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Question
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
Old women once
were continents.
They had deep woods in them,
lakes, mountains, volcanoes even,
even raging gulfs.
When the earth was in heat
they melted, shrank,
leaving only their maps.
You can fold them
and keep them handy:
who knows, they might help you find
your way home.
Question
(1) For what purpose did the old women leave their 'maps' behind them?
(2) How can old people be helpful to us?
(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the following lines:
Old women once
were continents.
(4) Make a list of geographical expressions from the extract.
Solution
(1) They left their maps in order to keep them handy, to find their way home and to know the way of life.
(2) They are the ocean of knowledge and wisdom. They are the treasures of Experiences. They can help to look after the children, help with the cooking and maybe advise the young ones about the good things of life.
(3) Metaphor: Here old women are implicitly compared to continents.
(4) Geographical Expressions are.
Continents, Volcanoes, Woods, Gulfs, Lakes, Maps, Mountains.
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With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal...
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(3) Give the rhyming scheme used in the extract. (1)
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By this time, I felt very small
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(2) How can the mother be a friend to her daughter' (1)
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Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
And then they came to its massive trunk
Fifty men with axes chopped and chopped
The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years
We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter
As a raw mythology revealed to us its age
Soon afterwards we left Baroda for Bombay
Where there are no trees except the one
Which grows and seethes in one's dreams, its aerial roots Looking for ground to strike.
(1) What did the rings of the trunk of the tree reveal about its age? (1)
(2) According to you, how do trees help the mankind? (1)
(3) Give an example of 'Repetition' from the extract. (1)
(4) The poem has picturesque expressions. They make the poem lively. Pick out such expressions from, the extract. (1)
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below
All the rest of her children, she said, are on the nuclear
blacklist of the dead,
all the rest, unless
the whole world understands - that peace is a woman:
A thousand candles then lit
in her starry eyes, and I saw angels bearing a moonlit message :
Peace is indeed a pregnant woman Peace is a mother.
(1) What is the situation of the children in absence of peace? (1)
(2) Why should we avoid wars? (1)
(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the following line:
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(4) What message does the poet give through this poem? (1)
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly ...
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.
(1) What do you think is the underlying message of the extract?
(2) Which qualities of great men would you like to imbibe in you?
(3) Give the rhyming pairs of words of the first stanza.
(4) Pick out the expressions from the extract which show the hard work of brave men.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
I ran into a stranger as he passed by
"Oh, excuse me please'' was my reply.
He said, ''Please excuse me too; wasn't even watching ·for you.''
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said good-bye.
But at home, a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.
Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My daughter stood beside me very still.
When I turned, I nearly knocked her down.
''Move out of the way," I said with a frown.
She walked away, her little heartbroken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.
(1) How does the poetess greet the stranger?
(2) Describe an incident when your mother was harsh at you.
(3) Write down the rhyme scheme of the first stanza.
(4) Pick out the line from the extract which shows the mother's anger.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
If you crave not for praise when you win
And look not for sympathy while you lose
If cheers let not your head toss or spin
And after a set-back you ofter no excuse.
You may be the person I am looking for.
If you accept counsel without getting sore
And re-assess yourself in the light thereof
If you pledge. not to be obstinate any more
And meet others without any frown or scoff.
You may be the person I am looking for.
(1) How should you behave when you are a winner and a loser?
(2) Do you agree with the poet's view about an ideal person? Justify your answer.
(3) Pick out an example of Antithesis from the extract.
(4) Pick out the words from the extract showing our stubbornness and expression of displeasure.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
The banyan tree was three times as tall as our house
Its trunk had a circumference of fifty feet
Its scraggly aerial roots fell to the ground
From thirty feet or more so first they cut the branches
Sawing them off for seven days and the heap was huge
Insects and birds began to leave the tree
And then they came to its massive trunk
Fifty men with axes chopped and chopped
The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years
We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter
(1) How does the poet describe the banyan tree?
(2) According to you, how are trees important to maintain ecological balance?
(3) Pick out an example of repetition from the extract.
(4) Pick out the words in the extract which are related to the killing.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
The banyan tree was three times as tall as our house
Its trunk had a circumference of fifty feet
Its scraggly aerial roots fell to the ground
From thirty feet or me>re so first they cut the branches
Sawing them off for seven days and the heap was huge
Insects and birds began to leave the tree
And then they came to its massive trunk
Fifty men with axes chopped and chopped
The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years
Questions:
(1) What revealed the age of the banyan tree?
(2) How would you save the natural habitat of wildlife?
(3) Find from this extract an example of 'Repetition'.
