“Please don’t shout ! You can shout yourself hoarse in your own house but here I must ask you to restrain yourself !”

(a) Who is speaking and to whom ?
(b) What is the dispute over ?
(c) What does the word, ‘restrain’ mean ?

Answer the following question in 80-100 words:

Whenever we want to achieve something difficulties always come in our way. What did Valli have to do to go and ride in a bus?

Answer the following questions in 30-40 words each:

(a) What do the elders in Goa still love to remember ?
(b) What are the three things that can’t happen in a treeless forest ?
(c) Why was Mathilda always unhappy after her marriage ?
(d) How did Richard Ebright’s mother help him ?

Education is always a great asset in the life of a woman. How did Bholi, an educated girl, face the challenge posed by Bishambar’s greed ?

Read the passage given below.

Then all the windows of the grey wooden house (Miss Hilton used to live here. She expired last week.), were thrown open, a thing I had never seen before.

At the end of the day a sign was nailed on the mango tree : FOR SALE.

Nobody in the street knew Miss Hilton. While she lived, her front gate was always locked and no one ever saw her leave or saw anybody go in. So even if you wanted to, you couldn’t feel sorry and say that you missed Miss Hilton.

When I think of her house I see just two colours. Grey and green. The green of the mango tree, the grey of the house and the grey of the high iron fence that prevented you from getting at the mangoes.

If your cricket ball fell in Miss Hilton’s courtyard you never got it back. It wasn’t the mango season when Miss Hilton died. But we got back about ten or twelve of our cricket balls.

The house was sold and we were prepared to dislike the new owners even before they came. I think we were a little worried. Already we had one resident of the street who kept on complaining about us to our parents. He complained that we played cricket on the pavement; and if we were not playing cricket he complained that we were making too much noise anyway.

One afternoon when I came back from school Pal said, “Is a man and a woman. She pretty pretty, but he ugly like hell”. I didn’t see much. The front gate was open, but the windows were shut again. I heard a dog barking in an angry way.

One thing was settled pretty quickly. Whoever these people were they would never be the sort of people to complain that we were making noise and disturbing their sleep.

A lot of noise came from the house that night. The radio was going at full volume until midnight when the radio station closed down. The dog was barking and the man was shouting. I didn’t hear the woman.

On the basis of your understanding of the above passage complete the following statements:

(a) Nobody went into Miss Hilton’s house because her front ___________ .

(b) Her house had only two colours, (i) ______ and (ii) _______.

(c) High iron fence did not let the boys get ____________.

(d) They never got it back if their ______ fell into her courtyard.

(e) The boys were ready to dislike the __________ .

(f) One resident of the street always ___________ .

(g) New owners of Miss Hilton’s house were (i) ___________ and (ii) __________ .

(h) A man was shouting, a dog was barking, only ____________ .

Read the passage given below:

During our growing up years we as children were taught–both at home and school–to worship the photos and idols of the gods of our respective religions. When we grow a little older, we were to read holy books like The Bhagwad Gita, Bible and Quran; we were told that there are a lot of life lessons to be learnt from these holy books. We were then introduced to stories from our mythologies which taught us about ethics and morality–what is good and what is bad. I also learnt to be respectful towards my parents who made my life comfortable with their hard work and love and care, and my teachers who guided me to become a good student and a responsible citizen.

Much later in life, I realised that though we learn much from our respective holy books, there is a lot to learn from our surroundings. This realisation dawned upon me when I learnt to enquire and explore. Everything around us–the sun, the moon, the stars, rain, rivers, stones, rocks, birds, plants and animals–teach us many valuable life lessons.

No wonder that besides the scriptures in many cultures nature is also worshipped. The message that we get is to save our environment and maintain ecological balance. People are taught to live in harmony with nature and recognise that there is God in all aspects of nature.

Nature is a great teacher. A river never stops flowing. If it finds an obstacle in its way in the form of a heavy rock, the river water fights to remove it from its path or finds an alternative path to move ahead. This teaches us to be progressive in life, and keep the fighting spirit alive.

Snakes are worshipped as they eat insects in the field that can hurt our crops, thus protecting the grains for us. In fact, whatever we worship is our helper and makes our lives easy for us. There are many such examples in nature, but we are not ready to learn a lesson. Overcome with greed, we are destroying nature. As a result we face natural disasters like drought, flood and landslides. We don’t know that nature is angry with us. However, it is never too late to learn. If we learn to respect nature the quality of our life will improve.

2.1 Answer briefly the following questions:

(a) What are we taught in our childhood and growing up years?

(b) Why should we respect our parents and teachers?

(c) What message do we get when we worship nature?

(d) How does a river face an obstacle that comes in its way?

2.2 Choose meanings of the words given below with the help of options that follow:

(e) guided:

(i)answered

(ii)advised

(iii)fought

(iv)polished

(f) explore:

(i)search

(ii)frequent

(iii)describe

(iv)request

(g) valuable:

(i)proper

(ii)desirable

(iii)available

(iv)useful

(h) harmony:

(i) beauty

(ii)friendship

(iii)discomfort

(iv)honesty

Rearrange the words / phrases given below to form meaningful sentences.

(a) beautiful / Masha / dog / is a / young.
(b) praised / she / be / to / likes.
(c) policemen / group / works / of / with a / she

Answer the following question in 150-200 words:

How did Miss Sullivan help Helen Keller when she was studying at Cambridge School ?

There is a busy road in front of your school. A large number of students have to cross the road while going back home. They run a
great risk. Write a letter in 100-120 words to the Editor, Navjiwan Times, Agra drawing attention of the concerned authorities to the problem. Make a request to mark a zebra crossing and to put traffic lights in front of your school. You are Amit/Anita, Class X, New Age Public School, Ram Nagar, Agra.

Write an article in 100-150 words on ‘Importance of Morning Walk.’ You are Amit/Anita. Use the following clues:

• makes you rise early
• fresh air
• blood rushes through your body
• energy for the day
• hungry for breakfast
• good for studies
• all day active