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Question
In what way is Iswaran an asset to Mahendra?
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Solution
Iswaran cooked for Mahendra, washed his clothes, and chatted with him at night. He would narrate various stories on varied subjects. He also had an amazing ability to produce vegetables and cooking ingredients out of nowhere. He would miraculously cook the most delicious dishes made with fresh vegetables within an hour of arriving at the new workplace. Iswaran was quite attached to Mahendra and followed him to wherever he was posted. Hence, Iswaran was an asset to Mahendra in more ways than one.
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Match the meanings with the words/expressions in italic, and write the appropriate
meaning next to the sentence.
Wait until I tell his story — it will make your hair stand on end.
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How did he punish her?
The passing of time will no longer affect her, says the poet. Which lines of the poem say this?
Listen to the extract on Tigers read by teacher/ student which is given below , and as you listen, complete the summary given below.
Save Tigers
The price of human greed is being paid by yet another animal species the Tiger. Today the tiger population is getting depleted at an alarming rate. According to a recent survey, one tiger is being poached everyday. If the present state of affairs is allowed to continue, the next generation will not get to see the majestic animal even in the zoo.
It is high time that action is taken to protect and conserve the tigers in order to maintain the ecological balance. Stringent laws against poachers must be enforced. It is over 40 years since the tigers became our national animal. As a result, the species was to be protected. Ironically, they are closer to extinction now than ever before. Children, scientists, conservationists, NGOs and institutions in India and world wide have put their heart and soul into trying to save the tiger. Yet there is little we all have been able to do. The responsibility and the power of protection lies with the government, specifically the forest department.
Let us not forget that if we destroy nature, ultimately we will be destroyed ourselves.
Tiger, an apex predator is an indicator of our ecosystem's health. Saving the tiger means we save the forest, since tiger cannot live in places where trees have vanished, and in turn secure food and water for all.
Tigers are now an endangered species. Today there are about 5000 to 7,400 left in the world. Three types of tigers - The Bali, Javan and Caspian tigers have become extinct. The two reasons why tigers are endangered are: Habitat loss and illegal killing.
Illegal Killing
One of the most concerning threat to our national animal that needs to be recognised is poaching. Tigers are killed to make rugs and coats out of their skins.
In many Asian cultures medicines made from tiger's body organs are believed to cure diseases.
Habitat Loss
Forests where tigers live are cut by humans for farming, building houses and roads. This leads to tigers becoming homeless and without any food. Since other animals also die when forests are cut, it leads to tigers becoming weak and their ultimate death.
Project Tiger
Project Tiger is a wildlife conservation project initiated in India in 1972 to protect the Bengal Tigers. It was launched on April 1, 1973 and has become one of the most successful wild life conservation ventures. The project aims at Tiger conservation in specially constituted Tiger reserves representative of various bio geographical regions through out India. It strives to maintain a viable conservation based on tiger population in their natural environment.
Project Tiger was Indira Gandhi's pet project. The main achievements of this project are excellent recovery of the habitat and consequent increase in the tiger population in the reserve areas, from a mere 268 in 7 reserves in 1972 to above one thousand in 28 reserves in 2006.
Tigers being at the apex of the food chain can be considered as the indicator of the integrity of the ecosystem. They can be found in a wide range of habitats, from the evergreen and monsoon forests of the Inda-Malayan realm to the mixed coniferous - deciduous woodlands of the Far east Russia and the mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans, shared by India and Bangladesh.
Tigers are mostly nocturnal but in the northern part of its range, the Siberian subspecies may also be active during the day at winter-time. All wild tigers live in Asia, others live in the humid jungles of Sumatra. The body length is 140 - 280 cm and the tail length is 60 to 95 cm. The upper part of the animal ranges from reddish orange to ochre and the under parts all whitish. The body has a series of black stripes of black to dark grey colour.
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
And far-cast thought of civic good____
His blessing on the neighbourhood,
Who in the hollow of his hand
Holds all the growth of all our land____
A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow:
What is meant by a nation’s growth from sea to sea?
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors — the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
How do the White feel about their dead people?