(4) Pick out any two lines from the extract showing the pictorial quality of human action.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,
"While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use,
But the children you love, you seem to abuse.
Look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.
Those are the flowers she brought for you.
She picked them herself, pink, yellow and blue.
She stood quietly not to spoil the surprise,
And you never saw the tears in her eyes."
(1) What did the mother think as she lay sleepless in the bed?
(2) According to you, why shouldn't we hurt the feelings
of others?
(3) Pick out any two pairs of rhyming words from this
extract.
(4) What kind of poem is this? What is its purpose?
Read the given extract and then do all activities that follow:
If you do not get lowered in your own eyes
While you raise yourself in those of others
If you do not give into gossips and lies
Rather heed them not,- saying, ‘Who bothers?’
You may be the person I am looking for.
If you crave not for praise when you win
And look not for sympathy while you lose
If cheers let not your head toss or spin
And after a set-back you offer no excuse.
You may be the person I am looking for.
If you accept counsel without getting sore
And reassess yourself in the light thereof
If you pledge not to be obstinate any more
And meet others without any frown or scoff.
You may be the person I am looking for.
A1. Enlist (2)
Enlist any four things that inspire you to live inspire of failures:
(i) ____________________
(ii) ___________________
(iii) ___________________
(iv) ___________________
A2. Poetic Device? (2)
Figure of speech :
Pick out an example of Refrain from the extract and write down its criteria to identify it.
A3. Personal Response (2)
Express your views in about 50 words, the need to look for an ideal person.
A4. Poetic creativity? (2)
If you do not get lowered in your own eyes.
While you raise yourself in those of others.
If you do not give in to gossips and lies
--------------------------------------------------------------------
You may be the person I am looking for.
Compose a line of your own to rhyme with the second line in the given stanza.
Read the following extract and then do all the activities that follow :
How do you know
Peace is a woman?
I know for
I met her yesterday
on my winding way
to the world’s fare,
She has such a wonderful face
just like a golden flower faded
before the prime.
I asked her why
She was so sad?
She told me her baby
was killed in Auschwitz,
her daughter in Hiroshima
and her sone in Vietnam,
Ireland, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon,
Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Chechnya ......
A1. Web -
Completely the following web by listing character mentioned in the extract :
A2. Poetic device -
Figure of speech :
‘Peace is a woman ?’
Name and explain the figure of speed in the above line.
A3. Personal response :
Suggest two solutions to avoid wars.
A4. Creativity :
Compose two poetic lines titled “Say ‘no’ to wars”.
Read the following extract and then do all the activities that follow:
We used to watch the valley play hide and seek.
Shadowed by the mountain's immeasurable peak.
Considered the largest thing known to man.
Now skyscrappers are the most extravagant and titanic part of the plan.
We used to sit next to the stream. The wind caressing our crown Watching the magnificent untamed beasts
roam far, far from town. Now they are just characters of folktales, memories we pass down.
An adjective to describe someone, no more a noun
This could be our reality
If we continue to live in impracticality
No more vast, endless oceans _______
Only littered swamps, the colour of a witch's potions.
No more soaring birds overhrad _______
Only planes, so loud they rock your bed.
No more woods
No more natural goods.
We have little time
To change our self centered, one track minds
Before we are stuck with a great heap of jumble
Left only with an artifical concrete jungle.
A1. Complete ______
Complete the following sentences choosing correct alternatives:
(1) The poet used to watch the valley play hide and seek, because _______
(i) he had integration with the nature and landscape
(ii) he had no park to enjoy playthings
(iii) he had no friends
(2) According to the poet, only littered swamps could be reality, because _______
(i) vast, endless oceans are getting polluted due to our neglect of flora and fauna.
(ii) water from oceans will become magical potions.
(iii) Oceans are changing into swamps for fishing purposes.
A2. Poetic device
Figure of speech
Name and explain the figure of speech used in the following line: ‘We used to watch the valley play hide and seek’.
A3. Personal response:
Suggest some remedies on how we can enrich our nature.
