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Question
What is the story’s underlying message or advice to the readers? Do you also support the author’s view?
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Solution
The story of the reptiles is a myth but it has a moral and a message. This world belongs to all sorts of creatures. Together they keep a balance. Every kind of creature serves a useful purpose. It is sad that man is trying to kill all the species and rule over the world like a dictator. This is certainly not practicable or in his own interest. Our motto should be to ‘Live and Let Live’. I quite subscribe to this view.
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RELATED QUESTIONS
Thinking about Language
Match the words/phrases in Column A with their meanings in Column B.
| A | B |
| 1. slaving | (i) a quarrel or an argument |
| 2. cgaos | (ii) remove something from inside another thing using a sharp tool |
| 3. rummage | (iii) strange, mysterious. Difficult to explain |
| 4. scrape out | (iv) finish successfully, achieve |
| 5. stumble over, tumble into |
(v) search for something by moving things around hurriedly or carelessly |
| 6. accomplish | (vi) completer confusion and disorder |
| 7. uncanny | (vii) fall, or step awkwardly while waking |
| 8. (to have or get into) a | (viii) working hard |
Activity:
Find Dhanuskodi and Rameswaram on the map. What language(s) do you think are spoken there? What languages do you think the author, his family, his friends and his teachers spoke with one another?
Answer of these question in a short paragraph (about 30 words).
What characteristics does he say he inherited from his parents?
After having read the story, you realise the anguish of the illiterate adults. You want to make your friends aware of it and contribute something in bringing about a change in the lives of the illiterate adults. Deliver a speech in the morning assembly at your school about the Importance of Adult Education and ways to implement it.
Read the following to make your speech effective:
The introduction of a speech is like the nose of an airplane. The nose sets the course and leads the plane off in a specific direction. A good introduction sets the direction of your speech by
- getting the attention of your audience
- introducing your topic
- stating your central idea or purpose
- briefly identifying the main points
- making your audience eager to hear what you have to say
You can find more information about Robert Frost at the following websites.
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=1961.
Hear the poet (who died almost forty years ago!) reading the poem at
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm ?prmID= 1645
To view a beautiful New England scene with each poem on this web site: "Illustrated
Poetry of Robert Frost":
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/1487/index.html
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The Screams and yells,the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week ot two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start - oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
Read the lines given above and answer the question given below.
What does Dahl ask the parents to do?
Of the seven hundred villages dotting the map of India, in which the majority of India’s five hundred million live, flourish and die, Kritam was probably the tiniest, indicated on the district survey map by a microscopic dot, the map being meant more for the revenue official out to collect tax than for the guidance of the motorist, who in any case could not hope to reach it since it sprawled far from the highway at the end of a rough track furrowed up by the iron-hooped wheels of bullock carts. But its size did not prevent its giving itself the grandiose name Kritam, which meant in Tamil coronet or crown on the brow of the subcontinent. The village consisted of fewer than thirty houses, only one of them built from brick and cement and painted a brilliant yellow and blue all over with
gorgeous carvings of gods and gargoyles on its balustrade, it was known as the Big House. The other houses, distributed in four streets, were generally of bamboo thatch, straw, mud and other unspecified material. Muni’s was the last house in the fourth street, beyond which stretched the fields. In his prosperous days Muni had owned a flock of sheep and goats and sallied forth every morning driving the flock to the highway a couple of miles away.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Describe the other houses.
The horse was nearly life-size, moulded out of clay, baked, burnt, and brightly coloured, and reared its head proudly, prancing its forelegs in the air and flourishing its tail in a loop; beside the horse stood a warrior with scythelike mustachios, bulging eyes, and aquiline nose. The old image-makers believed in indicating a man of strength by bulging out his eyes and sharpening his moustache tips, and also decorated the man’s chest with beads which looked today like blobs of mud through the ravages of sun and wind and rain (when it came), but Muni would insist that he had known the beads to sparkle like the nine gems at one time in his life.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Describe the horse.
“You haven’t brought home that sick brat!” Anger and astonishment were in the tones of Mrs. Joe Thompson; her face was in a flame.
“I think women’s hearts are sometimes very hard,” said Joe. Usually Joe Thompson got out of his wife’s way, or kept rigidly silent and non-combative when she fired up on any subject; it was with some surprise, therefore, that she now encountered a firmly-set countenance and a resolute pair of eyes.
“Women’s hearts are not half so hard as men’s!”
Joe saw, by a quick intuition, that his resolute bearing h«d impressed his wife and he answered quickly, and with real indignation, “Be that as it may, every woman at the funeral turned her eyes steadily from the sick child’s face, and when the cart went off with her dead mother, hurried away, and left her alone in that old hut, with the sun not an hour in the sky.”
“Where were John and Kate?” asked Mrs. Thompson.
“Farmer Jones tossed John into his wagon, and drove off. Katie went home with Mrs. Ellis; but nobody wanted the poor sick one. ‘Send her to the poorhouse,’ was the cry.”
“Why didn’t you let her go, then. What did you bring her here for?”
“She can’t walk to the poorhouse,” said Joe; “somebody’s arms must carry her, and mine are strong enough for that task.”
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
How did Joe counter his wife on her remark about Maggie?
The king had done right things at the right time. Explain giving three examples.
Why did Soapy hope to get food at a large and brightly lighted restaurant?
What did the second bird say to him?
What is the moral/message of the story?
How did the jealous courtiers plan to harm Tansen? How did the great musician save his honour as well as official position?
Why did the narrator run away seeing the garden snake?
Complete the following sentence.
The small gray squirrel became friendly when _________
Answer the question.
What does he imagine about
what they do at home?
Why did the speaker find the old banyan tree exclusively his own?
With your partner list out the happenings, the speaker is worried about.
Why were the hinges of the door rusty?
