Students get through the MP Board Class 12th English Important Questions Special English Unseen Passages and Poems which are most likely to be asked in the exam.
MP Board Class 12th Special English Unseen Passages and Poems Important Questions
Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions given below each passage:
1. Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)
(i) Almost every civilisation that has kept a written history, has recorded the sighting of strange objects and lights in the skies. Today, unexplained aerial phenomena are generally referred to as unidentified flying objects or flying saucers.
Descriptions of UFOs have ranged from glowing wheels to coloured balls of light to cigar-disk-, or crescent-shaped objects. One of the first well-documented UFO sightings occurred in 1561 in Nuremberg, Germany.
A broadsheet published that year describes red, blue, and black balls or plates, crosses, and tubes that appeared to battle each other in the sky over the city.
The term flying saucer was coined in 1947.
A businessman named Kenneth Arnold told reporters that while flying a private airplane near Mount Rainier in Washington he saw nine objects flying over the mountain in formation and at a speed of more than 1,600 miles (2,500 kilometres) per hour. Arnold described the objects as moving like “a saucer skipping across the water.” After that first report, Arnold’s description was shortened and it soon became popular to call all UFOs ‘flying saucers.’
The United States government has records of thousands of UFO sightings, including photos of alleged UFOs and interviews with people who claim to have seen them. Since UFOs were considered a potential security risk, the report on these sightings was originally classified as secret. When the report was later declassified it showed that 90 percent of all UFO sightings could be easily explained.
Most of the sightings turned out to be celestial objects, such as stars or bright planets like Venus, or atmospheric events such as auroras or meteors falling through the atmosphere. Many other sightings turned out to be such objects as weather balloons, satellites, aircraft lights or formations of birds. Often these sightings were accompanied by unusual weather conditions.
People have a natural desire to explain and understand everything they see. This is why visual sightings of UFOs are the least reliable. The unaided human eye can be tricked to the point of hallucination. A bright light, such as the planet Venus, often appears to move, through a clamped telescope or a sighting bar shows it to be fixed.
A visual impression of distance is also unreliable because it is based on an assumed size. Reflections from windows or eyeglasses may provide superimposed views. Optical defects can turn sources of light into apparently saucer-shaped objects. Such optical illusions coupled with a desire to inter¬pret visual images account for many UFO reports.
Even so-called contact events, in which activities besides sighting were reported to have been found most frequently to involve dreams or hallucinations. The reliability of such reports depends heavily on whether there were two or more independent witnesses present.
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
What objects are called unidentified flying objects?
Answer:
Unexplained aerial phenomena are referred to as unidentified flying objects.
Question 2.
Which was the first documented sighting of the UFO? How was the phenomenon described by the people?
Answer:
The first document of sighting of the UFO was made in 1561 in Nuremberg, Germany.
It described the UFO as red, blue and black balls or plates crosses and tubes.
Question 3.
When was the UFO named as ‘Flying Saucer’? Who first saw it? How did he describe it?
Answer:
In 1947 UFO were named as ‘Flying Saucer’. A businessman Kenneth Amonld saw it. He described them as “a saucer skipping across the water”.
Question 4.
Why were the reports on the UFO sightings classified as secret?
Answer:
The reports on the UFO sightings classified as secret because they are con¬sidered a potential security risk.
Question 5.
How did the scientists explain 90 percent of the UFO sightings?
Answer:
Scientists explain 90 percent of the UFO sightings as celestial objects like stars, planets, meteors or atmospheric events like auroras or weather balloons, satellites, aircraft lights on formation of birds.
Question 6.
Why are UFO sightings unreliable?
Answer:
People have a natural desire to explain and understand everything they see. This is why UFO sightings are unreliable.
Question 7.
What do most of the UFO reports say about the sightings?
Answer:
Most of the UFO sightings are reported to be optical illusions coupled with a desire to interpret visual images.
Question 8.
When can we consider the sightings reliable?
Answer:
The sightings can be considered reliable only when there are two or more independent witnesses are present.
Question 9.
Find out the words in the passage which have the following meanings:
(i) not recognized or known ……………………….
(ii) curved shape that is wide in the middle and pointed at the ends ……………………
(iii) a newspaper printed on large sheets of paper ……………………
(iv) to put things into particular groups according to their features ……………………
(v) ……………….. a large piece of rock from space that passes into the Earth’s atmosphere and appears as a bright light in the sky ……………………….