A4. Poetic creativity
Compose the following four lines as a free verse using the words life, oxygen, trees, nature with the help of
clue given in each line so it would covey message :
No _________
No __________
No __________
No __________
Read the following poem and write an appreciation of it with the help of the given points in a paragraph format:
|
The Pulley When God at first made Man, So strength first made a way; For if I should (said He) Yet let him keep the rest, |
- The title of the poem (1)
- The poet (1)
- Central idea/theme (2)
- Rhyme scheme (1)
- Figure of speech (1)
- Special features (2)
- Favourite line/lines (1)
- Why I like/don’t like the poem (1)
Read the extract and do the activities that follow: (4)
| Tom | : | (nervously). But, I say, we can’t go prowling about someone else’s house. |
| George | : | We can if we hear any suspicious noises. You never know ? this place might belong to a gang of criminals. |
| Tom | : | (sarcastically). You certainly are trying to cheer us up, George. We don’t want to meet a gang of criminals. |
| George | : | Why not? We’re all strong, healthy chaps, aren’t we? Are you in a funk already? |
| Tom | : | No, of course not; but ? well ? Alfie’s got his best suit on, and |
| Ginger | : | Never mind about Alfie's suit. (With a great show of courage). I’m not afraid of any criminals. Here, George, lend me that torch. (Taking the torch and going up R.C.). I’ll show you if I’m afraid. (Suddenly seeing the White models and letting out a yell of terror.) Ow! W - what's that? |
| Tom | : | (down C., not daring to look round). What’s what? |
| Ginger | : | C- come here. I thought I saw something grinning at me. |
| Tom | : | (crossing hastily to door L.). I’m going to get out of here. |
| Ginger | : | (Coming down C.) So am I. I’m not afraid of criminals, but I believe this place is haunted. |
| George | : | Talk sense, Ginger. Here, give me that torch. (Takes torch and goes up R. C.) |
| Alfie | : | (down L.C.) I want to go home. |
| Ginger | : | Can you see anything, George? |
| George | : | (cautiously approaching white models). I can’t make out what it is, but I believe it's an animal. I say ? there’s something alive in here ? I can see its teeth. (Under the light of George’s torch a row of teeth can be dimly seen). |
| Alfie | : | (rushing to the door) Let me out! Let me out! I want to go home! |
B1. Pick up the false sentences from those given below and write down the correct ones for them :(2)
(i) Alfie wanted to stay at the place to fight with the animal.
(ii) Ginger yelled of terror when he noticed white models grinning at him.
(iii) According to George's opinion, the boys could not go prowling about someone else’s house.
(iv) Tom had no desire to meet a gang of criminals.
B2. Convert dialogue into a story : (2)
Convert the above dialogue into a story form in about 50 words.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth ?
(a) Who does ‘him’ refer to ?
(b) What dilemma did the poet face ?
(c) Pick out and explain the figure of speech used in line 2.
(d) Explain : ‘burning bowels of this earth’.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
I celebrate the virtues and vices
of suburban middle-class people
who overwhelm the refrigerator
and position colourful umbrellas
near the garden that longs for a pool:
for my middle-class brother
this principle of supreme luxury:
what are you and what am I, and we go on deciding
the real truth in this world.
(1) Give a list of the objects of luxury as given in the extract.
(2) What is your idea about a Luxurious life?
(3) Give an example of a 'paradox' from the extract.
(4) This poem does not follow any fix-verse pattern (rhyme scheme). What type of poem is it?
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
We used to walk down the snow sprinkled trail,
Maybe catch a glimpse of a bobcat, playing eye tricks with its tail
Now there is only one type of bobcat we see
The one that is for free, clearing the pavements of all debris
We used to walk through a footpath in a forest of pine
The smell intoxicating our lungs and mind
Now the only smell to be found comes from plastic trees
Swaying on my rear-view mirror, labelled pine breeze
Questions:
(1) What does the poet miss?
(2) What, according to you, are the causes of the degradation of our ecosystem?
(3) 'We used to walk down the snow sprinkled trail.'
Name and to explain the figure of speech from the above line.
(4) What kind of feelings are aroused after reading the extract?
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
Now there is only one type of bobcat we see
The one that is for free, clearing the pavements of all debris
We used to walk through a footpath in a forest of pine
The smell intoxicating our lungs and mind
Now the only smell to be found comes from plastic trees
Swaying on my rear-view mirror, labelled pine breeze
We used to watch the valley play hide and seek
Questions:
(1) What signs of urbanisation are mentioned in the first six lines of the extract?
(2) Do you think skyscrapers are necessary? Why do you think so?
(3) Pick out the example of personification from the extract.
(4) Pick out the lines from the extract expressing the fond memory of the poet about the pines.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below :
All the rest of her children, she said,
are on the nuclear
blacklist of the dead,
all the rest, unless
the whole world understands -
that peace is a woman.
A thousand candles then lit
in her starry eyes, and I saw angels bearing a moonlit message.
(1) What appeal does the mother make to the world?
(2) What according to you, are the evils of war?
(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the following line:
'A thousand candles then lit.'
(4) Pick out the lines that suggest the hope for world peace.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below :
If you do not get lowered in your own eyes
While you raise yourself in those of others
If you do not give in to gossips and lies
Rather heed them not, saying, 'Who bothers'?
You may be the person I am looking for.
