English

Did the boys return the horse because they were conscience-stricken or because they were afraid?

Advertisements
Advertisements

Question

Did the boys return the horse because they were conscience-stricken or because they were afraid?

Short/Brief Note
Advertisements

Solution

A model answer has been provided for students' reference.

It is strongly recommended that students prepare the answer on their own.

The most beautiful essence of this story is the fact that the boys were very innocent and meant no harm to anyone. They were just dreamy and wished to ride a horse. It pricked their conscience when they saw the clean heart of the farmer, John Byro, who didn't suspect them even for once for stealing the horse. They were not afraid but were guilt-stricken when they met a pure-hearted soul like John, who couldn't even think of people of their clan stealing, even after he said it was confirmed that the horse resembled his, just like twins. The children might have also been afraid of ruining the prestige and honor of their families.

shaalaa.com
Reading Skills
  Is there an error in this question or solution?
Chapter 1: The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse - Reading with insight [Page 8]

APPEARS IN

NCERT English Snapshots (Core) Class 11
Chapter 1 The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse
Reading with insight | Q 2 | Page 8

RELATED QUESTIONS

Anne's father was close to her. What did she like about him? Why?


Read the text below and summarise it.

Green Sahara

The Great Desert Where Hippos Once Wallowed

The Sahara sets a standard for dry land. It’s the world’s largest desert. Relative humidity can drop into the low single digits. There are places where it rains only about once a century. There are people who reach the end of their lives without ever seeing water come from the sky.

Yet beneath the Sahara are vast aquifers of fresh water, enough liquid to fill a small sea. It is fossil water, a treasure laid down in prehistoric times, some of it possibly a million years old. Just 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a much different place.

It was green. Prehistoric rock art in the Sahara shows something surprising: hippopotamuses, which need year-round water.

“We don’t have much evidence of a tropical paradise out there, but we had something perfectly liveable,” says Jennifer Smith, a geologist at Washington University in St Louis.

The green Sahara was the product of the migration of the paleo-monsoon. In the same way that ice ages come and go, so too do monsoons migrate north and south. The dynamics of earth’s motion are responsible. The tilt of the earth’s axis varies in a regular cycle — sometimes the planet is more tilted towards the sun, sometimes less so. The axis also wobbles like a spinning top. The date of the earth’s perihelion — its closest approach to the sun — varies in cycle as well.

At times when the Northern Hemisphere tilts sharply towards the sun and the planet makes its closest approach, the increased blast of sunlight during the north’s summer months can cause the African monsoon (which currently occurs between the Equator and roughly 17°N latitude) to shift to the north as it did 10,000 years ago, inundating North Africa.

Around 5,000 years ago the monsoon shifted dramatically southward again. The prehistoric inhabitants of the Sahara discovered that their relatively green surroundings were undergoing something worse than a drought (and perhaps they migrated towards the Nile Valley, where Egyptian culture began to flourish at around the same time).

“We’re learning, and only in recent years, that some climate changes in the past have been as rapid as anything underway today,” says Robert Giegengack, a University of Pennsylvania geologist.

As the land dried out and vegetation decreased, the soil lost its ability to hold water when it did rain. Fewer clouds formed from evaporation. When it rained, the water washed away and evaporated quickly. There was a kind of runaway drying effect. By 4,000 years ago the Sahara had become what it is today.

No one knows how human-driven climate change may alter the Sahara in the future. It’s something scientists can ponder while sipping bottled fossil water pumped from underground.

“It’s the best water in Egypt,” Giegengack said — clean, refreshing mineral water. If you want to drink something good, try the ancient buried treasure of the Sahara.

JOEL ACHENBACK
Staff Writer, Washington Post

Comment on the influence of English – the language and the way of life – on Indian life as reflected in the story. What is the narrator's attitude to English?


Look at the words given in the box below

snigger

wriggle

sneak

squeak

squawk

titter

pant

chuckle

giggle

jeer

chortle

guffaw

sigh

sidle

boo

shriek

scramble

croak

straggle

plod

gasp


 


 


 

Now classify them according to their closeness in meaning to the words given below

A

B

C

D

E

snigger

wriggle

squeak

jeer

sigh


How, according to you, can peace and liberty be maintained in a state?


Explain the contradiction in the similies, ‘Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb’.


Love is presented as the subject or the doer of actions in the poem. Why do you think the poet has used this form rather than involving human agents?


Notice these expressions in the poem and guess their meaning from the context:

rancid breath squelching tar
spectroscopic flight of fancy
rearing on the thunderclap brunette
peroxide blonde clinical assent
raven black

Think and answer in your own words.

What could be the age group of the speaker in the poem?


State the facts about the story.

  • Main characters:
  • Problem:
  • Attempts made to solve it:
  • Climax/Turning point:
  • Problem solved:
  • End:

Pick out the statements which aptly depict the theme of the poem.

