Book - 2 (Vistas) The Third Level

Short Questions:

1. What does the narrator think of Grand Central?

2. How does the narrator describe Galesburg, Illinois?

3. What does Sam’s writing found in the oldest First Day Cover signify?

4. What was Charley’s reaction after coming back from the Third Level?

Broad Questions:

1. Imagination is a ‘temporary refuge from reality’. Explain the statement.

2. What convinced Louisa and Charley about the existence of the Third Level?

3. What discovery did Charley make? How?

The Tiger king

Short Questions:

1. What had the astrologers foretold about the Tiger King? When did he become the ruler of the kingdom?

2. “At another time he was in danger of losing his throne”. How?

3. How did the hundredth tiger come to be killed by the Maharaja? What is so funny about it?

Broad Questions:

1. The title of the Maharaja reflected grandeur but his death was an anticlimax. Justify.

2. What problem arose when Maharaja had killed the ninety-ninth tiger?

Journey to the End of the Earth

Short Questions:

1. What happened when there thrived Gondwana thrived for 500 million years?

2. How is global temperature increasing? What are the immediate fears due to it?

3. What are the microscopic phytoplanktons? How are they important in the food chain and photosynthesis?

4. What warning do the scientists give about a further depletion in the ozone layer?

Broad Questions:

1. What does the writer say about the geological history of Antarctica?

2. How has man played havoc with the ecological health of the earth?

3. The world’s geological history is trapped in Antarctica. How is the study of this region useful to us?

The Enemy

Short Questions:

1. How did Dr. Sadao meet Hana? When did their marriage take place?

2. How did Dr. Sadao treat he wounded man?

3. What complex situation did arise when the wounded man was taken into the house?

4. How did the servants show their superstitions?

5. How was Hana affected while helping Dr. Sadao in the operation?

6. What opinion does the General have of Dr. Sadao as a surgeon?

7. What was the ‘reward’?

Broad Questions:

1. How did Dr. Sadao and Hana nurse the wounded American?

2. Dr. Sadao was compelled by his duty as a doctor to help the enemy soldier.

3. Do you think the doctor’s final solution to the problem was the best possible one in the circumstances?

4. What is the theme of Pearl S. Buck’s ‘The Enemy’?

Should Wizard Hit Mommy?

Short Questions:

1. How did the wizard help Roger Skunk shed his awful smell?

2. Why does Jack insist that it was the wizard that was hit and not the mother?

3. What does Jack suggest for the ending of the story?

4. How did Roger Skunk’s mommy react when he, smelling ‘roses’ went home?

Broad Questions:

1. Describe the basic tale that originated a new story with a slight variation each time, as it was narrated by Jack to Joe.

2. What is the moral issue that ‘Should Wizard Hit Mommy’ raises?

3. Why does Jack insist that it was the wizard that was hit and not the mother?

On The Face of It

Short Questions:

1. How does Mr. Lamb receive Derry when the latter enters his garden stealthily?

2. How do people comment so painfully about Derry’s face? Why?

3. Mr. Lamb says to Derry: ‘It’s all relative. Beauty and the beast’. What does he mean by that?

4. Who should be ‘friends’ according to both Derry and Mr. Lamb?

5. What does Mr. Lamb usually do that seems ‘peculiar’ to Derry?

6. Why does Derry go back to Mr. Lamb in the end?

7. Comment on the aptness of the title of the story ‘On the Face of It’.

Broad Questions:

1. What is the initial attitude to Derry towards one and all? Why is it so?

2. What lesson of life does Mr. Lamb teach Derry when he comes to his garden? How has it affect him?

3. What lesson of life does ‘On the Face of It’ teach? How?

Evans tries an O- Level

Short Questions:

1. What do Secretary and the Governor decide about Evans’ taking the O-level exam?

2. How did Evans appear which prompted Jackson call him ‘scruffy sod’?

3. What two motives were there behind Evans’ cell getting bugged by the Governor?

4. How do you think did Evans actually escape throwing all the prison security to the winds?

Broad Questions:

1. Describe how Evans escaped from the high security Oxford prison despite all the precautions taken against his escape.

2. Do you agree that between crime and punishment it is mainly a battle of wits?

Memories of Childhood

Short Questions:

1. How did the author feel awkward in sitting in the chair for breakfast?

2. What emotional trauma did the author undergo when her hair was being cut?

3. What other entertainments & funs did the author enjoy from time to time while returning from school?

4. What advice did Annan give to the author that could reduce Untouchability?

Broad Questions:

1. Describe the Breakfast episode that made Zitkala-Sa cry.

2. What episode of discrimination did Annan narrate? What feelings did it evoke in the narrator?

Book-1 (Flamingo) PROSE

The Last Lesson

Short Questions:

1. Why was Franz tempted to miss the school that day?

2. What unusual sight met Franz’s eyes when he entered the classroom?

3. How did the teacher describe the French language?

4. What did M. Hamel announce at the start of the lesson?

5. What does M. Hamel say about the importance of language to an ‘enslaved’ people?

6. How did M. Hamel say farewell to his students and the people of the town?

Broad Questions:

1. Give a detailed description of the scene of the classroom.

2. Describe M. Hamel’s last day at school.

3. Bring out the difference in the environment of the classroom before and after the announcement.

Lost Spring: Stories of Stolen childhood

Short Questions:

