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Question
What do you infer from Darwin's comment on his indifference to literature as he advanced in years?
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Solution
Darwin, a great scientist, known for his work On the Origin of Species, enjoyed literature only until he was 30, as he said. He enjoyed poetic works of Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, etc. immensely. Shakespeare's historical plays gave him much pleasure. However, as he advanced in his age to reach the benchmark of 30, the charm faded and he began losing interest in pictures and music that once gave him great delight. He tried reading poetry and Shakespeare; however, he found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated him. It is surprising that the answer to this change is in Darwin's own statement. His mind had become some kind of a grinding machine to process laws out of facts. It caused atrophy of that part of the brain on which higher tastes depended. It was hard for Darwin to infer it as well and, thus, his romance with literature died away.
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RELATED QUESTIONS
B1. Select
Fill in the blanks choosing the correct alternatives from those given in the bracket:
(i) The author was inspired and motivated to read ............................................ by the time she was eleven.
[Shakespeare, Chaucer, G.B. Shaw]
(ii) Every lesson .......................... ......... took was spiced with half a dozen or more anecdotes.
[Mrs. Rowlands, Sister Monica, Mr. A.N. Patil]
(iii) The teachers helped the narrator to become ..................................... . .
[confident, happy, independent]
(iv) Mrs. Cynthia Nesamani and Sister Monica gave .......................................... to the narrator.
[freedom to do what he wanted, advice to do something, instructions to produce better results]
In a way, one of the greatest gifts any teacher can give a student, I think, is to inculcate a curiosity to learn.
I've been incredibly lucky to have at least one such teacher at every stage in my life. The first was Mrs. Rowlands who taught me in primary school. She taught me to read without ever pushing me. She made me want to read more by giving 'me some of the most interesting children's books available. And although I still love to go back to those books from time to time, it was only because of her that I was able to read Shakespeare by the time I was ten, and Chaucer a year later.
In later years, it was Mr. A.N. Patil, my Marathi and Hindi Teacher who made a huge impression on me. Every lesson he took, was spiced with half a dozen or more anecdotes from a wide variety of subjects: among them history, politics, religion and sociology. I was, and still am in awe of his knowledge, which despite rather desperate attempts, I doubt I'll ever be able to match.
There have also been other teachers who helped me to try to become independent: to think and act for myself using my own judgement, which to my mind has been just as, if not more important, than actually learning anything.
After all, it's much too easy to become a completely useless repository of facts and little else.
Two teachers whom I remember in particular are Mrs. Cynthia Nesamani and Sister Monica, both taught me in school. The former, by and large, gave me a free rein to do what I wanted to do. I, being one of those people who dislike instructions, she helped me to produce much better results than I'd have otherwise done.
B2.Complete
Read the extract and complete the following:
The teacher can
(i) .............
(ii) ..............
(iii )..............
(iv).................
B3. Similar word
Look at the following sentences arid pick the word having similar meaning to the given word and rewrite:
(i) Spiced His conversation is always with a lot of humour. (made interesting, garnished, flavoured)
(ii) Repository
The library should not merely be a ................ of books. (store-house, reservoir, tank)
(iii) Inculcate
It is the responsibility of the parents and teachers to .......values in the child's formative years. (imbibe, give, show)
(iv) Incredibly
I have been .. lucky to have at least one such teacher at every stage in my life. (importantly, unbelievably, beautifully)
B4. Language study
(i) There have also been other teachers. They have helped me to try to become
independent. (Combine using 'who')
(ii) It was only because of her that I was able-to read Shakespeare.
(Rewrite beginning with: If it was not for her, ).
B.5 Out motivators
Look at the following table and complete it by presenting your own views
| Personalities | Influence on your life |
| (i) Teachers | |
| (ii) Parents | |
| (iii) Relatives | |
| (iv) Friends |
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(c) How do we get joy from life which is otherwise full of sorrows ? (A Thing of Beauty)
(d) For Aunt Jennifer, what do the tigers symbolise ?
