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Question
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Trotter: Yes. You've been extraordinarily foolish, you know. You've run a very good chance of being killed by holding out on me. As a result, you've been in serious danger more than once.
Mollie: I don't know what you mean.
Trotter: (moving slowly above the sofa table to the Right of the sofa, still quite natural and friendly) Come now, Mrs. Ralston. We, policemen, aren't quite so dumb as you think. All along I've realized that you had first-hand knowledge of the Langridge Farm affair. You know Mrs. Boyle was the magistrate concerned. In fact, you knew all about it. Why didn't you speak up and say so?
Mollie: (Very much affected) I don't understand. I wanted to forget-forget. (She sits at the Left end of the sofa.)
(i) What was the 'Longridge Farm' affair?
(ii) Trotter revealed to Mollie some facts that he had uncovered about her past. What were they?
(iii) What did Mollie want to forget? How was she linked with the ‘Longridge Farm affair’?
(iv) How did Trotter manage a pass himself off as a policeman? How had he reached Monkswell Manor?
(v) What did Trotter reveal to Mollie about this true identity? How was Mollie saved at the end of the play?
Solution
(i) Three Corrigian children – Two boys and a girl-were brought before the court in need of care and protection. A home was found for their shelter with Mr. and Mrs. Stanning at Longridge Farm. Here the children were ill-treated and one of them died. Mr. and Mrs. Stanning was sent to jail for negligence. Mr. Stanning died in prison. When Mrs. Stanning was released from the prison she was murdered in Culver Street where she was living as Maureen Lyon. Trotter was investigating into this Longridge affair.
(ii) Trotter had discovered about Mrs. Ralston that before marriage, her name was Miss Waring. She was a teacher in the school where Jimmy was studying. He had also found out that Jimmy had managed to get a letter posted to her. In this letter, he had begged help from his teacher Miss Waring. But her teacher did not answer that letter.
(iii) Mollie wanted to forget the horrible incident of Jimmy’s death. In fact, when Jimmy’s letter reached her, she was down with pneumonia. So the letter was put aside along with other letters. It was weeks afterward when she found and read the letter. By that time Jimmy had died. She could not do anything for him. She felt penitent. This haunted her for a long time. This is what she wanted to forget. Mollie was linked with the Longridge Farm affair because she was the teacher whom Jimmy had requested for help.
(iv) Trotter very cleverly takes out his notebook and pretends to be an officer on duty to interview all those persons who were staying at Monkswell Manor. He tells Mollie that his visit is regarding police protection to be given to them which they need at the moment. He had reached Monkswell Manor with the help of his skis.
(v) Trotter revealed to Mollie that he was not a policeman. He was George, Jimmy’s elder. brother. He also told her that he had cut the telephone wires before he entered the Monkswell Manor. Mollie was said by the intervention of Major Metcalf and Miss Casewell who appear on the scene and arrest George.
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RELATED QUESTIONS
Answer these question in 30–40 words.
Where did Bismillah Khan play the shehnai on 15 August 1947? Why was the event
historic?
Listen to the poem.
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath.
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
I wish I'd been that much more willin'
When I had more tooth there than fillin'
To pass up gobstoppers.
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin'.
When I think of the lollies I licked,
And the liquorice all sorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.
My mother, she told me no end.
'If you got a tooth, you got a friend.'
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.
Oh, I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin'
And pokin' and fussin'
Didn't seem worth time-I could bite!
If I'd known, I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin's
Injections and drillin's,
I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.
So I lay in the old dentist's chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine.
"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."
How I laughed at my mother's false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin'
It's me they are beckonin'
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
About the Poet
Pam Ayres (1947- ) is a contemporary writer, a great entertainer who writes and performs
comic verse. She started writing poems and verses as a hobby and has appeared in every
major TV show in the U.K. She has published six books of poems, and cut seven record
albums including a collection of 50 best known poems.
More complex Connectors
Read through the following text. Pay special attention to the underlined words. These help the reader to understand the relationship between sentences, or the parts of sentences, clearly.
Select as many appropriate words as possible from the list given below to replace the underlined words. Be careful not to change the basic meaning too much.
| to his amazement | even though |
| although | in actual fact |
| as a matter of fact | lastly |
| generally | usually |
| however | nevertheless |
| besides | to his surprise |
| asarule | all the same. |
Martin’s Picture
Margin wasn’t a very bright boy. Normally, he never came more than second from the bottom in any test. But, that morning in the art lesson, he had drawn a beautiful picture of a scarecrow in a field of yellow corn. To his astonishment, the drawing was the only one given full marks – ten out of ten – which made him for the first time in his life the best in the class! He had proudly pinned the picture up on the wall behind his desk, where it could be admired by all. It seemed though, that not everyone admired it. Some unknown member of the class had, in fact, taken a violent dislike to it.
During the lunch break, when the classroom had been deserted, the picture had been torn off the wall. Moreover, it had been trodden or stamped on. As if that wasn’t enough, the words ‘ROTTEN RUBBISH’ had been written on the back in big round letters. And finally, the paper was so creased that it looked as though it had been screwed up into a tight ball and perhaps thrown about the room.
“Who could have done it?” Martin wondered.
Now rewrite the text.
Martin’s picture
Martin wasn’t a very bright boy.
Usually,
Generally
As a rule, He never came more than second from the bottom in any test.
However,…. ______________________
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And,with a natural sigh,
"Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory.
"I find them in the garden,
For there's many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out!
For many thousand men,"said he,
"Were slain in that great victory."
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
Why does the poet use a skull?
I was in for a surprise. When the time came for the broad-jump trials, I was startled to see a tall boy hitting the pit at almost 26 feet on his practice leaps! He turned out to be a German named Luz Long. 1 was told that Hitler hoped to win the jump with him. I guessed that if Long won, it would add some new support to the Nazis’ “master race” (Aryan superiority) theory. After all, I am a Negro. Angr about Hitler’s ways, 1 determined to go out there and really show Der Fuhrer and his master race who was superior and who wasn’t. An angry athlete is an athlete who will make mistakes, as any coach will tell you. I was no exception. On the first of my three qualifying jumps, I leaped from several inches beyond the takeoff board for a foul. On the second jump, I fouled even worse. “Did I come 3,000 miles for this?” I thought bitterly. “To foul out of the trials and make a fool of myself ?” Walking a few yards from the pit, 1 kicked disgustedly at the dirt.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What shattered the confidence of Jesse Owens?
Why did Soapy like to go to the prison?
What misfortune came to Chandni after sunset?
State an adjective used to describe the tree.
Who says this to whom and why?
“My wife knows best how to run the house.”
Do you think it is good to be a rebel?
