CBSE Class 8 English Feathered Friend Worksheet Set 04

Fill in the Blanks

Question. Sven was known for his talent in collecting ____________ while working in space.
Answer: assorted girders
Explanation: Sven was very good at assembling large floating metal beams in zero gravity.

Question. The word ‘intercom’ in the chapter is a blended word of ‘internal’ and ____________.
Answer: communication
Explanation: Intercom is made by joining the start of 'internal' and 'communication'.

Question. Claribel was rescued after being given ____________.
Answer: oxygen
Explanation: Giving Claribel pure oxygen helped her wake up after she passed out from bad air.

Question. The air purifier stopped because it ____________ during an eclipse.
Answer: froze up
Explanation: The space station passed through Earth's shadow, and the extreme cold froze the air cleaner.

True or False

Question. The narrator mistook Claribel's first whistle for an intercom message.
Answer: True
Explanation: The bird's whistle sounded just like the musical chime that plays before a speaker announcement.

Question. Claribel was formally brought for an experiment on animal behaviour in space.
Answer: False
Explanation: Sven smuggled Claribel onto the space station out of personal curiosity, not for an official project.

Question. All the space station alarm circuits were correctly connected during the incident.
Answer: False
Explanation: The backup alarm circuit had not been wired yet, which is why it did not sound an alarm.

Question. The presence of Claribel rescued the crew’s lives during the air purifier failure.
Answer: True
Explanation: When the bird fainted, the astronauts checked the air and realized the purifier had stopped working.

Question. The crew was not interested in Claribel after finding her.
Answer: False
Explanation: All the crew members loved Claribel and happily adopted her as their shared pet.

Questions / Short Question Answers

Question. Describe how Claribel adapted to her new surroundings in the space station.
Answer: Claribel adjusted remarkably well by learning to float effortlessly in zero gravity, moving in the air with folded wings, and even performing loops that no ordinary canary could manage on Earth.
Explanation: Claribel learned to float peacefully without flapping hard, doing fun backward flips in mid-air.

Question. What problem did Claribel help to reveal on the space station?
Answer: Claribel’s fainting alerted the crew to a malfunction in the air purifier, which prevented a dangerous situation for everyone aboard the station.
Explanation: Claribel fainted when the oxygen dropped, warning the astronauts before they got hurt.

Question. What importance does the story ‘Feathered Friend’ hold for life in space?
Answer: The story highlights the uncertainty of life in space and the importance of alternate, sometimes simple warning systems, such as Claribel the canary, which unexpectedly proved more reliable than advanced technology for crew safety.
Explanation: It teaches us that complex machines can fail, and simple nature can sometimes save our lives.

Question. Who is Claribel in the tale?
Answer: Claribel is a yellow canary bird that was secretly taken aboard the space station by Sven Olsen and later became a general pet for the entire crew.
Explanation: Claribel is a tiny pet bird brought to outer space by a builder named Sven.

Question. How did Sven manage to carry Claribel onto the space station? Why did he do so?
Answer: Sven smuggled Claribel onto the station during his return from Earth, motivated by scientific curiosity to observe how a bird would behave in zero gravity, and also because he liked having a pet companion in space.
Explanation: Sven secretly brought the bird inside his luggage because he was curious about how birds fly without gravity.

Question. Who identified the real problem after Claribel fainted?
Answer: The narrator realized the problem with the air after recalling that canaries were once used by miners to detect gas leaks.
Explanation: The narrator remembered that coal miners used canaries to detect bad air underground.

Question. Explain the humor used by the author in this scientific story.
Answer: The author uses gentle humor to depict the crew’s reaction to a bird in a futuristic setting, the pet’s unexpected role in saving lives, and the irony of sophisticated technology failing where a simple canary succeeds.
Explanation: It is funny to imagine astronauts hiding a bird in a high-tech station and being saved by a tiny pet.

Question. State one reason Sven Olsen picked a bird as a pet in space.
Answer: Sven chose a bird because it weighed almost nothing, needed very little food, and was not affected by the lack of gravity.
Explanation: Birds are very light and eat tiny crumbs, making them easy to care for in space.