(vi) the experience of seeing or hearing something that is not really there ……………………
Answer:
(i) unidentified
(ii) Crescent
(iii) broadsheet
(iv) classified
(v) meteor
(vi) hallucination.
(ii) The scriptures clearly define the three qualities of Tamas, Rajas and Sattva present in all of us. Tamas is inertia or resistance to transformation. Rajas is aggressiveness, restlessness or result oriented action. Sattva is the characteristic of purity inside us.
AS human beings, all of us have this quality of Sattva, which gives us patience, tolerance and establishes us in a state of utter tranquility. But our Sattvic nature has been pushed to the background. That is why we make no progress in spiritual practices like meditation. Total confusion, problems and worries are the fruits of Tamas. Lack of peace or a disturbed mind is the fruit of Rajas. Peace, happiness and contentment are the fruits of Sattva.
Our Sattvic nature is given to us in the form of energy by God Himself. It empowers us to cope with problems in a very systematic way without affecting our mental peace or depleting our human qualities.
It turns us to Divinity and activates our Soul. Just like we preserve food using a preservative, we should preserve our minds using the energy called Sattva. If we want to have unflagging inspiration, zeal, zest and dynamism, we have to soak our minds in Sattva.
Sattva gives us the ability to remain unruffled at all times. We interact with so many people. Whatever people say, we should never allow inner peace to get destroyed.
If there is a grain of Sattva in us, other people’s thoughts, words and actions will bombard and kill it if we react to them. Even if somebody accuses us, keep quite.
After a while that person will realise his mistake. When we don’t react and become completely quite inside, what comes out of us is Sattva and peace. This is in the form of a vibration.
We cannot see it, but we can feel and experience it. These divine vibrations are extremely powerful. They transform k people and situations, as no words can.
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
What inherent qualities are found in all of us?
Answer:
Tamas, Rajas and Sattva are the inherent qualities found in all of us.
Question 2.
What is represented by Tanias and Rajas?
Answer:
Tamas represents inertia or resistance to transformation Rajas represents aggressiveness, restlessness or result oriented action.
Question 3.
What does Sattva denote?
Answer:
Sattva denotes purity inside us.
Question 4.
We get peace of mind from being (Choose one)
(a) Rajas
(b) Tamas
(c) Sattvic
(d) none of the above
Answer:
Sattvic.
Question 5.
What do Tamas and Rajas result in?
Answer:
Tamas results in confusion, problems and worries, Rajas results in lack of peace or a disturbed mind.
Question 6.
What are the advantages of following Sattvic life?
Answer:
Sattvic life empowers us to cope with problems without affecting peace of mind.
Question 7.
How can our minds be preserved?
Answer:
Our minds can be preserved by using the Sattva.
Question 8.
How does Sattva teach us to react to people’s accusations?
Answer:
Sattva gives us ability to remain unruffled at all times. It prevents us from reacting to ethers accusation.
Question 9.
Which force changes people and situations?
Answer:
The divine vibrations change people and situations.
Question 10.
Sattva comes out of us in the form of (Choose one)
(a) meditation
(b) vibrations
(c) energy
(d) peace.
Answer:
peace.
Question 11.
Find out the words in the passage which have the following meanings:
(a) holy writings of a religion ……………………….
(b) change ………………………
(c) peace …………………………
(d) not decreasing in amount or intensity …………………….
(e) to manage …………………….
(f) action of deep thinking …………………….
(g) a substance used for preserving …………………….
(h) a continuous rapid shaking movement or sensation …………………….
Answer:
(a) scriptures
(b) transform
(c) tranquility
(d) unflagging
(e) to cope
(f) meditation
(g) preservative
(h) vibration.
Question 12.
Give a suitable title to the passage.
Answer:
Tamas, Rajas and Sattva
(iii) If we wish to maintain democracy, not merely in form, but also in fact, what must I we do? The first things in my judgment we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives.
The second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy, namely, not ‘to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions.’
There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well said by the Irish patriot Daniel O’Connel, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no women can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty.
This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world.
Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.
The third thing we must do is not to be content with mere political democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well.
Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean?
It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty cannot be divorced from equality, equality cannot be divorced from liberty.
Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative.
Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things. It would require a constable to enforce them. – B. R. Ambedkar
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Give a suitable title to the passage.
Answer:
Ideals of Democracy.
Question 2.
