No Men are Foreign

 (i) “Beneath all uniforms…” What uniforms do you think the poet is speaking about?
(ii) How does the poet suggest that all people on earth are the same?

Ans: (i) The poet is probably speaking about the uniforms that the soldiers wear at the time of war. The word “uniform” here could also mean the traditional dresses of a country.
(ii) The poet suggests that all people on earth are the same as they breathe, buried, wake, sleep, hate, love and labour. The importance of the sun and air and water is equal for everyone. Everyone needs peace and suffers from starvation during wars.

2. In stanza 1, find five ways in which we all are alike. Pick out the words.

Ans: Words which suggest the five ways in which we all are like are:
Each of us has a similar body
All of us breathe
All of us walk
All of us lie
We live and die on the same earth

3. How many common features can you find in stanza 2? Pick out the words.

Ans: There are five common features in stanza 2. These features are the sun, the air, the water, peaceful harvest, hands and the labour.

4. “…whenever we are told to hate our brothers…” When do you think this happens? Why? Who ‘tells’ us? Should we do as we are told at such times? What does the poet say?

Ans: Whenever there is war, leaders tell people to hate the other country. They tell us to do so because of their personal gains. But we should not act as a puppet in their hands and do as they say. We should understand that war is futile and analyse the situation before jumping to conclusions.The poet says that if we fight against them, we kill and condemn ourselves.

Friday, 24 August 2018

Reach for the Top 

 Answer these questions in one or two sentences each. (The paragraph numbers within brackets provide clues to the answers.) 

1. Why was the ‘holy man’ who gave Santosh’s mother his blessings surprised? (1)

2. Give an example to show that even as a young girl Santosh was not ready to accept anything unreasonable. (2)

3. Why was Santosh sent to the local school? (3)
 4. When did she leave home for Delhi, and why? (4)
 5. Why did Santosh’s parents agree to pay for her schooling in Delhi? What mental qualities of Santosh are brought into light by this incident? (4)

Ans: 1. The ‘holy man’ was surprised because he had assumed that Santosh’s mother wanted a son. But grandmother told him that they did not want a son.

 2. Santosh, from the very beginning, lived life on her own terms. She was not content with the traditional way of life and was not ready to accept anything unreasonable. Where other girls wore traditional Indian dresses, Santosh preferred shorts.

 3. Even though Santosh’s parents could afford to send their children to the best schools, she was sent to the local village school due to the prevailing custom in the family.

 4. When she turned sixteen and was under pressure to get married, Santosh threatened her parents that she would never marry if she did not get a proper education. Therefore, she left home and got herself enrolled in a school in Delhi.

 5. When Santosh’s parents refused to pay for her education, she politely informed them of her plans to earn money by working part time to pay her school fees. Then, her parents agreed to pay for her schooling in Delhi. This shows that Santosh was a mentally-strong girl and was determined to work very hard to get herself properly educated.

 Page No: 103

 II.Answer each of these questions in a short paragraph (about 30 words). 

1. How did Santosh begin to climb mountains?
 2. What incidents during the Everest expedition show Santosh’s concern for her team-mates?
3. What shows her concern for the environment?
4. How does she describe her feelings at the summit of the Everest?
5. Santosh Yadav got into the record books both times she scaled Mt Everest. What were the reasons for this?

 Ans: 1. From her room in Kasturba Hostel, she watched people going up the Aravalli Hills and vanishing after a while. On investigating, she found nobody except a few mountaineers, and she asked if she could join them. They agreed and even motivated her to take to climbing and so she later accompanied them on their climbing expedition. This was how she began climbing mountains.

 2. During the Everest mission, Santosh showed immense concern for her fellow climbers. Though she was unsuccessful in saving the life of one of them, she did manage to save another climber through artificial respiration.

 3. Santosh was a fervent environmentalist. Her concern for the environment is evident from the fact that she collected and brought down 500 kilograms of garbage from the Himalayas.

 4. Santosh asserted that her feeling at the summit of the Everest was “indescribable”. Unfurling the Indian flag on the top of the world was a spiritual moment for her and she felt proud as an Indian.

 5. When Santosh Yadav first scaled Mt Everest, she became the youngest woman in the world to achieve the feat. When she scaled the Everest the second time, she became the only woman to have scaled it twice.

 (Do these Qs in the book )

 III. Complete the following statements.
 Ans: 1. From her room in Kasturba Hostel, Santosh used to watch villagers going up the hill and suddenly vanish after a while.

 2. When she finished college, Santosh had to write a letter of apology to her father because she had got herself enrolled at Uttarkashi’s Nehru Institute of Mountaineering without his permission.

