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Question
Thinking about the Poem
Where was the snake before anyone saw it and chased it away? Where does the snake
disappear?
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Solution
The snake was lying on the sand till someone saw it and again chased it away. The snake disappeared in the ripples of the water among the green reeds.
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______________________
The world's most famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart, disappeared in 1937, as she attempted to become the first woman to fly around the world with her navigator, Fred Noonan. She was last heard when she was around 100 miles from the tiny Pacific Howland Island on July 2, 1937.
Read the story of her 'Final Flight'.
On June 1, 1937 Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami, Florida; bound for California. Their first destination was San Juan, Puerto Rico; from there, skirting the northeast edge of South America; and then on to Africa and the Red Sea.
The flight to Karachi was another first. No one had previously flown non-stop from the Red Sea to India before. From Karachi, the Electra flew to Calcutta on June 17 from there on, to Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore and Bandoeng.
The monsoon prevented departure from Bandoeng for several days. Repairs were made on some of the 'long distance' instruments which had given trouble previously. During this time, Amelia became ill, and suffered from dysentery that lasted several days.
It was June 27 before Amelia and Noonan were able to leave Bandoeng for Port Darwin, Australia. At Darwin, the direction finder was repaired, and the parachutes were packed and shipped home as they would be of no value over the Pacific .
Amelia reached Lae in New Guinea on June 29. At this point they had flown 22,000 miles and there were 7,000 more to go over the Pacific. Amelia cabled her last commissioned article to the Herald Tribune. Photos show her looking very tired and ill during her time at Lac.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter, Itasca had been standing off Howland Island for some day to act as a radio contact for Amelia Radio communications in the area were very poor as Itasca was overwhelmed with commercial radio traffic that the flight had generated .
Amelie left Lae at preciaely 00:00 hours Greenwich Mean Time on July 2 . It is believed that the Electra was loaded with 1,000 gallons of fuel , allowing for 20-21 hours of flying .
At 07:20 hours GMT Amelia provided a position report placing the Electra on course as some 20 miles southwest of the Nukumanu Islands . The last weather report Amelia was known to have received was before take-off . The head wind speed had increased by 10-12 mph, but it is not known if she ever received the report.
At 08:00 GMT Amelia made her last radio contact with Lae . she reported being on course for Howland Island at 12,000 feet . There is no real evidence as to the precise track of the aircraft after Nukumanu . No one saw or heard the plane fly over .
Several short transmissions were received by the Itasca with varying signal strengths but they were unable to get a fix on her location because they were too brief. At 19:30 GMT the following transmission was received from the Electra at maximum strength.
"KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you but cannot see you ... gas is running low ... "
At 20: 14 GMT, the Itasca received the last voice transmission from Amelia giving positioning data. The Itasca continued to transmit on all frequencies until 21:30 hours GMT. They determined that Amelia must have died at sea and began to implement search procedures.
It has been determined that the plane went down some 35-100 miles off the coast of Howland Island. A life raft was stowed on board but no trace was ever found of the raft. Some experts felt that the empty fuel tanks could keep the plane afloat for a period of time.
President Roosevelt authorized a search party of 9 naval ships and 66 aircrafts at an estimated cost of over $4 million. On July 18, the search was abandoned by ships in the Howland area. George continued to seek help in the search, but by October he too abandoned all hope of finding them alive.
Amelia had been sending letters to George at stopovers all along her route quite regularly. These were published in the book 'Last Flight'. The book has a note from her to George ....
"Please know I am quite aware of the hazards ... I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. If they fail, their failure must be, but a challenge to others. "
Amelia created a number of aviation records :
o The first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928
o The second person to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932
o The first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California in 1935 Guided by her publicist and husband, George Putnam, she made headlines in an era when aviation had gripped the public's imagination.
Read the English folktale given below and fill up the blank spaces with suitable words.
There were once three tortoises – a father, a mother (a) ________. a baby (b) ________ one fine morning during Spring, they decided (c) ________ picnic. They picked the place (d) ________ they would go; a nice wood at some distance, (e) ________ they began to put their things together. They got tins of cheese, vegetables, meat and fruit preserves. In about three months, they were ready. They set out carrying their baskets (f) ________ eighteen months, they sat down for a rest. They knew (g) ________ they were already half way to the picnic place.