What harm may be caused to democracy if we trust a greatman and leave our liberties at his will?
Answer:
It will enable him to subvert their institutions.
Question 3.
To what extent should a nation show someone its gratefulness?
Answer:
A nation should show its gratefulness up to the extent of not endomgering its liberty.
Question 4.
What are the dangers of hero-worship in politics?
Answer:
Hero worship in polities is a sure road to degradation and eventual dictator¬ship. This is a great danger.
Question 5.
Explain the term ‘hero-worship’.
Answer:
Hero worship means excess devotion towards a person.
Question 6.
What is the counterpart of political democracy which makes it a reality?
Answer:
Social democracy is the counterpart of political democracy that makes it a reality.
Question 7.
What are the three fundamentals of social democracy?
Answer:
Liberty, equality and fraternity are the three fundamentals of social democracy.
Question 8.
Illustrate the statement, “they form a union of trinity.”
Answer:
It means that to divorce liberty, equality and fraternity is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. They cannot be separated from each other.
Question 9.
Point out the danger of separating equality from liberty, while implementing them.
Answer:
Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative.
Liberty without equality would produce the supremacy of few and liberty and equality without fraternity could not be a natural course.
Question 10.
What, according to you, ought to be the constitutional methods of achieving our objectives?
Answer:
The constitutional methods for achieving our objectives should be the establishment of democratic, socialistic state with highest stress on liberty equality fraternity.
Question 11.
Use the following idiomatic expressions in sentences so as to make their meaning clear:
(i) to hold fast to …………………
Answer:
We must hold fast to our ideals even in the time of difficulties.
(ii) to play a part in …………………
Answer:
Most of the Indians played a pari in winning freedom for India.
(iii) a great deal of …………………
Answer:
A great deal of our aims of independence could not be achieved.
(iv) at the cost of ………………….
Answer:
We cannot help anyone at the cost of our own interest.
(v) a way of life …………………
Answer:
Many religions are actually a way of life then a religion.
Question 12.
Form nouns from the following words:
(i) require …………………
(ii) maintain …………………
(iii) obey …………………
(iv) devote ……………….
(v) judge ………………
(vi) recognize ……………….
Answer:
(i) requirement
(ii) maintenance
(iii) obedience
(iv) devotee
(v) judge, judgement
(vi) recognition.
Question 13.
Fill in the blanks with the words given below:
(merely, achieve, interested, subvert, devotion, salvation)
(i) To feel the pain of others is a way to the ………………….. of soul.
(ii) He asked me, “Which subject are you …………………….. in?”
(iii) We have no right to ………………….. the liberty and dignity of others.
(iv) Reading …………………… for pleasure is not enough. It must be for gaining knowledge too.
(v) A man of strong will power can ………………….. success.
(vi) ………………… to work is the key to success.
Answer:
(i) salvation
(ii) interested
(iii) subvert
(iv) merely
(v) achieve
(vi) Devotion.
Question 14.
Find words from the passage for the following expressions. The first letter of each word is given against each word:
(i) targets aimed as o ……………………
(ii) brotherly feeling f ………………….
(iii) warning to avoid danger c ……………….. or making mistake
(iv) a person who loves and is p …………………. ready to defend his country
(v) liberation from the bonds of s …………………… earthly existence or sin
(vi) guiding rule for man’s behaviour p …………………….
Answers:
(i) objectives
(ii) fraternity
(iii) caution
(iv) patriot
(v) salvation
(vi) principles.
(iv) Some political thinkers think that liberty and equality cannot go together. They think that liberty implies the freedom to do what one would like to do. This is true if freedom is interpreted in its absolute sense to mean that every individual shall be free according to his opportunities, there will be chaos.
It is a lesson of history that whenever people are allowed to do as they wish, the clever and more capable used their freedom to concentrate all wealth and power in themselves to the misery and oppression of the rest.
Obviously the negative view is described by those who belong to privileged section of community and for this reason, seek to maintain status for the sake of their vested interests. They think that equality is unattainable under conditions of such unrestricted freedom. Lord Acton therefore, says, “The passion of equality made vain the hope of liberty.”
The exponents of this view held that liberty is natural, equality is not. Nature itself created differences. For example, some are intellectuals, others are not. Liberty means freedom i.e., no restrictions; equality needs some restrictions. This is against the principle of liberty. The institution of property is a natural institution and therefore, should not be restricted by equality.
