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Question
When does he realize that he has lost his way? How have his anxiety and insecurity been described?
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Solution
After getting fascinated by a number of things, he finally set his eyes on a roundabout swing. He intently watched the men, women and children who were enjoying the ride. He finally made a bold request and asked his parents to let him ride the swing. When he heard no reply, he turned around to look for his parents. It was then that he realized that he was lost. A full, deep cry rose within his dry throat and he suddenly ran from where he stood. He cried in real fear and called out to his parents. Tears rolled down from his eyes. His flushed face was convulsed with fear. As he was panic-stricken, he ran in all directions searching for his parents. Later, his cries were suppressed into sobs. He kept looking for his parents and calling out to them.
RELATED QUESTIONS
Who had these opinion about Einstein?
He was boring.
Thinking about the poem
Where does the traveller find himself? What problem does he face?
Reporting verbs
Did you know?
Sometimes it is not necessary to report everything that is said word for word. It may be better to use “reporting verbs” which summarise what was communicated. Below are some of the most commonly used verbs of this kind.
| accept | advice | apologise | ask | assure | blame |
| complain | compliment | congratulate | explain | greet | hope |
| introduce | invite | offer | order | persuade | promise |
| refuse | regret | remind | say | suggest | tell |
| sympathise | thank | threaten | answer | warn | encourage |
|
A |
B | C |
|
can you hear me? (speaker) |
what did she say? (you) | she asked if you could hear her? (friend) (ask) |
| you should go to the doctor now? (speaker) | what did he say? (you) | he advice you to go to the doctor now? (friend) (advice) |
It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian’s night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man’s trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.
A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
How does the speaker realize that he should not mourn the untimely fate of his people?
This woman had been despised, scoffed at, and angrily denounced by nearly every man, woman, and child in the village; but now, as the fact of, her death was passed from lip to lip, in subdued tones, pity took the place of anger, and sorrow of denunciation.
Neighbours went hastily to the old tumble-down hut, in which she had secured little more than a place of shelter from summer heats and winter cold: some with grave-clothes for a decent interment of the body; and some with food for the half-starving children, three in number. Of these, John, the oldest, a boy of twelve, was a stout lad, able to earn his living with any farmer. Kate, between ten and eleven, was bright, active girl, out of whom something clever might be made, if in good hands; but poor little Maggie, the youngest, was hopelessly diseased. Two years before a fall from a window had injured her spine, and she had not been able to leave her bed since, except when lifted in the arms of her mother.
“What is to be done with the children?” That was the chief question now. The dead mother would go underground, and be forever beyond all care or concern of the villagers. But the children must not be left to starve.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Why was the dead woman despised and hated by all the people of the village?
She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. “Grandmother,” cried the little one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year’s sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. “She tried to warm herself,” said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year’s day.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Why was there a smile on the girl’s lips? Did the people understand?
Beside him in the shoals as he lay waiting glimmered a blue gem. It was not a gem, though: it was sand—?worn glass that had been rolling about in the river for a long time. By chance, it was perforated right through—the neck of a bottle perhaps?—a blue bead. In the shrill noisy village above the ford, out of a mud house the same colour as the ground came a little girl, a thin starveling child dressed in an earth—?coloured rag. She had torn the rag in two to make skirt and sari. Sibia was eating the last of her meal, chupatti wrapped round a smear of green chilli and rancid butter; and she divided this also, to make
it seem more, and bit it, showing straight white teeth. With her ebony hair and great eyes, and her skin of oiled brown cream, she was a happy immature child—?woman about twelve years old. Bare foot, of course, and often goosey—?cold on a winter morning, and born to toil. In all her life, she had never owned anything but a rag. She had never owned even one anna—not a pice.
Why does the writer mention the blue bead at the same time that the crocodile is introduced?
Ans. The author mentions the blue bead at the same time that the crocodile is introduced to create suspense and a foreshadowing of the events’to happen.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Describe the blue bead.
