Updated on 25/02/2022
1. The Third Level (Jack Finney)
Essay Type Q-Ans.
Q. 1 ‘The modern world
is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and stress.’ What are the ways in which
we attempt to overcome them?
Ans. People adopt different way to escape the painful
realities of the modern world. At present some people spend their time to play
games, to read books. Sometime they do some creative work as writing, painting,
dancing, cooking etc. There are some other ways as going for a picnic or movie.
They can divert their mind in some hobbies like gardening, painting etc. There
are some who resort themselves to drink and to take drugs to forget their
worries. But this is an undesirable way to escape. These are temporary ways to
escape from these realities.
Q. 2 How does Charley
reach the third level?
Ans. Charley is the main character of this story. One day,
Charley got late at his office. He was in hurry to reach home. He decided to
take the subway from the Grand Central Station. He was to catch his train from
the second level. But when he reached there, he got lost in a wrong corridor.
He kept walking along the corridor which went turning left and slanting
downwards. At its end, he went down a short flight of stairs. When he came out,
he found himself on the third level.
Q. 3 Describe Charley’s experience at the third level?
Ans. When Charley reached the third level, then he saw that
there were fewer ticket windows. The rooms were also smaller. The lights were
dim. There everything was old fashioned. There was a boy who was selling
newspaper, ‘The World’ which has not published for many years. Charley turned
towards the ticket windows. He wanted to go to Galesburg with his wife Louisa.
He lived there in his childhood days. But he found that only old currency was
accepted there. Charley had to come back from there because he had only new
style currency.
2. The Tiger
King (Kalki)
Essay Type Q-Ans.
Q. 1 Give a brief account of killing of ninety
nine tigers by the king.
Or
How did the king of Pratibandapuram
get the nick-name the ‘Tiger King’?
Or
Why did the king take a vow to kill one
hundred tigers?
Ans. The tiger king is the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram. The
astrologers foretold that his death would be by a tiger. At that moment, a
great miracle took place. The infant, who was only ten days old, he began to
speak. He became the Maharaja, at the age of twenty. He came to know the
astrologer’s prediction that his death would come by a tiger. So he took a vow that he would attend all the
matters of the state only after killing the hundredth tiger. At the age of ten,
he had killed seventy tigers. Now there were no more tigers in his kingdom. So
he married a girl from a royal family. Each time when he visited the kingdom of
his father-in-law, he killed five or six tigers. Thus he had killed ninety nine
tigers. When he killed hundredth tiger, actually it was not. The bullet had
missed it. One of the hunters killed the tiger. A few days later, the king gave
a wooden tiger as birthday gift to his son on his third birthday. When he was
playing with his son, one of the silver quills pierced the Maharaja right hand.
In four days, the infection spread all over the arm and he died.
3. Journey to the End of the
Earth
Q. 1 Why did the writer visit
Antarctica? What does she say about Gondwana?
Ans.
In this essay, the writer describes her journey to Antarctica. Her journey
started from Madras. She had to cross nine time zones, six check-points, three
bodies of water and three ecospheres. She traveled one hundred hours to reach
the Antarctica. She was filled with wonder at Antarctica’s immensity and
isolation. He also wondered at the fact that there was a time when India and
Antarctica were part of the same landmass.
The writer said that Gondwana was
giant southern super-continent about 650 million years ago. Its climate was much
warmer and had a huge variety of flora and fauna. About sixty million years ago,
the dinosaurs were wiped out, the age of mammals got under way, and the
landmass separated into continents.
Q. 2 Why do people visit
Antarctica? OR
How does Antarctica help us in
understanding the past, present and future of the earth?