Perfect equality is only possible when enforced by state. This means the powers of state will increase. Excess power of the state is harmful to the liberty of the people. Moreover, state has produced many evils of capitalists. It has encouraged exploitation. It has given protection to the capitalists. Such a state cannot give perfect equality.
So, the hope of liberty also vanishes away. The democracy is said to be a system based on liberty and equality. But unfortunately, the democracy is either becoming elites democracy or dollar democracy.
Either this is controlled by the educated class or by the capitalists. Presence of elite or capitalist is inequality. Hence liberty and equality appear opposed to each other. (M.P. 2011)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Find out a word from the passage for the expression – ‘having special rights’.
Answer:
Liberty.
Question 2.
Give the adverb form of the word ‘absolute’.
Answer:
Absolutely.
Question 3.
Choosing from the given passage give antonym of the word ‘decrease’.
Answer:
Increase.
Question 4.
Make noun from the word ‘describe’.
Answer:
Description.
Question 5.
If everyone is allowed to do as he wishes, what will be the state of society?
Answer:
Chaos will be created in the society increasing misery and oppression of the rest.
Question 6.
What is the view of Lord Acton regarding equality and liberty?
Answer:
According to Lord Acton “The passion of equality made vain the hope of the liberty”.
Question 7.
What do you understand by elites democracy and dollar democracy?
Answer:
Elites democracy and dollar democracy means that either this is controlled by the educated class or by the capitalists.
(v) As the dreaded examinations crawl to a halt, students look forward to the much awaited “Creative Outlets”, the summer camp, to let off steam and spend their holidays.
A summer camp is conducted over a short period of four to five weeks involving interesting and fun-filled activities.
The colourful spectrum of summer camps provides a wide variety of activities which include artistic skills, such as painting, origami, art, music, craft and also spoken English, cookery and computer courses. Not only this, the summer camps keep the 1 child “fit as a fiddle” by importing lessons in yoga, cricket, tennis and swimming, with changing times and trends parents have become productivity oriented.
They want their children to leash through productive play unlike in the past when play was just play. Today the parents want to top the potential of their children to the fullest. To achieve this aim, the summer camps afford an ideal opening for children to develop their hobbies and talents.
The importance of creative play is often underestimated whereas the fact is that art and craft projects can excite even a young child’s imagination and promote a sense of great achievement. The little things that children make and take home give them a sense of achievement and pride when they show them to their parents.
Summer camps develop a child’s confidence and his ideas. They also encourage children to do things on their own. The camps are beneficial for hyperactive and aggressive children as they help channel energies fruitfully by drawing out the best in them. They also I promote mutual understanding not only among teachers and children but also bring about interaction between the taught. This provides a good experience for a better future, a future of confidence. (M. P. 2014, 18)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Summer camp’s develop a child’s …………………..
Answer:
Confidence and his ideas.
Question 2.
Give synonym of ‘yielding’.
Answer:
Achievement.
Question 3.
Find a word opposite in meaning to ‘backward’.
Answer:
Forward.
Question 4.
Find a word used in the sense of ‘multiple’.
Answer:
Variety.
Question 5.
What lessons do the summer camps import?
Answer:
The summer camps import lessons in yoga, cricket, tennis and swimming.
Question 6.
What do the parents want to top today?
Answer:
The parents want to top the potential of their children to the fullest.
Question 7.
What sort of future do the summer camps provide?
Answer:
The summer camps provide a good experience for a better future, a future of confidence.
(vi) Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, (M.P. 2016)
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot however mean or high
Toward which time leads me and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my taskmaster’s eye.
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
What does the poet wish for?
Answer:
The poet wish for a grace period to mend his ways and measure his career.
Question 2.
Give a word which has the meaning same as ‘balance’.
Answer:
Measure.
Question 3.
Who is referred to as ‘Heaven’ in the above lines?
Answer:
It refers to God.
Question 4.
……………………. measure even to that same lot.
Answer:
Strictest.
How Sleep The Brave
(vii) How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their day;
And freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there. – William Collins
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
For whom the word ‘brave’ has been used in the poem?
Answer:
Those people who fight for their country are called brave.
Question 2.
How are the brave who die for the nation blessed?
Answer:
They are blessed by the wishes of all their country people.
Question 3.
What is meant by the word ‘hallow’d mould”?
Answer:
Hallow’d mould means the grave where the dead fighter is buried.
Question 4.
