Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
Which ways did Soapy try to reach the prison in vain?
Advertisements
Solution
Soapy put his foot inside a large and brightly lighted restaurant door. The waiters turned him outside. Then Soapy threw a stone at the glass window of a shop in Sixth Avenue. A cop came there but he ran after another person leaving Soapy at the place where he was standing. Then Soapy reached another restaurant. It was meant for poor people. After eating to his full he declared that he had no money. Two waiters threw him outside. A cop was standing nearby. He simply laughed and walked away. Then he shouted and danced like a drunken person outside a posh theatre. The cops spared him thinking that he was a college boy. Last, of all he saw a man buying a newspaper at a shop. His umbrella stood beside the door. Luckily it was a stolen umbrella. Soapy took it. The man could neither claim it nor send Soapy to prison.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
The Shehnai of Bismillah Khan Thinking about the text :
Tick the right answer.
The (shehnai, pungi) was a ‘reeded noisemaker.’
How does he narrate the story of the tusker? Does it appear to be plausible?
Why does the Happy Prince send a ruby for the seamstress? What does the swallow do in the seamstress’ house?
Lushkoff is earning thirty five roubles a month. How is he obliged to Sergei for this?
Who is the real culprit according to the king? Why does he escape punishment?
Read the following statement and imagine you are Jack.
"I can't afford to, after what Jack's done to his teeth."
What is it, you think, you can not afford to do and why? Write a diary entry of not
less than 125 words.
(In-class activity; not to be set up as homework).
In pairs, study the completed sentences in 5 above. You will notice that words like a little and much go with certain nouns. Are these nouns Countable [C] or Uncountable [U]?
There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. 1 will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What does Chief Seattle tell about the condition of his people earlier?
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors — the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
How do the White feel about their dead people?
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.
Where was Muni’s house located?
The story of an ant’s life sounds almost untrue.
The underlined phrase means
Why do the worker ants carry the grubs about?
How was the tiger cub fed?
What was Tansen famous for?
Who was the Bear afraid of?
What makes him envy his teacher?
Complete the following sentences from memory choosing a phrase from those given in brackets.
____________ was held at the time of the Eid festival.
Why did the author visit the shop so infrequently?
Read the passage given below and answer the questions (i), (ii) and (iii) that follow:
|
(1) |
Something happens to cats after we have enjoyed a delicious meal. Call it a feline sugar hit or a rush of good feelings. Abandoning our usually sedentary nature, we transform into crazy beasts who thunder down corridors, spring from one piece of furniture to another, or pounce from behind half-closed doors to attack the shoelaces of unsuspecting passersby. It is as though we are temporarily possessed. |
5 |
|
(2) |
That, at least, is my excuse, dear reader - and the only explanation I can offer for my entirely unplanned global TV debut. |
|
|
(3) |
To be fair, I had no way of knowing that my master was receiving visitors that particular afternoon. Nor that he was being interviewed live, let alone by one of America’s most famous journalists. |
10 |
|
(4) |
All I knew was that, a few minutes after gorging myself on a favourite treat of creamy pudding, I felt that sudden, primal explosion of energy. I made my way back to the suite of rooms that I shared with my master and felt an overpowering compulsion to do something completely mad. I wanted to run like a furious jungle cat, at that particular moment. |
15 |
|
(5) |
Bursting through the door of the room in which my master received visitors, I tore up the carpet as I raced towards the sofa opposite where he was sitting. I ripped its fabric as I scrambled up its side like a savage creature clawing its way up a perilous cliff. Then with a final, frenzied burst, I launched myself off one arm of the sofa, leaping towards the other. |
20 |
|
(6) |
It was only at this point that I realised the sofa was occupied by the journalist. She was halfway through a sentence, and my abrupt appearance caught my master's guest completely by surprise. |
|
|
(7) |
You know, when something truly unexpected happens, time can seem to slow down. Well, that’s how it was. As I flew past the woman's face, her expression turned from one of calm engagement to that of total surprise. |
25 |
|
(8) |
I As she pushed back in her seat to avoid me, the shock on her face could not have been more evident. |
|
|
(9) |
But, dear reader, she was not more shaken than me. I had not been expecting anyone on the sofa, let alone a TV celebrity, nor one who was mid-interview. As I headed towards the opposite end of the sofa, for the first time I observed the lighting, the cameras and the crew watching the action from the shadows. By the time I landed on the other arm of the sofa, all the energy that had propelled me was gone. |
30
35 |
|
(10) |
I was, no longer, a furious jungle cat. |
|
|
(11) |
The journalist looked at me. I looked at her. Both of us were taking in what had just happened. I was also conscious of the cameras still rolling as well as many pairs of eyes watching me at that moment. My moment of global glory. |
|
|
|
Adapted from: The Dalai Lama's Cat Omnibus |
|
(i)
- Given below are three words and phrases. Find the words which have a similar meaning in the passage: [3]
- inactive
- eating in a greedy manner
- dangerous
- For each of the words given below, write a sentence of at least ten words using the same word unchanged in form, but with a different meaning from that which it carries in the passage: [3]
- thunder (line 3)
- spring (line 3)
- past (line 26)
(ii) Answer the following questions in your own words as briefly as possible:
- What is the usual nature of the narrator's kind? How is it differently presented in the passage? [2]
- What did the 'favourite treat of creamy pudding' do to the narrator? [2]
- Describe the actions of the narrator after bursting into the visitors' room. [2]
- How did the journalist react when the narrator 'flew past' her face? [2]
(iii) Summarise how the narrator became a global celebrity (paragraphs 4 to 11). You are required to write the summary in the form of a connected passage in about 100 words. Failure to keep within the word limit will be penalised. [6]
Analyse the comparison between death and sleep in the poem, Death Be Not Proud. How does this metaphor contribute to the overall message of the sonnet? Write your answer in about 200-250 words.
