line "Only poetry is clairvoyant", and how he knew someone behind him was looking at him.
• The narrator: why he lagged behind on the stroll along the Ramblas, why he thought the dream-selling was a trick, and why he left Vienna and never returned.
• The frame story: the car pulled out of the wall of the Havana Riviera Hotel after the storm, and what the Portuguese ambassador said about his housekeeper.

If you can talk for two minutes about each of those four bullets, you can attempt roughly three quarters of the question bank without looking anything up.

Vocabulary Questions from I Sell My Dreams That the Board Paper Has Repeated

Four of the 1-mark questions are multiple-choice vocabulary items and one more asks for an antonym. These are the cheapest marks in the whole set, and the same words keep coming back. Look each one up in the sentence where it appears in the story, not in isolation.

Five vocabulary marks are available across the last three papers, and none of them needs an essay. Write each word on a flashcard with the sentence from the story on the back.

Extract-Based Questions from I Sell My Dreams and How to Attempt Them

Seven of the 38 questions print a full passage from the story and then ask you to respond. The passages are not random. They cluster around four moments the examiner clearly likes.

1. The Barcelona lunch where the narrator recognises Frau Frieda three tables away, and Neruda says he does not believe in prophetic dreams. (2025)
2. The stroll along the Ramblas, where Frau Frieda describes her fake castle on a hill in Oporto. (2024)
3. Frau Frieda's absolute control over the Vienna household during the war years, and the estate the master left her. (2024)
4. Neruda's siesta, prepared like a Japanese tea ceremony, and the monogram of the pillowcase on his cheek. (2023)

For any extract question, read the passage twice before you write. The first read tells you what is happening, the second tells you which single word or image the question is built on.

Sample Previous Year Questions from the I Sell My Dreams PDF

These are printed exactly as they appear in the practice set, with their year tags. Attempt them on paper before you download the rest.

1. Why does Pablo Neruda say 'Poetry is clairvoyant'? (2025, 1 mark)
2. How was Frau Frieda able to grab the property of her 'ineffable patrons'? (2024, 1 mark)
3. Why was the writer reminded of the 'Japanese tea ceremony'? (2023, 1 mark)
4. What was her talent and how did she earn her living? (2011, 2 marks)
5. What did the Portuguese ambassador say about his housekeeper Frau Frieda who died in the Havana Riviera disaster? (2025, 3 marks)
6. What is the significance of the gold ring and the emerald eyes of Frau Frieda? (2023, 3 marks)
7. How did Pablo Neruda know that somebody behind him was looking at him? (2009, 4 marks)
8. Why did the author in 'I Sell My Dreams' leave Vienna never to return again? (2012, 6 marks)

Common Mistakes Students Make in the I Sell My Dreams Chapter

Student Feedback on the I Sell My Dreams Question Practice Set

How to Use the I Sell My Dreams Previous Year Questions in Your Revision Plan

The set is small enough to finish in one sitting, but it works better split across three short blocks. That way you read the story in between and your recall gets tested twice.

1. Block 1, about 25 minutes. Attempt all 22 one-mark questions in one go. Mark the ones you guessed.
2. Block 2, about 30 minutes. Reread the chapter, then do the 2-mark and 3-mark questions with the word limits enforced.
3. Block 3, about 40 minutes. Take the 4-mark and 6-mark extract questions under exam conditions, with a timer.

Tip: keep a single sheet listing every question you got wrong. On the day before the paper, that sheet is your whole revision for this chapter.

More Class 12 Kaleidoscope Resources for I Sell My Dreams

Question practice works best next to the chapter text and a short set of notes. The other resources for this Kaleidoscope story are listed below, and are being published in the same batch as this page.

Kaleidoscope Chapter-wise Previous Year Questions for Class 12 English

Each Kaleidoscope chapter gets its own question set built the same way, sorted by marks and tagged by year. Use the table to move to the next story once you finish this one.

FAQs on I Sell My Dreams Class 12 Previous Year Questions