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प्रश्न
Read the following extract from Maya Angelou’s poem, ‘When Great Trees Fall’ and answer the questions that follow:
| When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. |
- What effect does the falling of a ‘great tree’ have on the creatures of the forest? [3]
- How does the death of a great soul affect the lives of those left behind in the immediate aftermath of their passing? [3]
- What long-term effect does the death of a ‘great soul' have? [3]
- What feeling is being expressed by the following lines/phrases? [3]
- small things recoil into silence
- kind words/unsaid,
- Beand be/better. For they existed
- What is a ‘Great tree’ a metaphor for? [4]
What is the central message of Angelou’s poem, “When Great Trees Fall"?
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उत्तर
- Lions burrow down, elephants lumber and little things recoil into stillness.
- Breathing becomes difficult due to rarefied and sterile air, emotional choking, clear vision, and remorse for unfulfilled promises.
- Breathing becomes difficult due to rarefied and sterile air, emotional choking, stinging clarity, and remorse over unfulfilled promises.
- (a) little things recoil into silence—shock, numbness, startled.
(b) Kind words and unsaid remorse
(c) Be and be better. They existed: optimism, hope, and happy acceptance. - The tree represents a great soul. 'Losing a loved one is both devastating and inevitable. 'The memories and influence of the magnificent soul will continue to positively alter our lives. It gives us hope and healing to become better versions of ourselves.
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संबंधित प्रश्न
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
And years that fade and flush again;
He plants the glory of the plain;
He plants the forest's heritage;
The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see___
These things he plants who plants a tree.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow:
How is it the harvest of a coming age?
She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas-tree. It was larger and more beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant’s. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches, and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the show- windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out.
The Christmas lights rose higher and higher, till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Why did the girl think that “Someone is dying” ?
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Richard Parker was so named because of a clerical error.
A panther was terrorizing the Khulna district of Bangladesh, just outside the Sundarbans. It had recently carried off a little girl. She was the seventh person killed in two months by the animal. And it was growing bolder. The previous victim was a man who had been attacked in broad daylight in his field. The beast dragged him off into the forest, and his corpse was later found hanging from a tree. The villagers kept a watch nearby that night, hoping to surprise the panther and kill it, but it never appeared.
The Forest Department hired a professional hunter. He set up a small, hidden platform in a free near a river where two of the attacks had taken place. A goat was tied to a stake on the river’s bank. The hunter waited several nights. He assumed the panther would be an old, wasted male with worn teeth, incapable of catching anything more difficult than a human. But it was a sleek tiger that stepped into the open one night: a female with a single cub. The goat bleated. Oddly, the cub, who looked to be about three months old, paid little attention to the goat. It raced to the water’s edge, where it drank eagerly. Its mother followed it. Of hunger and thirst, thirst is the greater urge. Only once the tiger had quenched her thirst did she turn to the goat to satisfy her hunger.
The hunter had two rifles with him: one with real bullets, the other with immobilizing darts. This animal was not the man-eater, but so close to human habitation she might pose a threat to the villagers, especially as she was with cub. He picked up the gun with the darts. He fired as the tiger was about to attack the goat. The tiger reared up and snarled and raced away. But immobilizing darts don’t bring on sleep gently—they knock the creature out without warning. A burst of activity on the animal’s part makes it act all the faster. The hunter called his assistants on the radio. They found the tiger about two hundred yards from the river. She was still conscious. Her back legs had given way and her balance on her front legs was shaky. When the men got close, she tried to get away but could not manage it. She turned on them, lifting a paw that was meant to kill. It only made her lose her balance. She collapsed and the Pondicherry Zoo had two new tigers. The cub was found in a bush close by, meowing with fear.
The hunter, whose name was Richard Parker, picked it up with his bare hands and, remembering how it had rushed to drink in the river, named it Thirsty. But the shipping clerk at the Howrah train station was evidently a man both confused and diligent. All the papers received with the cub clearly stated that its name was Richard Parker, that the hunter’s first name was Thirsty add that his family name was None Given. Richard Parker’s name stuck. I don’t know if the hunter was ever called Thirsty None Given!
(a) Give the meaning of each of the following words as used in the passage.
One word answers ob short phrases will be accepted.
- corpse (line 6)
- quenched (line 16)
- reared (line 20)
(b) Answer the following questions briefly in your own words.
- Why does the author say that the panther ‘was getting bolder’?
- Why did the Forest Department hire a professional hunter?
- What did the hunter expect to encounter? What did he actually encounter?
- What did the tiger do before turning to attack the goat? Why did it do that?
- Why did the hunter decide to shoot the tiger though he knew it was not the man-eater?
- What name did the hunter give to the cub? Why?
(c)
(i) In not more than 60 words narrrate how the hunter and his assistants captured the tiger and her cub.
(ii) Give a suitable title to your summary in 3(c). Give a reason to justify your choice.
Discuss the following topic in groups.
The second bear did not attack the lady because he was afraid of her. Do you agree?
The following sentence has two blanks. Fill in the blanks with appropriate forms of the word given in bracket.
It’s a fairly simple question to__________,butwill you accept my________ as final? (answer)
Which all houses are characterised by the term ‘meadow houses’?
Multiple Choice Question:
‘And its wings fill’. What do the ‘wings’ bring to your mind?
Complete the following sentence.
When the boy started to bring him pieces of cake and biscuit, the squirrel _________
The words helper, companion, partner and accomplice have very similar meanings, but each word is typically used in certain phrases. Can you fill in the blanks below with the most commonly used words? A dictionary may help you.
his …………….. in his criminal activities.
What does Banquo’s soliloquy in Act III Scene i of the play Macbeth, reveal about him?