In what sense does the poet use the phrase ‘Fancy’s feet’ in the poem? (Choose the right option)
(a) thinking deeply
(b) imagination
(c) fresh ideas
(d) fancy thoughts and ideas.
Answer:
(c) fresh ideas.
Question 5.
What does the phrase ‘fairy hands’ mean?
Answer:
Fairy hands means hands of the angels.
Question 6.
Who sings the farewell song on the grave of the brave?
Answer:
The farewell song is sung by the unseen forms that is fairies and angels.
Question 7.
In what form does ‘honour’ come to the place where the brave are laid to rest?
Answer:
Honour comes to the brave as their graves become a pilgrims destination.
Question 8.
Who shall come to the grave as a mourning saint?
Answer:
A weeping hermit will come to the grave as a mountain saint.
Question 9.
What type of poem is this? (Choose the right option)
(a) a nature poem
(b) a romantic poem
(c) a patriotic poem
(d) a descriptive poem.
Answer:
(c) a patriotic poem.
Question 10.
Find words for the following expressions from the text:
(a) a season of colours, flowers and joy …………………………
(b) to come back …………………….
(c) made pious/consecrated …………………………
(d) unsubstantial heavenly creature …………………………
(e) a song of mourning sung on the ………………………. death of somebody
(f) a man who goes to visit the religious places …………………….
Answer:
(a) Spring
(b) Return
(c) Ring the knell
(d) Fairy
(e) Dirge
(f) pilgrim.
(viii) Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world, (M.P. 2015, 16)
With the wonderful water round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast
World, you are beautifully drest.
The wonderful air is over me.
And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree.
It walks on the water, and whirls the mills,
And talks to itself on the tops of hills.
You friendly Earth, how far do you go.
With the wheat-fields that had and the rivers that flow,
With the cities and gardens, and the cliffs and isles
And people upon you for thousands of miles?
Ah! you are so great and I am so small,
I tremble to think of you, would at all,
And yet, when I said my prayers today,
A whisper inside me seemed to say,
You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot
You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
How does the poet compare himself with the earth?
Answer:
Poet compass himself with the earth by saying that the earth is great and he is so small.
Question 2.
Give the antonyms of the word ‘still’.
Answer:
Tremble.
Question 3.
Find a word from the above poem which is similar in meaning to curved.
Answer:
Curled.
Question 4.
You are more than the Earth, though you are …………………….. (complete the line with appropriate words chosen from given poem)
Answer:
Such a dot.
True Wealth
(ix) Knowledge is truest wealth, not this which dies – (M.P. 2013, 18)
It cherishes a strange deep peace within
Unutterably, nor the robber’s eyes Ever shall find it out; to give it is gain,
It then grows most when parted with, and poured With sleepless hand fills gloriously its lord.
Worlds perish may, Knowledge survives their fall;
This wise men cherish; O kings, your pride recall,
You have but wealth, they inner royalty
Of lordliest wisdom. Who will these shall vie? – Aurobindo Ghosh
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
What has knowledge been compared to?
Answer:
Knowledge is compared to wealth.
Question 2.
What does knowledge bring in silently?
Answer:
Knowledge silently brings inner peace.
Question 3.
Is knowledge a safe treasure? If yes, how?
Answer:
Yes, knowledge is a safe treasure as it can not he found by a robber’s eyes.
Question 4.
Who cherish knowledge?
Answer:
Wise men cherish knowledge.
Question 5.
Whose fall is survived by knowledge?
Answer:
Knowledge survives the fall of worlds.
Question 6.
Whose pride has been referred to in the poem?
Answer:
King’s pride is referred to in the poem.
Question 7.
“ ………………………. to give it is gain. It then grows most when parted with, ……………………… ” What does the poet imply in these lines?
Answer:
The poet means that knowledge when given to or shared with others then it grows the most.
Question 8.
Why does the poet say, ‘with sleepless hand fills gloriously its lord’?
Answer:
The poet says so to emphasise that knowledge keeps pouring in at all times to glorify its possessor.
Question 9.
What qualities of human beings have been referred to in the poetic passage?
Answer:
Wisdom, inner royalty, wiseness, are the qualities of human beings referred to in the poetic passage. But knowledge is the biggest one that results in wisdom.
Question 10.
Personification is a figure of speech in which the attributes of human beings are ascribed to inanimate or abstract things.
Mention the lines in which we find instances of personification.