If you crave not for praise when you win
And look not for sympathy while you lose
If cheers let not your head toss or spin
And after a set -back you offer no excuse.
You may be the person I am looking for.
(1) What care should you take while raising yourself in the eyes of others?
(2) What good qualities of your parents impress you the most?
(3) Pick out the example of antithesis from the first stanza of the above extract.
(4) Pick out the lines from the extract which advise you how to react at your success and defeat.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
The banyan tree was three times as tall as our house
Its trunk had a circumference of fifty feet
Its scraggly aerial roots fell to the ground
From thirty feet or more so first they cut the branches
Sawing them off for seven days and the heap was huge
Insects and birds began to leave the tree
And then they came to its massive trunk
Fifty men with axes chopped and chopped
The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years
We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter
As a raw mythology revealed to us its age
(1) What were the feelings of the family members at the felling of the banyan tree?
(2) Why, according to you, did insects and birds begin to leave the banyan tree?
(3) Find out an example of 'Repetition' from the extract.
(4) Pick out the line from the extract expressing the feelings of the people who watched the merciless cutting of the banyan
tree.
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
I asked her why
She was so sad?
She told me her baby
was killed in Auschwitz.
her daughter in Hiroshima
and her sons in Vietnam,
Ireland, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon,
Bosnia. Rwanda, Kosovo, and Chechnya.
(1) Why was the woman in the extract sad?
(2) What do you think. are the dire consequences ofa war?
(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the following lines :
'I asked her why
she was so sad ?'
(4) What purpose docs the dialogue form serve in the extract?
Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly ...
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.
(1) What qualities of people according to poet, are essential to build a nation?
(2) “Not gold but only men make A people great and strong” Do you agree? Explain.
(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the line “ Stand fast and suffer long”.
(4) What is the underlying message of the extract
And as the light came on,
Fowler had his first authentic thrill of the day.
For halfway across the room,
a small automatic pistol in his hand, stood a man.
Ausable blinked a few times.
(a) Who was standing in the room with a pistol in his hand?
i. Ausable
ii. Fowler
iii. Max
iv. A waiter
(b) Ausable blinked because he:
i. was getting adjusted to the light.
ii. got afraid of the man with a pistol.
iii. was thrilled to have reached his room.
iv. started thinking of how to get rid of the man.
(c) Fowler was thrilled because what he saw looked like a ……………..
(d) Which word in the extract means the same as ‘genuine/real’?
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
(a) The poet who has written these lines is ____________
i. Robert Frost
ii. Carolyn Wells
iii. Walt Whitman
iv. Ogden Nash
(b) Who are ‘they’ referred to here?
i. Animals
ii. Tigers
iii. Ananda’s friend's
iv. Wanda’s dresses
(c) The poet looks at them long and long because he __________
(d) Which word in the extract means ‘complain’?
Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow:
(There is a languid, emerald sea,
where the sole inhabitant is me-
a mermaid drifting blissfully.)
Questions :
(a) Who does 'me' stand for?
(b) How does 'me' feel?
(c) Who is 'me' compared to?
(d) Which word in the extract means the opposite of 'sorrowfully'?
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young man in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair."
(a) Who is speaking these line?
(b) Why are young men in despair?
(c) What is the antonym of the word, 'despair'?
Read the following extract and do the given activities:
A1. Match the describing words from the Cloud ‘A’ with Cloud ‘B’: (02)
| Cloud ‘A’ | Cloud ‘B’ | ||
| 1. | broad | a. | noise |
| 2. | humorous | b. | jest |
| 3. | chuckling | c. | way |
| 4. | trifling | d. | grin |
| “There to the printer,” I exclaimed, And, in my humorous way, I added (as a trifling jest,) “There’ll be the devil to pay. He took the paper, and I watched, And saw him peep within At the first line, he read, his face Was all upon the grin He read the next; the grin grew broad. And shot from ear to ear; He read the third; a chuckling noise I now began to hear. The fourth; he broke into a roar; The fifth; his waistband split; The sixth; he burst five buttons off And tumbled in a fit. |
A2. Pick out two lines from the extract that indicate humour. (02)
A3. Write two pairs of rhyming words from the extract. (01)
Based on the careful reading of the passage given below, answer any four out of five questions that follow:
|
1. When you see me sitting quietly, 2. When my bones are stiff and aching, 3. I’m the same person I was back then, - Maya Angelou |
- What does the poet think she looks like, when sitting quietly?
- Does the poet invite pity? Quote a line to support your argument.
- What has changed in the poet over the course of years?
- Pick out a word from the second stanza which means ‘faltering’.
- Why does the poet consider herself lucky?
