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Question
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count upto twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
(i) What does the Earth teach us? (1)
(ii) What does the poet mean to achieve by counting upto twelve? (1)
(iii) What is the significance of ‘keeping quiet’? (1)
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Solution
(i) The Earth teaches us that there can be life under apparent stillness.
(ii) By counting upto twelve, the poet means to achieve peace and tranquility through introspection and self-analysis.
(iii) 'Keeping quiet' signifies the importance of silence, self-examination and introspection.
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Read the following extract and then do all the activities that follow :
How do you know
Peace is a woman?
I know for
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just like a golden flower faded
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She told me her baby
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her daughter in Hiroshima
and her sone in Vietnam,
Ireland, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon,
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A1. Web -
Completely the following web by listing character mentioned in the extract :
A2. Poetic device -
Figure of speech :
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Name and explain the figure of speed in the above line.
A3. Personal response :
Suggest two solutions to avoid wars.
A4. Creativity :
Compose two poetic lines titled “Say ‘no’ to wars”.
Read the following poem and write an appreciation of it with the help of the given points in a paragraph format:
|
The Pulley When God at first made Man, So strength first made a way; For if I should (said He) Yet let him keep the rest, |
- The title of the poem (1)
- The poet (1)
- Central idea/theme (2)
- Rhyme scheme (1)
- Figure of speech (1)
- Special features (2)
- Favourite line/lines (1)
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Read the extract and do the activities that follow: (4)
| Tom | : | (nervously). But, I say, we can’t go prowling about someone else’s house. |
| George | : | We can if we hear any suspicious noises. You never know ? this place might belong to a gang of criminals. |
| Tom | : | (sarcastically). You certainly are trying to cheer us up, George. We don’t want to meet a gang of criminals. |
| George | : | Why not? We’re all strong, healthy chaps, aren’t we? Are you in a funk already? |
| Tom | : | No, of course not; but ? well ? Alfie’s got his best suit on, and |
| Ginger | : | Never mind about Alfie's suit. (With a great show of courage). I’m not afraid of any criminals. Here, George, lend me that torch. (Taking the torch and going up R.C.). I’ll show you if I’m afraid. (Suddenly seeing the White models and letting out a yell of terror.) Ow! W - what's that? |
| Tom | : | (down C., not daring to look round). What’s what? |
| Ginger | : | C- come here. I thought I saw something grinning at me. |
| Tom | : | (crossing hastily to door L.). I’m going to get out of here. |
| Ginger | : | (Coming down C.) So am I. I’m not afraid of criminals, but I believe this place is haunted. |
| George | : | Talk sense, Ginger. Here, give me that torch. (Takes torch and goes up R. C.) |
| Alfie | : | (down L.C.) I want to go home. |
| Ginger | : | Can you see anything, George? |
| George | : | (cautiously approaching white models). I can’t make out what it is, but I believe it's an animal. I say ? there’s something alive in here ? I can see its teeth. (Under the light of George’s torch a row of teeth can be dimly seen). |
| Alfie | : | (rushing to the door) Let me out! Let me out! I want to go home! |
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(i) Alfie wanted to stay at the place to fight with the animal.
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(iv) Tom had no desire to meet a gang of criminals.
B2. Convert dialogue into a story : (2)
Convert the above dialogue into a story form in about 50 words.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth ?
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(b) What dilemma did the poet face ?
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(d) Explain : ‘burning bowels of this earth’.
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I celebrate the virtues and vices
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and position colourful umbrellas
near the garden that longs for a pool:
for my middle-class brother
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(3) Give an example of a 'paradox' from the extract.
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We used to walk down the snow sprinkled trail,
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The smell intoxicating our lungs and mind
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(1) What does the poet miss?
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Name and to explain the figure of speech from the above line.
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The one that is for free, clearing the pavements of all debris
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The smell intoxicating our lungs and mind
Now the only smell to be found comes from plastic trees
Swaying on my rear-view mirror, labelled pine breeze
We used to watch the valley play hide and seek
Questions:
(1) What signs of urbanisation are mentioned in the first six lines of the extract?
(2) Do you think skyscrapers are necessary? Why do you think so?
(3) Pick out the example of personification from the extract.
(4) Pick out the lines from the extract expressing the fond memory of the poet about the pines.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below :
All the rest of her children, she said,
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blacklist of the dead,
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(1) What appeal does the mother make to the world?
(2) What according to you, are the evils of war?
(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the following line:
'A thousand candles then lit.'
(4) Pick out the lines that suggest the hope for world peace.
Read the extract and do all the activities that follow:
We used to think seven generations ahead
Now we have become selfish
Only thinking about me, myself and I
Only thinking in the present, not learning from the past.