  1. In the poem, the speaker memorises the past.
  2. In ‘The Planners’ the poet describes the unstoppable force of modernisation.
  3. The poet talks about the replacement of natural environment by the concrete jungle.
  4. The poet proposes to stop modernisation.
  5. The poet laments helplessly.

The whole world is happy because children are going to school. Why is it so? Discuss it in the classroom.


Find sentences from the play related to the given points.

The tension between different loyalties

  1. It’s little we get but abuse from the people, and no choice but to obey our orders.
  2. ________________________________
  3. ________________________________
  4. ________________________________

Comment on the versatility and the aptness of the stage settings, as per the requirement of the play “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream!”


“A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” is one of the best examples of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. Comment.


Discuss the question after you have seen a presentation of the ‘ad’.

What does the ad tell you?


Discuss the following question after you have seen a presentation of the ‘ad’.

Think of the people you like. Do you like them because they have a fair (white) skin or because of some other qualities? List those qualities.


Write a useful ‘ad’ for the importance of games, drinking enough water, your own school.


Have you seen a newborn young one of an animal?


Write a few lines about each character. 


Hold a mock trial for the following offence. There should be a complainant, a defendant, and lawyers to argue the case on behalf of them. The whole class can vote to pass the judgment. On what occasions will you plead for justice? What punishment will you suggest? When will you plead for mercy?

A poor man stole some ornaments from a rich girl.


Start a collection of new and interesting words. Write the words in colored ink on cards of equal size and arrange them in alphabetical order. Try to use the words in your writing or conversation from time to time.


Read the poem: ‘Home they brought her warrior dead’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson.


Using your imagination, write more sentences in the same pattern:

  1. But the more the lion had, the more he wanted.
  2. Whenever he took a walk, they followed him.
  3. To be king is good. But to be kind is better.

There were no old cities left on the earth.


Answer in your own words.

Why does a mother tell Neel about his Grandpa?


Listen carefully and guess how the sentence would end.

When the teacher read the answer papers, she was ______.


Name the following.

Third-time winners of the Olympic gold medal for hockey.


Read the word. Write the words that combine to make it. 

springtime


Write other meaningful words that begin/end with stepmother.


Read the highlighted words. They are adverbs.

  • I was pulling hard.
  • They ran away.
  • Later, I was taken to the city.
  • I went very carefully.
  • They were greatly pleased.

Why did he spill the milk?


Who used the zither and how?


Look at the following situations the writer was in. He could have avoided the situation and saved himself. Glance through the write up again and comment on what the writer should have done in the following situations.

  1. Gilson asked the writer to bring a tie.
  2. On the day of arrival, the writer had no time to think about the tie.
  3. The writer remembered about the tie when the bus was leaving for the airport.
  4. The writer walked down in search of the shop.
  5. The writer rushed out with the tie in a paper bag.

An Anagram is a word or a phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. 

Now try to solve these anagrams

1. ELBOW  
2. SECTION  
3. VIEWER  
4. RIPPLES  
5. NEEDLESS  

What does the poet mean by ‘Festival of flowers’?


What did Mr. Fogg mean by, ‘it was foreseen’?


What is the poem about?


Grandmother had wanted the peepul tree cut down because______.


When the author returned from England to Dehradun, he found Grandfather's dream had come true because the______.


Read the questions related to the three sports stars you have read about and tick the appropriate boxes.

 
1. Who won the Olympic 2016 silver medal in badminton?      
2. Who is the role model for her siblings?      
3. Whose mother tongue is Tamil?      
4. Whose attitude is 'never-say-die spirit'?      
5. Which player works in the Police Department?      
6. Which player holds the record for the highest individual score in cricket?      

Name the planets the poet flies through.


Connect and write the homophones in the box.

Sea

One

Flower


The bird-catcher let the pigeon jump into the fire.


Will you solve a mystery with friends? Why?


All the children wished to go to the______.


Circle and write the adverbs.

I drink coffee thrice a day. ______


Match the rhyming words.

1.  share dare
2. bread rest
3. care needs
4. deeds ahead
5. zest bear

Read the advertisement and answer the question given below.

What is the size of the screen?


Do you think you treat everyone equally? Justify with an example.


Are you the first to protect the nature?


Savings is done after fulfilling the______.


Read the passage three times on your own. Colour a Piggy bank each time you read.

Piggy bank is a coin box used by children. The real use of a piggy bank is to store coins. Piggy banks look like pigs. They come in many shapes and sizes. In Tamil, they are known as Hundial. It is a red, mud pot. We can drop the coins into the pot. Once the pot is full, we must break the pot and use the coins. Start saving with your hundial today!


Do you think Ani will be a good leader? Why?


Write the word with same meaning.

post- ______


What incident made Mugund make a wooden drum?


What is the main idea of the story?


What happen to a child who shuts his ears?


What should we do for success?


What did Nasruddin boast about?


Share
Notifications

Englishहिंदीमराठी


      Forgot password?
Use app×