At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on the eastbound B. & M. express. In one coach there sat a very pretty young woman dressed in elegant taste and surrounded by all the luxurious comforts of an experienced traveler. Among the newcomers were two young men, one of handsome presence with a bold, frank countenance and manner; the other a ruffled, glum-faced person, heavily built and roughly dressed. The two were handcuffed together.
As they passed down the aisle of the coach the only vacant seat offered was a reversed one facing the attractive young woman. Here the linked couple seated themselves. The young woman’s glance fell upon them with a distant, swift disinterest; then with a lovely smile brightening her countenance and a tender pink tingeing her rounded cheeks, she held out a little gray-gloved hand. When she spoke her voice, full, sweet, and deliberate, proclaimed that its owner was accustomed to speak and be heard.
“Well, Mr. Easton, if you will make me speak first, 1 suppose 1 must. Don’t vou ever recognize old friends when you meet them in the West?”
The younger man roused himself sharply at the sound of her voice, seemed to struggle with a slight embarrassment which he threw off instantly, and then clasped her fingers with his left hand.
He slightly raised his right hand, bound at the wrist by the shining “bracelet” to the left one of his companion.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Why does the author call the two men as the ‘linked couple?’
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” ?
I was in for a surprise. When the time came for the broad-jump trials, I was startled to see a tall boy hitting the pit at almost 26 feet on his practice leaps! He turned out to be a German named Luz Long. 1 was told that Hitler hoped to win the jump with him. I guessed that if Long won, it would add some new support to the Nazis’ “master race” (Aryan superiority) theory. After all, I am a Negro. Angr about Hitler’s ways, 1 determined to go out there and really show Der Fuhrer and his master race who was superior and who wasn’t. An angry athlete is an athlete who will make mistakes, as any coach will tell you. I was no exception. On the first of my three qualifying jumps, I leaped from several inches beyond the takeoff board for a foul. On the second jump, I fouled even worse. “Did I come 3,000 miles for this?” I thought bitterly. “To foul out of the trials and make a fool of myself ?” Walking a few yards from the pit, 1 kicked disgustedly at the dirt.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Why did Owens kick the pit in disgust?
I was in for a surprise. When the time came for the broad-jump trials, I was startled to see a tall boy hitting the pit at almost 26 feet on his practice leaps! He turned out to be a German named Luz Long. 1 was told that Hitler hoped to win the jump with him. I guessed that if Long won, it would add some new support to the Nazis’ “master race” (Aryan superiority) theory. After all, I am a Negro. Angr about Hitler’s ways, 1 determined to go out there and really show Der Fuhrer and his master race who was superior and who wasn’t. An angry athlete is an athlete who will make mistakes, as any coach will tell you. I was no exception. On the first of my three qualifying jumps, I leaped from several inches beyond the takeoff board for a foul. On the second jump, I fouled even worse. “Did I come 3,000 miles for this?” I thought bitterly. “To foul out of the trials and make a fool of myself ?” Walking a few yards from the pit, 1 kicked disgustedly at the dirt.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
I supposed that if Long won, it would add some new support to the Nazis’ Aryan- superiority theory. What did Jesse Owens want to show to Hitler?
As it turned out, Luz broke his own past record. In doing so, he pushed me on to a peak performance. I remember that at the instant I landed from my final jump—the one which set the Olympic record of 26 feet 5-5/16 inches—he was at my side, congratulating me. Despite the fact that Hitler glared at us from the stands not a hundred yards away, Luz shook my hand hard—and it wasn’t a fake “smile with a broken heart” sort of grip, either.
You can melt down all the gold medals and cups I have, and they couldn’t be a plating on the 24-carat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. I realized then, too, that Luz was the epitome of what Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, must have had in mind when he said, “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part. The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
You can melt down all the gold medals and cups I have, and they wouldn’t be a plating on the 24-carat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment.
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work, they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after ·them and not for a pack of idle thieving human beings. Throughout the spring and summer, they worked a sixty-hour week, and in August ...............
(i) What did Napoleon announce in August?
(ii) How much time had elapsed since the constitution of the Animal Farm? As summer wore on, what unforeseen shortages began to be felt?
(iii) What new policy did Napoleon make? The new • policy brought a vague uneasiness among the animals. What did they recall?
(iv) Who had agreed to act as an intermediary between the Animal Farm and the outside world ' Describe him?