We used to stroll barefoot through the overgrown grass,
Its morning dew tickling our feet
Now we step outside onto the rugged concrete
No more natural than the over-processed food we eat
We used to walk down the snow sprinkled trail,
Maybe catch a glimpse of a bobcat, playing eye tricks with its tail
Now there is only one type of bobcat we see
The one that is fur-free, clearing the pavement of all debris
We used to walk through a footpath in a forest of pine
The smell intoxicating our lungs and mind
Now the only smell to be found comes from plastic trees.
Swaying on my rearview mirror, labelled pine breeze
we used to watch the valley play hide and seek
A1. Web :
Complete the web with the things man used to do in the past:
A2. Poetic Devices :
'We used to walk down the snow sprinkled trail'
Name the figure of speech in the above line and find out another example of the same from the extract.
A3. Personal Response :
Write in brief your views about past and present lifestyle.
A4. Poetic Creativity :
'Now we step outside onto the rugged concrete No more natural than the over-processed food.'
Read the above lines and compose at least two lines of your own. based on the same theme.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below :
If you do not get lowered in your own eyes
While you raise yourself in those of others
If you do not give in to gossips and lies
Rather heed them not, saying, 'Who bothers'?
You may be the person I am looking for.
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And look not for sympathy while you lose
If cheers let not your head toss or spin
And after a set -back you offer no excuse.
You may be the person I am looking for.
(1) What care should you take while raising yourself in the eyes of others?
(2) What good qualities of your parents impress you the most?
(3) Pick out the example of antithesis from the first stanza of the above extract.
(4) Pick out the lines from the extract which advise you how to react at your success and defeat.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
The banyan tree was three times as tall as our house
Its trunk had a circumference of fifty feet
Its scraggly aerial roots fell to the ground
From thirty feet or more so first they cut the branches
Sawing them off for seven days and the heap was huge
Insects and birds began to leave the tree
And then they came to its massive trunk
Fifty men with axes chopped and chopped
The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years
We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter
As a raw mythology revealed to us its age
(1) What were the feelings of the family members at the felling of the banyan tree?
(2) Why, according to you, did insects and birds begin to leave the banyan tree?
(3) Find out an example of 'Repetition' from the extract.
(4) Pick out the line from the extract expressing the feelings of the people who watched the merciless cutting of the banyan
tree.
Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow:
|
And as the light came on, Fowler had his first authentic thrill of the day. For halfway across the room, a small automatic pistol in his hand, stood a man. Ausable blinked a few times. |
- Who was standing in the room with a pistol in his hand?
- Ausable
- Fowler
- Max
- A waiter
- Ausable blinked because he:
- was getting adjusted to the light.
- got afraid of the man with a pistol.
- was thrilled to have reached his room.
- started thinking of how to get rid of the man.
- Fowler was thrilled because what he saw looked like a ______.
- Which word in the extract means the same as ‘genuine/real’?
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
|
I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. |
- The poet who has written these lines is ______.
- Robert Frost
- Carolyn Wells
- Walt Whitman
- Ogden Nash
- Who are ‘they’ referred to here?
- Animals
- Tigers
- Ananda’s friends
- Wanda’s dresses
- The poet looks at them long and long because he ______.
- Which word in the extract means ‘complain’?
Read the following extract and do the given activities:
A1. Match the describing words from the Cloud ‘A’ with Cloud ‘B’: (02)
| Cloud ‘A’ | Cloud ‘B’ | ||
| 1. | broad | a. | noise |
| 2. | humorous | b. | jest |
| 3. | chuckling | c. | way |
| 4. | trifling | d. | grin |
| “There to the printer,” I exclaimed, And, in my humorous way, I added (as a trifling jest,) “There’ll be the devil to pay. He took the paper, and I watched, And saw him peep within At the first line, he read, his face Was all upon the grin He read the next; the grin grew broad. And shot from ear to ear; He read the third; a chuckling noise I now began to hear. The fourth; he broke into a roar; The fifth; his waistband split; The sixth; he burst five buttons off And tumbled in a fit. |
A2. Pick out two lines from the extract that indicate humour. (02)
A3. Write two pairs of rhyming words from the extract. (01)
Based on the careful reading of the passage given below, answer any four out of five questions that follow:
|
1. When you see me sitting quietly, 2. When my bones are stiff and aching, 3. I’m the same person I was back then, - Maya Angelou |
- What does the poet think she looks like, when sitting quietly?
- Does the poet invite pity? Quote a line to support your argument.
- What has changed in the poet over the course of years?
- Pick out a word from the second stanza which means ‘faltering’.
- Why does the poet consider herself lucky?
