Read the passage given below. Then answer the question that follow it. Write the answers in your answer–book.
Then suddenly he heard a blare of trumpets and the band striking up ‘God Save the King There was a lot of rush and bustle around him. He turned his attention from the ant to his friends they were already at the edge of the foot path standing in a line.
(R.k. Laxman: the day the viceroy came)
- Who heard the blare o trumpets?
- Why was there a lot of rush and bustle?
- What were his friends doing?
- What was he doing with the ant?
- What is ‘God Save The King’?
With the third week of kindergarten, Charles was an institution in our family, Jennie was being a Charles when she cried all afternoon; Laurie did a Charles when he filled his wagon full of mud and pulled it through the kitchen; even my husband, when he caught his elbow in the telephone cord and pulled telephone, ash tray, and a bowl of flowers off the table, said, after the first minute, ‘Looks like Charles.
(Shirley Jackson: Charles)
Who is Charles?
Who is Jennie?
Who is Laurie?
Who is talking in this passage?
What is the meaning of ‘being a Charles’?
Monday morning Charles abandoned the little girl and said the evil word himself three or four times. Getting his mouth washed out with soap each time. He also threw chalk.
My husband come to the door with me that door with me that evening as I set out for the PTA meeting. “Invite her over for a cup of tea after the meeting”, he said. “I want to get a look at her’’.
(Shirley Jackson: Charles)
Who was Charles?
What is PTA meeting?
Whom did they want to invite?
Why was Charles mouth washed with soap?
What is the meaning of evil words?
This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
(Martin Luther king Jr: The beauty of brotherhood)
Who is talking in this paragraph?
Which faith is he talking of?
Whose tired feet is he?
Which freedom is he talking of?
Which genuine civilization is he talking of?
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind, I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching for the eternal’ ought ness’ hat forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in a river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view
That mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brother hood can never become a reality.
(Martin Luther king jr: The beauty of brotherhood)
- What award had Martin Luther King been given?
- Why does King refer to his faith in mankind as ‘audacious’?
- What does King mean when he refers to the ‘isness’ of man’s present nature?
- What is the difference between man and ‘flotsam and jetsam’ in a river?
- What is the bright daybreak’ that King looks forward to?
Then it turned around and started walking back towards Gopal’s fingers. But Gopal repeated the trick; shifted his fingers in time to the other end of the stick. He liked this game and it went on unvaryingly for a long time.
(R.K. Laxman: The Day the Viceroy Came)
- What is the creature being referred to in the passage?
- What was Gopal’s “trick”?
- What was Gopal waiting for?
- What happened to Gopal as a result of the “game” ?
- What did Gopal tell his mother afterwards?
One of the standard questions I have inevitably to face is about what thrilling adventures I have had in a lifetime of exploring for birds. My standard answer must seem disappointing to those who expect to hear tales of derring-do, Ornithology as a hobby or profession or persuasion, whatever one may chose to call it…
Is by its very nature one of the most peaceable pursuits of the out -of- doors. It is certainly not lacking in excitement and thrills, tough, these may be of a different kind from what the normal enquirer expects. The excitement lies in ferreting clues and then following them up step by step to the discovery or confirmation of a fact or facts. Of which one has obtained a suspicion or hunch. It was while living jobless in the seaside cottage of the latif family at kihim in 1930 that I got one of my most rewarding thrills of this kind…..
(Salim Ali: The Thrills of Bird Watching)
Why did people always ask the narrator questions about his adventures?
What is ornithology?
Why is ornithology described as one of the most peaceable pursuits of the out-of-doors?
What makes ornithology exciting?
What was the most rewarding thrills the narrator experienced?
He spent his days walking in the clean, quiet, cool forest where he felt a close relationship with nature. He wanted to prove that the way to learn the true value of life was to live simply, rather than to live the way most people did in towns and cities. He wrote Walden, or Life in the woods about his experiences, When the book was published in 1854, so few people bought at that it barely paid for the cost of printing, but it has since been read around the world and attained recognition as an important book in American literature.
(Henry David Thoreau)
- Who is this passage referring to?
- What did he want to prove?
- Which famous book did he write?
- What happened when the book was first published?
- What is the status of the book now?