Answer:
“It then grows most when parted with”, “Knowledge survives their fall”.
Question 11.
Match the words in column ‘A’ with their meanings in column ‘B’:
Answer:
1. (c)
2. (e)
3. (d)
4. (a)
5. (b)
Question 12.
Give the noun form of the word “gloriously”. (M.P. 2018)
Answer:
Glory.
The Crocodile And The Monkey
(x) On the Ganga’s greenest isle
Lived Kuroop the crocodile :
Greeny-brown with gentle grin,
Stubby legs and scaly skin,
He would view with tepid eyes Prey below a certain size –
But when a substantial dish
-Dolphin, turtle, fatter fish –
Swam across his field of view,
He would test the water too.
Out he’d glide, a floating log,
Silent as a polliwog –
Nearer, nearer, till his prey
Swam a single length away;
Then he’d lunge with smiling head,
Grab, and snap, and rip it dead –
Then (prime pleasure of his life)
Drag the carcass to his wife,
Lay it humbly at her feet,
Eat a bit, and watch her eat. – Vikram Seth
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Pick out the phrases used by the poet to describe the following features of Kuroop:
1. Colour …………………….
2. Grin …………………….
3. Legs ……………………..
4. Skin ……………………..
5. Eyes …………………………
Answer:
1. Greeny brown
2. Gentle
3. Stubby
4. Scaly
5. Tepid
Question 2.
Why did the crocodile test the water, when he saw his prey of large size?
Answer:
He tested the water in order to find out whether the flow of it was appropriate to hemt.
Question 3.
What, according to the poet, was the prime pleasure of Kuroop’s life?
Answer:
The prime pleasure of Kuroop’s life was to arrange good food for his wife.
Question 4.
Find the words in the poem that mean:
(a) a piece of land surrounded by water on all sides ……………………
(b) move forward suddenly …………………….
(c) large in amount or value ………………………..
(d) the dead body of an animal ……………………….
Answer:
(a) isle
(b) lunge
(c) substantial
(d) carcase
Question 5.
The poet says “On the Ganga’s greenest isle …………………….”. In the word ‘isle’ the sound of letter ‘s’ is silent. Write two more such words from the poem.
Answer:
would, humbly.
Question 6.
How did the crocodile catch his prey?
Answer:
The crocodile floated like a log and reached near his prey and when it was single length away he lunged and grabbed the prey and ripit dead.
Question 7.
Why does the poet compare the crocodile with a tadpole?
Answer:
Because it floats silently like a tadpole.
Question 8.
Give the antonyms of the following words:
1. thin …………………
2. alive ……………….
3. harsh …………………
4. above …………………..
5. far …………………
6. noisy …………………
Answer:
1. fat
2. dead
3. gentle
4. below
5. near
6. silent.
(xii) We have just left the dinner table, when I hear music coming from my daughters computer. It surprises me that my daughter Ida is listening do music from a time she refers to as the very old days. “What are you playing?” I ask. “Its Phi Collins”, is her prompt reply, while she shows how with a few strokes, she can download almost any song from the internet.
Times have certainly been changing since I scratched my first beatles record. Tactfully I don’t mention that I had bought the record she is listening to before she was born. The concept of a phonograph record belongs to a bygone age and I don’t want to spoil the pleasure. She’ll get from discovering her own new favourite musician.
The music brings memories flooding back. I have a sudden urge to bring back my record collection from the attic, where it has mouldered for almost a decade. Only one thing stops me. My tumable succumbed to the damp air in a cellar. When I stored it for a good ten years. No, I don’t care if turntables are ancient technology.
I will find one. And I will restore my long lost record collection-which took up a good amount of shelf space to its former glory. Buying something as uncool. As a turntable takes courage and planning. I find a promising TV and radio store in the phone book but I am expecting a mountain of questions from the clerk, who will most certainly have been born and raised after the demise of the turntable.
“A turntable? Coming right up! “says the young man behind the counter. He disappears into the store room and before I can say long playing records he’s back with a small card board under his arm. It’s too good to be true. An hour later my new acquisition is in the living room and a respectful atmosphere descends. I’ve sorted my records into files all over the floor. I find a beatles album.
Behind the wonderful music now flowing through the loudspeaker is the unmistakable sound of vinyl. It doesn’t take long for my twelve year old son’s eagle eye to spot the turn-table and he has to try it out.