 3. During the Everest expedition, her seniors in the team admired her climbing skills, physical fitness and mental strength while her concern for others and desire to work together with them endeared her to fellow climbers.

 IV. Pick out words from the text that mean the same as the following words or expressions. (Look in the paragraphs indicated.) 

 1. took to be true without proof (1)                      Assumed

 2. based on reason; sensible; reasonable (2):       Rational

3. the usual way of doing things (3):                      Custom

4. a strong desire arising from within (5):                Urge

5. the power to endure, without falling ill (7) :       Resistance

Description of an event

Dengue Awareness Campaign

The Interact Club of our school organized Dengue Awareness Campaign to spread awareness about dengue and promote a safer and healthier environment in school. An array of activities was  organized to sensitise the students about dengue. Students made placards , wrote slogans, related to keep the deadly bite at bay on the tags provided to them by the school.

The students of the Club visited various schools to  further spread the awareness among the students of other schools.

A special assembly was  organized to encourage the importance of proper environment sanitation in the fight against dengue fever. A street play highlighting the causes, speech, poem, quiz  were  presented by the interactors.  The winners were given mosquito repellants cream as the prize. The Campaign was also carried out in junior school to make the children alert of the serious consequences of accumulation of water.

The Principal appreciated the drive  initiated by the club and urged the students to keep their surroundings sanitized to prevent dengue.

Description of a place

Value points for writing a factual description of a place:

Para-1

Name (building, monument, park etc.)

Location (in the middle, floor no., in front of, behind etc.)

Dimension( Size, shape, stories, material etc

Para-2

Purpose, use

History( eg. Who built and when)

Importance

Para-3

Summing up/Comparision with the earlier visit

Any other relevant point

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is a famous  tourist   attraction  in India that draws millions of visitors every year. It is located in Agra, a city in Uttar Pradesh. It is situated on the bank of Yamuna river

 It was  built as the final resting place for Mumtaz Mahal, the third wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The name Taj Mahal means “crown of palaces”. It is made of white marble and took twenty years to be built.

The Taj Mahal has a large white dome that is called an ‘onion dome’ due to its shape. It  is  surrounded by four smaller domes. The Taj Mahal complex includes a large garden, a pool, and mosques. Every tourist from the foreign land thinks that his visit to India is incomplete without visiting the Taj

Writing Skill (E2 notebook)

Description Writing

Description of a person

•      Paragraph 1 Set the scene ( name of the person, time/place you met/ saw him/her

   

  Paragraph 2

o   Physical appearance (height, build, age, facial features etc

o   Personality characteristics, hobbies and interests

 

  Paragraph 3

•      Comments/ feelings about the person

•      Also give a relevant title to the description

My Best Friend

      I would like to talk about my best friend Neha. I am so lucky to have her as my friend.  She fills my life with happiness. We share all our secrets.

      Neha is small and quite slim. She has  got  an oval face with bright blue eyes and a small mouth. She has long hair which she ties in a ponytail. She is quite beautiful, especially when she smiles.

She always seems to be in a good mood. She always brings out the best in me by being positive and cheerful.

She is very honest and gives her sincere opinion. We are really close to each other. We never get  bored with each other’s  company.

Sometimes  she  tends to be stubborn, she never admits her fault. But inspite  of her shortcomings I love her. I hope our friendship will be long and everlasting.

he Happy Prince

Page No:Ans: 36 Think About It
1. Why do the courtiers call the prince ‘the Happy Prince’? Is he really happy? What does he see all around him?

Ans: The courtiers called the prince ‘the Happy Prince’ because he was always happy. When he was alive, he did not know what tears were for he lived in a palace where sorrow was not allowed to enter. However, when he died and was made into a statue, he was not happy and tears flowed down his eyes on seeing the state of his city. He could see all the misery and ugliness of the city around him.

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2. Why does the Happy Prince send a ruby for the seamstress? What does the swallow do in the seamstress’ house?

Ans: The Happy Prince sent a ruby for the seamstress as she was extremely poor and could not feed her child who was suffering from fever.
The swallow, on being persuaded by the prince, went to the seamstress’s house. She had fallen asleep so the swallow kept the ruby on the table where the woman worked. He then flew round the bed fanning the boy’s forehead with his wings. This made the boy feel relaxed and he went to sleep.

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3. For whom does the prince send the sapphires and why?