In three years they reached there. They unpacked (h) ________ spread out the canned food. Then, mother began to search inside the basket. She turned it upside down and shook it (i) ________ something important was missing.
“We’ve forgotten the tin-opener. Baby, you’ll have to go back. We can’t start without a tin-opener. We’ll wait for you”. .
“Do you promise (j) ________ you won’t touch a thing (k) ________ I come back?”
“Yes, we promise faithfully,” Mother and father said together.
Soon after, he was lost among the bushes.
So, they waited and waited. A year went by and they were getting hungry. They had promised (l) ________ they waited. They began to feel really hungry (m) ________ the sixth year was about to end.
Mother tortoise said, “He’d never know the difference.” “No,” said the father tortoise.
Mother tortoise said, “He ought to be back by now. Let’s just have one sandwich (n) ________ we are waiting.”
They picked up the sandwiches, (o) ________ as they were going to eat them, a little voice said, “Aha! I knew you’d cheat! It’s a good thing I didn’t start for that tin opener,” baby Tortoise said.
"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.
"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide,
And many a childing mother then,
And new-born baby died;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory;
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
Explain with reference to context.
'All right!' you 'll cry.'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children?Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Read the lines given above and answer the question given below.
How according to the poet, can children benefit from reading books?
Its a cruel thing to leave her so.”
“Then take her to the poorhouse: she’ll have to go there,” answered the blacksmith’s wife, springing away, and leaving Joe behind.
For a little while the man stood with a puzzled air; then he turned back, and went into the hovel again. Maggie with painful effort, had raised herself to an upright position and was sitting on the bed, straining her eyes upon the door out of which all had just departed, A vague terror had come into her thin white face.
“O, Mr. Thompson!” she cried out, catching her suspended breath, “don’t leave me here all alone!” ,
Though rough in exterior, Joe Thompson, the wheelwright, had a heart, and it was very tender in some places. He liked children, and was pleased to have them come to his shop, where sleds and wagons were made or mended for the village lads without a draft on their hoarded sixpences.
“No, dear,” he answered, in a kind voice, going to the bed, and stooping down over the child, “You she’n’t be left here alone.” Then he wrapped her with the gentleness almost of a woman, in the clean bedclothes which some neighbor had brought; and, lifting her in his strong arms, bore her out into the air and across the field that lay between the hovel and his home.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What did Maggie say to Mr Thompson? What do her words show?
Suddenly all the tension seemed to ebb out of my body as the truth of what he said hit me. Confidently, I drew a line a full foot in back of the board and proceeded to jump from there. I qualified with almost a foot to spare.
That night I walked over to Luz Long’s room in the Olympic village to thank him. I knew that if it hadn’t been for him I probably wouldn’t be jumping in the finals the following day. We sat in his quarters and talked for two hours—about track and field, ourselves, the world situation, a dozen other things.
When I finally got up to leave, we both knew that a real friendship had been formed. Luz would go out to the field the next day trying to beat me if he could. But I knew that he wanted me to do my best—even if that meant my winning.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
How did Owens manage to qualify for the finals with a foot to spare?
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.
He used to work really hard to make each pair of shoe. But still everything he earned went on paying the rent of his shop and in buying leather. There wasn’t much money with him. He nearly killed himself working for hours at the shop without any food and rest.
Whom does ‘his’ refers to in the above lines?
How does the author define ‘sleep’?
Why did Vijay Singh ask the ghost disguised as Natwar to come closer?
Multiple Choice Question:
What does the expression leave their greens’ mean?
With your partner, complete the following sentence in your own word using the ideas in the poem.
Words are the __________________ of thought.
How did Algu and Jumman treat each other?
Study the following phrases and their meanings. Use them appropriately to complete the sentences that follow.
Nitin has always ……………. his uncle, who is a self-made man.
What made Jesse Owens one of the best remembered athletes of all time?
What role does Ariel play in Act IV of the play, The Tempest?