Gonas is technically minded, a child of the computer age, yet I sense a certain reverence as he picks up the tone arm and tries to place it in the middle of the record.
Brought up in the CD age how could he know what’s wrong? I say in a soothing voice: “The starting groove is on the edge of the record”. “Does it matter which side is up?” queried my daughter. “It does matter”, I replied. Soon we were listening to Phil Collins number we both like. The generation gap vanishes as the music takes over. I relish the moment to the full and cast a glace of Ida. She’s relaxed and smiling. (M.P. 2016)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Find the word opposite in meaning to lazy.
Answer:
Active.
Question 2.
Find a word used in sense of hoping.
Answer:
Expecting.
Question 3.
The concept of a ……………………. record belongs to a bygone age.
Answer:
Phonograph.
Question 4.
What does the music do?
Answer:
The music brings flooding back.
Question 5.
What does the narrator want to restore?
Answer:
The narrator wanted to restore his lost record collection.
Question 6.
How does generation gap vanish?
Answer:
The generation gap vanished as the music takes over.
(xii) We live in highly competitive age of science and technology and can no longer afford luxury of mediorrity, if we are to forge ahead. This rapidly changing unclear age requires our youth to be intellectually far more alert and competent than their predecessors, and therefore, every young man and woman today studying in schools, colleges and universities must aim at academic ability of the highest order. In a developing country like ours, where large numbers are still unable to acquire even primary education, those undergoing higher education constitute a privileged elite. (M.P. 2009)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Opposite of Successor is ……………………. :
Answer:
Predecessor.
Question 2.
A word for ‘early education’
Answer:
Primary education.
Question 3.
We are living in the age of ………………..
Answer:
Science and technology.
Question 4.
Synonym of comfort is ………………..
Answer:
Luxury.
Question 5.
Answer the following:
(i) In which age we live today?
Answer:
We live in the age of Science and Technology.
(ii) What does this age require today for youth?
Answer:
This age requires today for youth to be intellectually for more ahead than their predecessors.
(iii) Who are privileged elite?
Answer:
Those undergoing higher education are privileged elite.
(xiii) Like a high born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower,
Like a glow-warm golden In a dell of dew
Scattering inbeholden
It aerial hue. (M.P. 2009)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Who does the poet compare with bird in the first given stanza?
Answer:
The bird is compared with maiden whose soul is laden with love.
Question 2.
What is composed within second stanza?
Answer:
Music, sweet as love is composed within second stanza.
Question 3.
Synonym of invisible is:
Answer:
Unbeholden.
Question 4.
Antonym of secret is:
Answer:
Obvious.
(xiv) The world is finite, resources are scarce,
Things are bad and will be worse,
Coal is burned and gas exploded,
Wells are dry and air polluted,
Dust is blowing, trees are uprooted,
Oil is going, ores depleted,
Drains receive what is excreted,
Land is sinking, seas are rising,
Man is fax too enterprising,
Fires will rage with man to fan it,
Soon we will have a plundered planet. (M.P. 2011)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Choose two words from the poem which suggest the bleak future of mankind.
Answer:
The two words are scare and depleted.
Question 2.
Find out a word from the poem opposite to the word ‘better’.
Answer:
Worse.
Question 3.
Give noun form of the word ‘explode’.
Answer:
Explosion.
Question 4.
What is the danger ahead about which the poem is warning us?
Answer:
The poem is warning us for scarce resources of nature and future plundered planet, with gas explosion, air pollution, deforestation, ores depletion, sinking land and rising sea level.
(xv) We have no wings, we cannot soar,
But we have feet to scale and climb,
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The heights by greatmen reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But, they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Match the following:
Answer:
(i) (b)
(ii) (c)
(iii) (a).
Question 2.
How had the greatmen reached the heights?
Answer:
The greatmen have reached the heights by toiling upward in the night, while their companions slept.
(xvi) Mankind has undoubtly progressed since medieval times. The earliest men lived like brutes.
Individuals fought among themselves and the strong destroyed the weak, for that is the law of the jungle, the law of irrational life.
But man was not an animal. He possessed rational faculties. These faculties gradually developed and appeared in his actions and man gave up the law of the jungle and made his own rational laws.
Men saw that the law of physical strength was not applicable to their lives. They realized that they had souls and the strength of being with a soul can consist in a variety of capabilities other than the power to cut and kill, tear and bite.
