CBSE Class 10 English First Flight Prose Short and Long Answers Assignment Set 04

Answer: The rain turned into a hailstorm, which lasted for an hour and destroyed the crops. The field looked white as if covered with salt, and Lencho's family was left without food for the year.

Teacher's Note: Use the key term in your answer.

Answer: Lencho compared the large raindrops to new coins: the big ones to ten-cent pieces and the hailstones to five-cent pieces. He saw them as God's gifts for his crops.

Teacher's Note: Give an example if the question allows.

Answer: Lencho was a hardworking farmer with a simple, strong faith in God, who wrote to Him for help. His faith was so great that he believed God would read the letter and send the money. But he had no faith in human beings: when he got less money, he called the post office employees a 'bunch of crooks'. This shows that he did not trust people, and could not see their kindness.

Teacher's Note: Lencho's faith is admirable, but his suspicion of men shows narrow thinking.

Answer: In his inauguration speech Mandela pledged that never again would the beautiful land of South Africa experience the oppression of one group by another.

Teacher's Note: Remember this for your exam.

Answer: One was Die Stem, the old anthem of the white regime. The other was Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, the anthem of the black people.

Teacher's Note: Learn this point and write it in your own words.

Answer: As a boy, freedom meant to run in the fields near his mother's hut, swim in the clear stream and roast mealies. As a student, it meant to stay out at night, read what he pleased and go where he chose. He later realised these freedoms were only transitory. The basic freedoms are to earn your living, to marry, to have a family and to live a life with honour and dignity.

Teacher's Note: Use the key term in your answer.

Answer: Mandela speaks of courage, saying that it is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it, and also of the human capacity for love, not hatred. Courage impresses me most because he faced years in prison without losing hope, and then forgave his enemies.

Teacher's Note: Give an example if the question allows.

Answer: Although Anne had parents, a sister and about thirty friends, she felt that nobody truly understood her. She could talk only about trivial matters with friends, and not about her real feelings. So she felt alone and needed a friend like her diary.

Teacher's Note: See the earlier Anne Frank page for the character sketches of Anne and Mr Keesing.

Answer: Wanda left because her classmates, led by Peggy and Maddie, teased her about her Polish name, her poor home and her one faded blue dress and her claim of a hundred dresses. Her father moved to the city so that nobody would laugh at their name. The teasing made her feel lonely, poor and humiliated.

Teacher's Note: Remember this for your exam.

Answer: Maddie is better. She was also afraid of being teased, so she never spoke up for Wanda. But she felt guilty and uneasy and wrote a letter to Wanda to say sorry. Peggy led the teasing, and her regret was less deep.

Teacher's Note: Learn this point and write it in your own words.

Answer: In Goa, bread was an important part of weddings. The sweet bread (bol) was a must at every ceremony, and no festival or marriage was complete without it.

Teacher's Note: Use the key term in your answer.

Answer: The traditional baker wore a kabai, a loose knee-length frock, and was plump with a pot belly. His round, solid look reminded the writer of a jackfruit.

Teacher's Note: Give an example if the question allows.

Answer: It is believed that a part of Alexander's army, which could not return home, moved south along the coast and settled in Coorg. The Coorgis are said to be their descendants, and their marriage customs are similar.

Teacher's Note: Write a short, clear answer.

Answer: The Kodavus are a brave, martial people with a long tradition of warfare, so they are the only community in India allowed to carry firearms without a licence.

Teacher's Note: Remember this for your exam.

Answer: A Buddhist ascetic, Bodhidharma, once cut off his eyelids to stay awake in meditation. Where they fell, the first tea plants are said to have grown. Tea drunk from them keeps one awake.

Teacher's Note: Learn this point and write it in your own words.

Answer: Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment (bodhi) after meditating under the pipal tree at Bodh Gaya, so the tree is called the Bodhi Tree, the tree of wisdom.

Teacher's Note: Use the key term in your answer.

Answer: The sermon shows the universal suffering of human life: troubles, pain, sickness, old age and the death of loved ones, which no one can escape.

Teacher's Note: Give an example if the question allows.

Answer: Kisa Gotami, crazed with grief, begged the Buddha to bring her child back to life. He asked her to bring a mustard seed from a house where no one had died. She went door to door, and found no such house. She learnt that death comes to everyone and that she should not grieve alone.

Teacher's Note: Write a short, clear answer.