1. What makes the city of Firozabad famous?

2. Is Saheb happy working at the tea stall?

3. Bring out the irony in Saheb’s name.

4. Why had people of Bangladesh left their own fields and come to settle in the slums in Seemapuri?

5. How is Mukesh different from Saheb?

6. Describe the miserable plight of the people working at the glass furnaces.

7. How did Mukesh want to accomplish his dreams?

8. Why don’t the people of Firozabad organize themselves into a cooperative?

Broad Questions:

1. Describe the miserable plight of the people of Firozabad.

2. Bring out the irony and pathos in the story of Anees Jung.

Deep Water

Short Questions:

1. What was the misadventure that William Douglas speaks about?

2. What was the writer’s first reaction on being flung into the pool?

3. Why did William Douglas hate the idea of getting into water?

4. How did the instructor build a swimmer out of William Douglas?

5. How did William Douglas make sure that he conquered the old terror?

Broad Questions:

1. Which experience made the writer feel terrified of water?

2. Explain in brief William Douglas’ attempt to come out of the pool.

3. How did the instructor help the writer learn swimming?

The Rat Trap

Short Questions:

1. From where did the peddler get the idea of the world being a Rat trap?

2. Did the peddler respect the confidence reposed in him by the Crofter?

3. Why did the peddler decline the invitation?

4. When did the ironmaster realize his mistake?

5. Why was Edla happy to see the gift left by the peddler?

Broad Questions:

1. What made the peddler finally change his ways?

2. How does the metaphor of the Rattrap serve to highlight the human predicament?

3. Why is the daughter’s decision to let the peddler stay a turning point in the story?

Indigo

Short Questions:

1. How did Rajkumar Shukla decide to meet Gandhi?

2. What episode in Patna showed Gandhi the existence of a rigid caste system?

3. What was the problem of sharecroppers in Champaran?

4. What was the deadlock? How did it end?

5. Why did Gandhi say, “The battle of Champaran won”? Was it true?

6. Why was Champaran episode a turning point in Gandhi’s life?

Broad Questions:

1. Give a detailed account of the problem of sharecroppers in Champaran.

2. Civil disobedience had triumphed for the first time in modern India. When was it?

3. How did the British rulers lose their prestige?

Poets & Pancakes

Short Questions:

1. What is the example of national integration that the author refers to?

2. What is the significance of the words ‘poet’ and ‘pancake’?

3. Why was the Legal Advisor dismissed?

4. What impact did Frank Buchman have on the Gemini Studio?

5. Why did the book, The God That Failed assumed great importance for the writer?

6. In what way Subbu better than the Office Boy?

Broad Questions:

1. Describe the make up department in the Gemini Studio.

2. The Gemini studio was the haunt of poets and it had its due effect on the employees of the Studio. Justify.

The Interview

Short Questions:

1. Why do most celebrity writers despise being interviewed?

2. Who, in today’s world, is our chief source of information about personalities?

3. What according to Umberto Eco are the empty spaces? How did he deal with them?

4. What was Kipling’s experience about being interviewed?

5. What are the two facets of the interview as a form of reporting?

6. What was Mukund’s opinion about Eco’s writing style?

Broad Questions:

1. Interview, as a form of journalism are both loved and hated. Give reasons.

2. Write a note on the literary genius of Umberto Eco.

3. Why were the journalists and publisher puzzled at the success of the ‘Name of the Rose”?

Going Places

Short Questions:

1. What were the options that Sophie was dreaming of? Why does Jansie discourage her from having such dreams?

2. Why did Sophie feel a tightening in her throat?

3. What did Geoff think of Danny Casey and his promise to Sophie?

4. “And she saw it al again…” What did Sophie see?

5. What did Geoff warn Sophie about Danny?

Broad Questions:

1. Sophie is a middle class girl who longs like any other teenager to reach out to the horizons. Justify the statement.

2. What did Sophie tell Geoff about her meeting with Danny? How did Geoff react?

POETRY

My Mother at Sixty-six

Short Questions:

1. Why has the poetess brought the image of the merry children ‘splitting out of their homes’?

2. What do you think is the pain and the ache that the poetess feels?

3. Explain the statement: “ I saw my mother…. Her face ashen like that of a corpse”.

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

Short Questions:

1. How do the children of the elementary school classroom in a slum look?

2. What does the poet mean in ‘Shakespeare is wicked and the map is a bad example…’?

3. How does the poet draw out metaphorically the present condition of the slum school children indicating bleak and dreary features?

4. How does the poet begin the poem with all the despair and end with hope?

Keeping Quiet

Short Questions:

1. What will counting upto twelve and keeping still help us achieve?

2. Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?

3. What is the sadness that the poet refers to in the poem?

4. Central idea of the poem.

A Thing of Beauty

Short Questions:

1. How is a thing of beauty a joy for ever?

2. List the thing of beauty mentioned in the poem.

3. Why is grandeur associated with the mighty dead?

4. What image does the poet use to describe the beautiful bounty of the earth?

5. Central theme of the poem.

A Roadside Stand

Short Questions:

1. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?

2. What did the farmers sell at their new sheds put up on the edges of the road?

3. What was the plea of the folks who had put up the roadside stand?

4. What ‘hope’ does the poet nurture about himself when he asks that these people should be put ‘at one stroke out of their pain’ ?

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Short Questions:

1. How do ‘denizens’ and ‘chivalric’ add to our understanding of the tiger’s attitude?

2. Interpret the symbols found in the poem.

3. What is the present state of affairs of Aunt Jennifer’s life characterized by ‘ordeals’, ‘mastered by’ and ‘terrified hands’?

4. What character of Aunt Jennifer does emerge from the poem?