Essay Type Q-Ans. of ‘The Enemy’
Q. 1 Why and how did Dr. Sadao help the prisoner of war to escape?
Ans. As a doctor, Sadao had been trained not to let a man die if he could help him. And that was what he did. Dr. Sadao and his wife Hana had found that man in a very bad state on the beach. He was badly wounded. Dr. Sadao saw that the man was an American prisoner of war who had escaped. It was a grave crime to give shelter to an enemy soldier. And Dr. Sadao didn’t want to help him. But at the same time, he couldn’t ignore his duty as a doctor. So he took the man on his house and did all that he could do to save his life. During that whole period, he never forgot that the man was enemy. He even thought of handling him over the police but couldn’t do so. He was certain that they would kill him. He was in a fix what to do. He adopted the course that could be the best under such circumstances. He helped the man to escape in a boat. Thus he got rid of the enemy without having him killed.
Essay Type Q-Ans.
1. What is the moral issue that the story raises?
Ans. In this story, there are two viewpoints. Jo, a little girl has a different viewpoint and her father, Jack has a different viewpoint. As a child grows, he develops his own way of thinking. He doesn’t accept everything blindly. He raises questions against it. On the other hand adults take it as insult. They think that their children should be obedient.
Jo’s wisdom and sense was developing. So, she started to ask so many difficult moral questions during the stories. She would not agree with her father. It was the result of her growing wisdom. That is why she asked her father that wizard should have hit Roger’s mommy back as she was stupid.
Adults have their own views on different issues. They can be wrong or right. They measure each and everything according to their own perspective. But a child lives in dreams. A child takes the things in his own way. The parents always think that they are always right. In this story, Skunk’s mother wants that her child should smell like a Skunk. The wizard in the story has done nothing wrong to change his bad smell into roses. Yet his mother goes to the wizard and hit him. If the wizard had hit her back, it would be an insult to a mother.
2. How does Jack narrate the story ‘Should Wizard Hit Mommy’?
OR
Write a brief summary of the story ‘Should Wizard Hit Mommy’?
Ans. Jack tells her little daughter, Jo a new story every day. It is about an animal named Roger (as Roger Skunk, Roger Fish, Roger Squirrel, Roger Chipmunk etc. His smell was very bad. The other animals do not like his bad smell. So they don’t play with him.
So, he goes to a wizard, who changes his bad smell. Now he smells like roses. He feels very happy. When he comes to his mother. She became angry. She says that Skunk should smell like a Skunk and not like roses. She takes Roger with her. She goes to the wizard. She hits him with an umbrella. She makes him change Roger’s smell.
Jo becomes restless to hear this. She feels it is unjust, when the wizard had done nothing wrong, why he should have been hit. She thinks that the wizard should have hit the mother back. She does not understand the perspective of adults. She thinks it is not fair the wizard to be hit.
1. Write a brief summary of the play ‘On the Face of It’.
Ans. The three characters in the play are Mr. Lamb, Derry and Derry’s mother. Mr. Lamb is an old man. He has lost one of his leg in war. Now he has a tin leg in its place. He lives alone in a house that has a garden also. People have spread many stories about him and no one ever comes to visit him. Derry’s state is also not much different. He is a fourteen years old boy. The one side of his face is all burned and he looks very ugly. People looks at him with a sense of shock and fear. Everyone makes him conscious of his ugliness and it give him much mental pain. One he comes into Mr. Lamb’s garden thinkg that no one lives there. Mr. Lamb sees him enter the garden and the two have a long heart to heart talk. Derry is so impressed by Mr. Lamb’s encouraging words that he decides to leave him home and start living with Mr. Lamb. He goes back home to tell his mother of what he has decided. But when he comes to the garden, he finds Mr. Lamb already dead.
Write a brief summary of the story ‘Evans Tries an O-Level’.
Ans. In this play Evans is a clever prisoner. He has escaped from the jail three times before this. He was known as ‘Evans the break’ by prison officers. He expresses his desire to get O-Level certificate in German language. His desire was granted after the approval of Board secretary. A tutor came to teach him German in his cell for one year. After it the day of examination came. On that day all arrangements were done to conduct exam. A person named McLeery came to take exam as invigilator. In reality he was Evans’ friend and it was the part of his plan. After the exam, Stephen went to leave invigilator at the gate and when he came back to the cell. He found Mcleery injured, but he was Evans himself. By this he escaped from the prison fourth time.