Ans: The Happy Prince sent the sapphires for two people: the young writer across the city and the matchgirl.
The young writer was trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre. However, he was too cold to write anymore, there was no fire in the grate and hunger had made him faint. He sent the sapphire to the young playwright so that he could sell it to the jeweller, buy firewood, and finish his play. On seeing the sapphire, the young man felt appreciated and believed that he could finish his play.
The Happy Prince then saw a little matchgirl who was standing in the square just below him. She had let her matches fall in the gutter because of which they were all spoiled. The prince knew that her father would beat her if she did not bring home some money. When the swallow slipped the jewel into the palm of the little girl’s hand, she ran home happy and laughing.

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4. What does the swallow see when it flies over the city?

Ans: When the swallow flew over the city it saw the stark contrast of plenty and poverty. It saw rich men making merry oblivious to the plight of the poor down the lane. It saw the nadir of condition of poor when they are denied even a sound sleep by police patrolling the street.

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5. Why did the swallow not leave the prince and go to Egypt?

Ans: Since the price had given away the two sapphires of his eyes, he had become blind. Therefore, the swallow decided to stay with the prince always. It can be inferred that the swallow was so touched by prince’s kindness that he decided to stay back rather than flying to Egypt and be with his friends. What this suggests is that kind hearted people always attract friends who will stay with them forever. Ans:

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6. What are the precious things mentioned in the story? Why are they precious?

Ans: The precious things mentioned in the story are the leaden heart of the happy prince and the dead bird. They are precious because both the happy prince and the swallow were very kind, generous and selfless. The prince could not bear to see the ugliness, misery and suffering in his city and so gave away all his precious stones and gold to make his people happy.
Similarly the swallow sacrificed his trip to Egypt and acted as the prince’s messenger carrying the precious stones and gold to the needy spreading happiness around. When the prince was blind he still loved him so much that he never left him even though it kept getting colder and colder with winter approaching. Finally when he could no longer bear the cold he died at the feet of the statue and the statue loved him so much that its leaden heart broke into two.
That is why when God asked one of the angels to bring him the two precious things in the garden the angel took the leaden heart and the dead bird and God said that in his garden of Paradise the little bird shall sing for ever more and in the city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise God.

1.What are the two strange things the guru and his disciple find in the Kingdom of Fools?

Ans: The two strange things that the guru and his disciple observe in the kingdom of fools are:▸ Everyone sleeps during the day and carry out their work at night▸ The cost to purchase anything from the market was the same, one duddu (one rupee).
Whether it was a measure of rice or a bunch of banana  it  cost the same

2. Why does the disciple decide to stay in the Kingdom of Fools? Is it a good idea?

Ans: The disciple decided to stay in the Kingdom of Fools because he was delighted that everything cost a single duddu and everything was very cheap. All that he wanted was good and very cheap food. According to the Guru, staying there was not a good idea as they were all fools and so he felt this situation would not last long and was not sure about what they would do in the future.

3. Name all the people who  are tried in the king’s court, and give the reasons for their trial.

Ans:  Following people were tried in the king’s court:▸ The merchant whose house was burgled: Because his house’s wall was weak and it fell upon the  burglar and killed him

▸ The  bricklayer who built the wall: Because he built a wall which was weak and which collapsed killing the burglar▸ The dancing girl: Because she distracted the bricklayer with her jingling anklets by walking up and down the road where bricklayer was laying the wall▸ The  goldsmith: Because he didn’t complete the dancing girl’s order on time and so she had to go to the goldsmith a dozen times.▸ The   merchant whose house was burgled (second time): because his father persuaded the goldsmith to finish his order first thereby delaying the dancing girl’s order. Since the merchant’s father died, the merchant had to be executed in his father’s place▸ The disciple: Because the merchant was too thin to be executed by the newly made stake and a fat man was required to fit the stake. The disciple  was very fat, hence he was caught

4. Who is the real culprit according to the king? Why does he escape punishment?

Ans: The real culprit according to the king is the merchant because although his old father was the real murderer he was dead and someone had to be punished in his place. He escapes the punishment because he is too thin to be   properly executed on the stake.

5. What are the Guru’s words of wisdom? When does the disciple remember them?’

Ans: The guru’s words of wisdom were that it was the city of fools. He advised the disciple to leave the city because he would not know what they would do next. The disciple remembers this when he was going to be executed.

6. How does the guru mange to save his disciple’s life?

Ans: The guru tries to confuse the king by expressing his desire to be  killed first. Then to  further confuse the king he tells the story of becoming the king in the next incarnation. Apparently it may sound like a case of pure lie to save your dear one’s life. But if we go deeper consciously or unconsciously the sage is trying to save everybody’s life in the kingdom. Ultimately  he is able to pull everybody out of the misery of living in the kingdom of fools.