(v) What roused the pride of the animals and made them reconcile to the new arrangement? In the meanwhile, what sudden decision was taken by the pigs? What do we learn about Napoleon at this juncture?
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
It had no eyes ears, nose or mouth. It was just round smooth head - with a school cap on top of it And that's where the story should end.
But for Mr. Oliver, it did not end here.
The torch fell from his trembling hand. He turned and scrambled down the path, running blind. through the trees and calling for help.
He was still running towards the school buildings when he saw a lantern swinging in the middle of the path.
(i) Who was Mr. Oliver? Where did he encounter 'It?
(ii) Where did Mr. Oliver work? Why did Life magazine describe this place as the 'Eton of the East'?
(iii) Why had Mr. Oliver approached 'It' in the first place? What had lie mistaken it for?
(iv) 'Whal is lantern? Who was holding the lantern? Why did Mr. Oliver feel relieved at the sight of the lantern?
(v) Briefly describe the meeting between the lantern bearer and Mr. Oliver. State one reason why 'A Face in the Dark' could be considered a horror story. ?
Why and when did Dad say the following?
Fall?
What does the child’s mother say about snakes?
What are some of the notable features told about snakes in the lesson?
Answer the following question.
How does the hump of the camels help them to survive when there is no water?
Replace the italicised portion of the sentence below with a suitable phrase from the box. Make necessary changes, wherever required.
Why don’t the two of you end your quarrel by shaking hands?
Answer the following question:
Why was the shop called ‘Lucky Shop’?
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
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Ashamanja Babu lived in a small flat in Bhowanipore. A clerk in the registry department of Lajpat Rai Post Office, Ashamanja Babu was fortunate as he could walk to his office in seven minutes flat without having to fight his way into the buses and trains of Calcutta. He lived a rather carefree life as he was not the kind of person to sit and brood about what might have been had fate been kinder to him. On the whole, he was quite content with his lot. Two Hindi films and fish twice a week-these were enough to keep him happy. The only thing that 10 perturbed him at times was his lack of companionship. A bachelor with few friends and relatives, he often wished he had a dog to keep him company. It need not be a huge Alsatian like the one owned by the Talukdars, who lived two houses down the lane; it could be any ordinary little dog which would follow him around·morning and evening, wag its tail when he came home from work and obey his orders faithfully. Ashamanja Babu's secret desires were that he would speak to his dog in English. 'Stand up', 'Sit down', 'Shake hands' - how nice it 20 would be if his dog obeyed such commands! That would make him really happy. On a cloudy day marked by a steady drizzle, Ashamanja Babu went to the market in Hashimara to buy some oranges. At one end of the market, beside a stunted kul tree, sat a man. As their eyes met, the man smiled. Was he a beggar? His clothes made him look like one. Ashamanja Babu noticed at least five sewn-on patches on his trousers and jacket. But the man didn't have a begging bowl. Instead, by his side was a shoe-box with a 30 little pup sticking its head out of it. 'Good morning!' said the man in English. Ashamanja Babu was obliged to return the greeting. 'Buy dog? Dog buy? Very good dog.' The man had taken the pup out of the box and had put it down on the ground. 'Very cheap. Very good. Happy dog.' 'How much? What price?' 'Ten rupees.' A little haggling and the price came down to seven rupees. Ashamanja Babu paid the money, put the pup back in the shoe-box, closed the lid to save it from the drizzle, and turned homewards, forgetting all about the oranges. |
- For each word given below choose the correct meaning (as used in the passage) from the options provided: (2)
- perturbed (line 11)
- frightened
- unsettled
- confused
- mocked
- stunted (line 25)
- prevented from growing
- prepared for tricks
- prevented from taking action
- allowed to do stunts
- perturbed (line 11)
- Which word in the passage means the opposite of the word 'expensive'? (1)
- carefree
- ordinary
- cheap
- haggling
- Answer the following questions briefly in your own words:
- What kept Ashamanja Babu happy? (2)
- What does this tell you about him? (2)
- What is that one other thing he needed to complete his happiness? (1)
- Why did Ashamanja Babu think the man was a beggar? (2)
- Why did Ashamanja Babu forget about his oranges? (2)
- In not more than 50 words, narrate the series of events from the time the puppy was taken out of the box till it was paid for. (8)