For instance, a man can be strong in fashioning tools, or in controlling the actions of other rational beings by the power of song or speech. Thus men realized that they should not be fighting among themselves.
But they should be working together and giving one another opportunities to develop their respective strengths. This was the first step in man’s progress.
By these means men gained such control over the forces of nature. They made each other so much wiser and more comfortable that they were convinced that they were the best creation of God. (M.P. 2013)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
What do you mean by the law of the jungle?
Answer:
According to the law of the ‘jungle’ individuals fight among themselves and the strong destroy the weak.
Question 2.
How was man different from animals?
Answer:
Man is different from animals as he possesses rational faculties.
Question 3.
How could man gain control over the forces of nature?
Answer:
Through fashioning tools and the power of speech and song, the man gained control over the forces of nature.
Question 4.
Find synonyms for the given words:
(a) developed
(b) ruined
(c) achieved
Answer:
(a) progressed
(b) destroyed
(c) gained.
Question 5.
Give noun form of the word ‘applicable’.
Answer:
Application.
(xvii) In my house with thine own hands
Light the lamp of thy love,
Transmuting lamp enterencing
Wondrous are it rays.
Touch me once so
Change darkness into light
Evil into good, Ignorance into
Knowledge, clay into gold. (M.P. 2015)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Thy for ……………….. (in a word for spiritual sense)
Answer:
God/Almighty.
Question 2.
House is stand for?
Answer:
Soul.
Question 3.
Give opposite word for “ignorance”.
Answer:
Knowledge.
Question 4.
What does poet want to change to the God?
Answer:
Change darkness into light, evil into good, ignorance into knowledge and clay into gold.
(xviii) “The Pench National Park” “Mogliland” is one of the famous park of wild animal parks of the “World”. It is reserved forest are. It is between Nagpur and Jabalpur city. It is on the “Center Point” of the India. It is on the road, National Highway 07, we can reach Kanyakumari from Kashmeer by this road. These are two poles of our nation North and South.
“Mogliland”, the name of the part because of a miracle story of a “Jungle” boy.
History of Seoni (MP) District and gazette says about a “miracle” boy of the area, which is related-named “Mogli” and a “herd of wild dangerous animal”.
The boy was bom at Chor-Garthiya village of the same are area (in Seoni). One day when the little child of 18 months asleeping out of hut, where her mother left him and went to her fields, the herd of animal came and lifted him for their dinner.
With the help of government documents and history of Seoni district” an Australian novelist “Rudyard Kipling” wrote famous “The Jungle book” novel.
Its main plot has been taken from the true story of “Mogli”.
“Mogli” the main character of the novel. We have (all the world) seen on the televi-sion serial “Jungle jungle bat chali hai” in 1990s.
In 18th century, when he was captured by British people and taken to the Jail gazette says he was near about 24 years. It means he lived with animals for 22 years. We are (human) very well know that human has great affection for different animals. “The miracle is just against”. Here animals grewup a human. Why did not eat the child?
Why they gave time to grownup an human? Perhaps they feed him, give their lap to growup for help as well affection to the “human”. Mogli passed his life of 22 years among them.
He ran, ate, jumped sounded, drank, sleep like them and helped they “gazette say”. And “Protected” animals from “human”.
MP’s former Forest Minister Mr. Harbansh Singh who was very devoted to wild animal life and save their life. He was also a educationist, work a lot for Mogliland and started a programme “Mogli Utsav” for the student of the MP’s school in 2002.
To know the ‘Miracle’ of the world and development of our State MP through “Miracle boy”. (M.P. 2015)
Answer these questions:
Question 1.
Gazette means ……………………
Answer:
Joumal/newspaper.
Question 2.
“Miracle” means ………………….
Answer:
Extraordinary.
Question 3.
Give a word for “Utsav” in English language.
Answer:
Celebration.
Question 4.
Novel means ………………….. (in a word)
Answer:
Fiction.
Question 5.
Give the name of the Kipling’s novel?
Answer:
The Jungle Book.
Question 6.
Why is Pench National Park called Mogliland?
Answer:
Pench National Park is called ‘Mogliland’ because of a miracle story of a “Jungle” boy.
Question 7.
Who, When, Why for whom started Mogli Utsav?
Answer:
MP’s former Forest Minister Mr. Harbansh Singh started Mogli Utsav. It was started in MP’s school 2002, to know about the ‘Miracle’ world and development of our State MP through “Miracle boy”.