The villagers went to bed early, and I took advantage of this to bring my notes up to date. After an early dinner, I sat in my room, writing by the light of two hurricane lamps which. However, attracted many insects but insects or no insects, I had to finish my notes and entries for the was the ideal, however, and occasionally I accumulated arrears. I disliked the task as I did not trust my memory, and also my sleep was trouble if some fact or event which I thought important had not been recorded.
(M.N Srinivas: The Villagers’ curiosity)
- Why does the writer wait till the villagers go to bed?
- What does he make notes about?
- Why does he write by the light of hurricane lamps?
- Why does the writer say that he always tried to write up his notes every day?
- Why is it important for such a writer to make notes regularly?
We are like a set of idiot children, let loose with poison, saw, sickle, shotgun and rifle, in a complex and beautiful garden that we are slowly but surely turning into a barren and infertile desert. The world is as delicate and as complicated as a spider’s web, But we ‘re not just touching the web, were tearing great holes in it; were waging a sort of biological war on the world around us.
(Gerald Darrell: Animals Forever)
- Why does Durrell compare humanity to idiot child?
- What are the ways in which humans are trying to turn the earth into a desert?
- In what ways is the world like a spider’s web?
- What sort of actions can cause the web of the world to shudder?
- What is the biological war that Durrell is referring to?
Do not think, for one moment, that I’m painting too gloomy a picture. I could go on reeling out these breathtaking statistics and it would only go to prove that, of all the creatures that have ever lived on earth – whether the giant carnivorous reptiles of past ages or the creatures of today –the most rapacious, thoughtless, and bloodthirsty predator is man. And moreover, he is doing himself irreparable harm by behaving likes this. It is suicide.
(Gerald Darrel: Animals Forever)
- What is the problem that Durrell is referring to?
- What are the ‘breathtaking statistics’ does Durrell is talking about?
- Why is man described as ”the most rapacious, thoughtless, and bloodthirsty predator”?
- In what way is man doing himself harm by behaving in this way?
- How can man’s actions be linked to suicide?
He insisted that the conscience of each person should decide whether an action was right or wrong He believed that the best organization of society would be one in which individuals made their own moral choices, and were not bound by the decisions of the majority. To emphasize his belief he often said, That government is best which government is best which governs not at all’’, If a government bases its actions on what is right, it is the duty of the individual to disobey the government and to follow his own conscience.
(Henry David Thoreau: naturalist and philosopher)
- In which world did Thoreau outline his belief in the individual’s right to make his own moral choices?
- What, according to Thoreau, should guide a person’s actions?
- What kind of society did Thoreau envisage when he said: “That government is best which governs least”?
- What is the name given to the political doctrine that Thoreau advocated?
- Name the country which was inspired during its own freedom struggle by Thoreau’s doctrine?
Man is clever enough to obliterate a species but he has not as yet, found a way of re-creating one that he had destroyed. This fact. However, doesn’t seem to worry the majority of people. There are even some so- called zoological pundits who say that this is a natural part of evolution and that the animal would have become extinct anyway, with or without our intervention. I couldn’t disagree more violently; to say that it is part of natural evolution is nonsense. It is just begging the question. It is like a man owning a blood bank and saying to somebody who is bleeding to death : Oh, we’ve got plenty of blood old boy, but we can’t give you a transfusion because it is in the scheme of things that you should die now.
(Gerald Durrell : animals forever)
- What can man do? What can’t he do?
- What does the expressions ‘So-called’ mean in the passage?
- What does the writer disagree with?
- Why doesn’t the owner of the blood bank help the bleeding man?
- What is the main argument in the passage?
Thoreau’s writing was always simple. It was often gay or sharp in tone, though its meaning was mostly serious. He said, “If one has anything to say, it drops from him simply and directly as a stone falls to the ground. In Walden, for example, he said that he did not believe that labors, property and responsibility made man better or more spiritual. The poorest men of all, he wrote, are those who have “gathered worthless things but do not know how to use them, or to get rid of them, and thus have made their own gold or silver chain’’.
(from : Henry David Thoreau – naturalist and philosopher)
- What are the three qualities of Thoreau’s writing?
- What is Thoreau’s attitude to property?
- What is Walden?
- Why, according to Thoreau, is a rich man poor?
- What does the ‘chain’ represent in the passage?
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