CBSE Class 10 English The Necklace, Bholi and The Book That Saved the Earth Important Questions Set 05

Answer: Her husband threw plain wraps over her shoulders, whose poverty clashed with the elegance of her ball dress. She did not want the other women, who were wrapped in rich furs, to notice her, and hurried away. This shows her false pride and her longing to look rich.

Teacher's Note:
1. The reason is her shame about the wraps.
2. It shows her love of show.

Answer: She had no dress or jewels to wear, so she threw the invitation on the table in disgust. Mr Loisel gave her four hundred francs, which he had saved for a gun, to buy a dress, and suggested that she borrow jewels from her friend Madame Forestier.

Teacher's Note:
1. Mention both the dress and the necklace.
2. His sacrifice is a key detail.

Answer: They found a similar diamond necklace in a jeweller’s shop costing thirty-six thousand francs. Mr Loisel used eighteen thousand francs left by his father and borrowed the rest at high interest from moneylenders.

Teacher's Note:
1. Name the price and the sources of money.
2. The debt is the consequence.

Answer: Ten years later, Matilda met Madame Forestier and told her about the loss and the long struggle to repay the debt. Madame Forestier replied that her necklace had been only an imitation, worth at most five hundred francs.

Teacher's Note:
1. The twist comes at the end.
2. Mention the ten years and the price.

Answer: Matilda longed to appear rich and borrowed a necklace for a single evening. When she lost it, she did not tell her friend but borrowed a huge sum to replace it. Ten years of hard work and poverty followed, only to learn that the original was a cheap imitation. If she had told the truth in the beginning, the trouble could have been avoided. The story warns against false pride and shows that honesty and contentment bring peace.

Teacher's Note:
1. Link the lesson to Matilda’s two mistakes: vanity and silence.
2. Keep the irony.

Answer: Mr Loisel is a modest clerk who loves his wife deeply. He wishes to keep her happy and gives up his savings for a gun to buy her a dress. He suggests borrowing the necklace and, when it is lost, searches for it and then takes heavy loans to replace it. He works at night and takes extra jobs for ten years to pay the debt. He is loyal, kind and hard-working, though too indulgent towards his wife’s vanity.

Teacher's Note:
1. Mention love, sacrifice and hard work.
2. Do not forget the weakness.

Answer: Bholi had pock-marks from smallpox and stammered, and she was thought to be slow. Ramlal feared that no one would marry her, so he was more worried about her than about his other daughters.

Teacher's Note:
1. Her looks and speech are the reasons.
2. Give both.

Answer: He came to open a new primary school for girls in the village. He asked Ramlal, as the village headman, to set an example by sending his daughters to school.

Teacher's Note:
1. Mention the school and the request.
2. The word ‘example’ is useful.

Answer: Bishamber was a rich shopkeeper with a thriving business and a house, and he was ready to marry a girl with a marked face. Her parents thought they were lucky to find a rich husband for a girl they considered unattractive.

Teacher's Note:
1. Give the reasons of money and acceptance.
2. Do not praise the match.

Answer: At first Bholi accepted, as she was used to obeying her parents and had never been asked her opinion. But at the wedding Bishamber looked at her pock-marked face and demanded a dowry of five thousand rupees. Hearing this, Bholi found her courage. She refused to marry such a greedy man and said she would stay with her parents and teach in the school. Her education had made her confident and independent.

Teacher's Note:
1. Give the reason for acceptance and the cause of refusal.
2. End with what it shows about her.

Answer: The new teacher treated Bholi with love and patience, unlike her family and classmates who made fun of her. She encouraged Bholi to speak and told her to cast out fear. Slowly Bholi learned to read and write and to speak without stammering. She learned to value herself, and the shy ‘dumb cow’ became a bold young woman who could face the world. The teacher was the artist and Bholi her masterpiece.

Teacher's Note:
1. Mention kindness, patience and the change in Bholi.
2. The ‘masterpiece’ idea ends the answer well.

Answer: The space probe landed in a public library on Earth. The crew had never seen books and could not understand what the objects on the shelves were. They took the library to be some kind of storage barn.

Teacher's Note:
1. They had never seen books.
2. Mention that they landed at the library.

Answer: He first said the books were sandwiches and ordered his men to eat them. Later he said they were communication devices to be read with the eyes, not heard with the ears.

Teacher's Note:
1. Mention the sandwich idea and the later explanation.
2. Both are funny.

Answer: Think-Tank wanted them to find out what was in the books. The crew took vitamin pills to increase their intelligence so that they could read and decode them.

Teacher's Note:
1. The reason is to read the books.
2. Mention intelligence.

Answer: The crew misread the nursery rhymes as plans of the Earthlings. They concluded that the Earth had advanced weapons and that Humpty Dumpty’s fall was a warning about Think-Tank himself, whose head looked like Humpty’s. Frightened, he cancelled the invasion.

Teacher's Note:
1. Their misunderstanding led to fear.
2. Link Humpty Dumpty to his head.

Answer: The Martian crew, who thought themselves far cleverer than Earthlings, found the book in a library. Think-Tank first called it a sandwich and then a communication device. When the crew decoded the nursery rhymes, they misread words such as ‘shell’, ‘silver’ and ‘garden’ as signs of advanced weapons, and Humpty Dumpty’s fall as a threat to Think-Tank himself. Fearing an Earth attack, they cancelled their plan and flew off to Alpha Centauri, so the Earth was saved by a book of rhymes.

Teacher's Note:
1. Give the chain of misunderstandings.
2. End with the Martians leaving.

Answer: Think-Tank is the proud ruler of Mars who likes to be flattered and called the Great and Mighty. He gives orders, boasts about his intelligence, and takes credit for others’ ideas, but he is foolish, as he thinks that books are sandwiches. Noodle, his assistant, is quiet, sensible and clever. He gently corrects his chief and offers ideas without seeking credit. Where Think-Tank is arrogant and a coward, Noodle is modest and wise, and in the end he replaces Think-Tank.

Teacher's Note:
1. Use a point-by-point contrast.
2. Mention the ending.