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 Luz Long help Jesse Owens?
What are the three things Arragon was obliged by the oath to obey?
Complete the following sentence by adding the appropriate part of the sentence given below.
Many wise men answered the king’s questions, _______________.
Find in the poem an antonym (a word opposite in meaning)of the following word
quietness
What do you know about Golu?
How did different companies affect the character and behaviour of the two birds?
The king rewarded the shepherd twice. How and why?
What does the poet refer to as ‘they’ in the following stanza?
"I saw a snake and ran away Some snakes are
dangerous, they say"
Fill in the blank in the sentence below with the words or phrases from the box. (You may not know the meaning of all the words. Look such words up in a dictionary, or ask your teacher.)
Who stole the diamond is still a ____________.
Complete the following sentence.
The small gray squirrel became friendly when _________
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
|
One day I found the pond occupied by several buffaloes. Their keeper, a boy a little older than me, was swimming about in the middle. Instead of climbing out on the bank, he would pull himself up on the back of one of his buffaloes, stretch his naked brown body out on the animal’s glistening hide, and start singing to himself. When he saw me staring at him from across the pond, he smiled, showing gleaming white teeth in a dark face. He invited me to join him in a swim. I told him I couldn’t swim, and he offered to teach me. His name was Ramu, and he promised to give me swimming lessons every afternoon, and so it was during the afternoons — especially summer afternoons when everyone was asleep — that we usually met. Before long I was able to swim across the pond to sit with Ramu astride a contented buffalo. Sometimes I would slip into the water. Emerging in shades of green and khaki, I would sneak into the house through the bathroom and bathe under the tap before getting into my clothes. One afternoon Ramu and I found a small tortoise in the mud, sitting over a hole in which it had laid several eggs. I presented the tortoise to Grandfather. He had a weakness for tortoises, and was pleased with this addition to his menagerie, giving it a large tub of water all to itself, with an island of rocks in the middle. If one of the dogs bothered it too much, it would draw its head and legs into its shell and defy all its attempts at rough play. Ramu came from a family of bonded labourers and had received no schooling. But he was well-versed in folklore and knew a great deal about birds and animals. “Many birds are sacred,” said Ramu, as we watched a blue jay swoop down from a peepul tree and carry off a grasshopper. Both Ramu and Grandfather were of the opinion that we should be more gentle with birds and animals and should not kill so many of them. “It is also important that we respect them, said Grandfather. We must acknowledge their rights. Birds and animals are finding it more difficult to survive, because we are trying to destroy both them and their forests.” Ramu and I spent long summer afternoons at the pond. I still remember him with affection, though we never saw each other again after I left Dehra. |
- For each word given below choose the correct meaning (as used in the passage) from the options provided: [2]
- hide (line 4)
- blanket
- fur
- undisclosed
- skin
- contented (line 12)
- cheerful
- lazy
- satisfied
- container
- hide (line 4)
- Which word in the passage is the opposite of ‘easy’? [1]
- sneak
- difficult
- labourer
- survive
- Answer the following questions briefly in your own words.
- What did Ramu like to do once he had climbed on the back of a buffalo? [2]
- What offer did Ramu make to the narrator? [2]
- Why do you think the narrator would bathe before entering the house? [2]
- Who was the large tub of water for? [1]
- How would the tortoise protect itself from the dogs? [2]
- Despite the lack of schooling what did Ramu know? How, according to Ramu and Grandfather, should we treat birds and animals? Answer in not more than fifty words. [8]
Which of the following words does H. W. Longfellow use to describe the movement of the phantoms in his poem, ‘Haunted Houses’?
Select the option that shows the correct relationship between statements (1) and (2) from William Sleator’s short story, ‘The Elevator’.
Statement 1: Terrified of the fat lady in the elevator, Martin ran down the dark stairs, fell and broke his leg.
Statement 2: Angry and disappointed that his son had behaved like a fool and a coward, Martin’s father did not talk to him on the way to the hospital.