(e) What made the chief astrologer place his finger on his nose ? (The Tiger King)
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| (1) | ____________ | ____________ | oldest |
| (2) | ____________ | healthier | ____________ |
| (3) | near | ____________ | ____________ |
| (4) | ____________ | finer | ____________ |
| (5) | ____________ | ____________ | earliest |
| (6) | small | ____________ | ____________ |
| (7) | ____________ | faster | ____________ |
| (8) | high | ____________ | ____________ |
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as ______ as an eel
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Fine feathers don’t make fine birds.
Visit a library:
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Rain in countries like the UK which experience spring-summer-autumn-winter.
Read the passage and name the following.
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Write in your own words.
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footprint
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Complete the given tabular column with the suitable plural forms.
| chair | - | |
| box | - | |
| Eskimo | - | |
| lady | - | |
| radius | - | |
| formula | - | |
| child | - | |
| deer | - | |
| loaf | - | |
| hero | - |
Read the following line from the poem and answer the question given below.
Nothing goes right with the folks you meet
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| honeybees | |||
| price | prize | maze | face |
| rice | rise | blaze | fizz |
| lazy | lacy | busy | racy |
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The Sherpas were nomadic people who first migrated from Tibet approximately 600 years ago, through the Nangpa La pass and settled in the Solukhumbu District, Nepal. These nomadic people then gradually moved westward along salt trade routes. During 14th century, Sherpa ancestors migrated from Kham. The group of people from the Kham region, east of Tibet, was called “Shyar Khamba”. The inhabitants of Shyar Khamba, were called Sherpa. Sherpa migrants travelled through Ü and Tsang, before crossing the Himalayas. According to Sherpa oral history, four groups migrated out of Solukhumbu at different times, giving rise to the four fundamental Sherpa clans: Minyagpa, Thimmi, Sertawa and Chawa. These four groups have since split into the more than 20 different clans that exist today
Sherpas had little contact with the world beyond the mountains and they spoke their own language. AngDawa, a 76-year-old former mountaineer recalled “My first expedition was to Makalu [the world’s fifth highest mountain] with Sir Edmund Hillary’’. We were not allowed to go to the top. We wore leather boots that got really heavy when wet, and we only got a little salary, but we danced the Sherpa dance, and we were able to buy firewood and make campfires, and we spent a lot of the time dancing and singing and drinking. Today Sherpas get good pay and good equipment, but they don’t have good entertainment. My one regret is that I never got to the top of Everest. I got to the South Summit, but I never got a chance to go for the top.
The transformation began when the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and the New Zealander Edmund Hillary scaled Everest in 1953. Edmund Hillary took efforts to build schools and health clinics to raise the living standards of the Sherpas. Thus life in Khumbu improved due to the efforts taken by Edmund Hillary and hence he was known as ‘Sherpa King’.
Sherpas working on the Everest generally tend to perish one by one, casualties of crevasse falls, avalanches, and altitude sickness. Some have simply disappeared on the mountain, never to be seen again. Apart from the bad seasons in 1922, 1970 and 2014 they do not die en masse. Sherpas carry the heaviest loads and pay the highest prices on the world’s tallest mountain. In some ways, Sherpas have benefited from the commercialization of the Everest more than any group, earning income from thousands of climbers and trekkers drawn to the mountain. While interest in climbing Everest grew gradually over the decades after the first ascent, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the economic motives of commercial guiding on Everest began. This leads to eclipse the amateur impetus of traditional mountaineering. Climbers looked after each other for the love of adventure and “the brotherhood of the rope” now are tending to mountain businesses. Sherpas have taken up jobs as guides to look after clients for a salary. Commercial guiding agencies promised any reasonably fit person a shot at Everest.
Collect the outer coverings of fast food items. Discuss the following points in groups and then write your observations in your notebook.
- Ingredients
- Manufactured by
- Net weight
- Veg or Non-veg
- Recipe
- Nutrition facts
- MRP
- Mfg date
- Website
- Other instructions, if any
