Online Learning Materials
Grade:10
English
Unit 3
Reporting Questions
Day 9
Reading Task: A
Lesson: 9 Time: 60 Minutes
Full Marks: 40 Pass Mark: 16
Please
note that all the tasks and items prepared below are authentic materials and
will be used as they are in your terminal, Pre SEE and SEE Preparation
Examinations. You are therefore required to sincerely complete these tasks on a
daily basis. Parents are kindly advised to be observant and with their children
monitoring and supervising their studies and most of these contents contain a number of materials on the internet, especially YouTube.
Just make sure that they do not get digitally distracted.
1.
Scene Setting
A fable is a short story, typically with animals as characters,
conveying a moral. Now answer the following questions.
a.
Have you heard the fable about the ant and the grasshopper? If yes, you may
comprehend the text better.
b.
Have you ever seen or heard about people like the ant and the grasshopper? Just
ponder about them and read the story below.
2.
Read the following excerpt, and observe
how Tom and George were spending their life.
The Ant and the Grasshopper
I could not help thinking of
this fable when the other day I saw George Ramsay lunching by himself in a
restaurant. I never saw anyone wear an expression of such deep gloom. He was
staring into space. He looked as though the burden of the whole world sat on
his shoulders. I was sorry for him: I suspected at once that his unfortunate
brother had been causing trouble again. I went up to him and held out my hand.
‘How are you?’ I asked.
‘I’m not in hilarious
spirits,’ he answered.
‘Is it Tom again?’ He
sighed.
‘Yes, it’s Tom again.’
‘Why don’t you chuck him?
You’ve done everything in the world for him. You must know by now that he’s
quite hopeless.’ I suppose every family has a black sheep. Tom had been a sore
trial to him for twenty years. He had begun life decently enough: he went into
business, married, and had two children. The Ramsays were perfectly respectable
people and there was every reason to suppose that Tom Ramsay would have a
useful and honourable career. But one day, without warning, he announced that
he didn’t like work and that he wasn’t suited for marriage. He wanted to enjoy himself.
He would listen to no expostulations. He left his wife and his office.
He had a little money and he spent two happy years in the various capitals of
Europe. Rumours of his doings reached his relations from time to time and they
were profoundly shocked. He certainly had a very good time. They shook their heads
and asked what would happen when his money was spent. They soon found out: he
borrowed. He was charming and unscrupulous. I have never met anyone to whom it
was more difficult to refuse a loan. He made a steady income from his friends
and he made friends easily. But he always said that the money you spent on
necessities was boring; the money that was amusing to spend was the money you
spent on luxuries. For this he depended on his brother George. He did not waste
his charm on him. George was a serious man and insensible to such enticements.
George was respectable. Once or twice he fell to Tom’s promises of amendment
and gave him considerable sums in order that he might make a fresh start. On
these Tom bought a motor–car and some very nice jewellery. But when circumstances
forced George to realize that his brother would never settle down and he washed
his hands of him, Tom, without a qualm, began to blackmail him. It was not very
nice for a respectable lawyer to find his brother shaking cocktails
behind the bar of his favourite restaurant or to see him waiting on the box–seat
of a taxi outside his club. Tom said that to serve in a bar or to drive a taxi
was a perfectly decent occupation, but if George could oblige him with a couple
of hundred pounds he didn’t mind for the honour of the family giving it up.
George paid.
Once, Tom nearly went to
prison. George was terribly upset. He went into the whole discreditable affair.
Really Tom had gone too far. He had been wild, thoughtless, and selfish,
but he had never before done anything dishonest, by which George meant illegal;
and if he were prosecuted he would assuredly be convicted. But you cannot allow
your only brother to go to gaol. The man Tom had cheated, a man called
Cronshaw, was vindictive. He was determined to take the matter into court; he
said Tom was a scoundrel and should be punished. It cost George an infinite
deal of trouble and five hundred pounds to settle the affair. I have never seen him in
such a rage as when he heard that Tom and Cronshaw had gone off together to
Monte Carlo the moment they cashed the cheque. They spent a happy month there. (664 words) (Source: Sixty-Five Short Stories by W. Somerset Maugham)
1. Vocabulary in use
Task I. Now Find the
meanings of the following words. [21]
a. Gloom
b. Suspected
c. Hilarious
d. chuck
e. decently
f. sore
g. expostulations
h. profoundly
i. unscrupulous
j. enticements
k. amendment
l. circumstances
m. qualm
n. blackmail
o. cocktails
p. decent
q. discreditable
r. illegal
s. prosecuted
t. convicted
u. vindictive
3. Reading comprehension
Task II. Read the text again, and answer these
questions. [8]
a) Who was a black sheep in Ramsays’ family? Why?
b) What was a respectable profession to Tom?
c) Why was George Ramsay staring into space?
d) Why did Tom leave his work and wife?
e) How did Tom manage his life when he ran out of money at first?
f) How did Cronshaw and Tom cheat George?
g) What forced George to realize that his brother would never
settle down?
h) Where in lies the suspense in the story?
i) What is the twist in the story that the writer has shown?
(Listen to the first link below)
ii. Order the following
sentences as the story develops in time. [10]
i) He began to blackmail his brother for money.
ii) He left his wife and his office.
iii) When his money was spent, he borrowed it from friends and spent
it on luxuries.
iv) George continued to pay for his brother's expenses.
v) He bought a motor car and some very nice jewelry.
vi) Tom took the help of Cronshaw to cheat his brother and left for
Monte Carlo.
vii) He promised to make a fresh start.
viii) The Ramsays were perfectly
respectable people.
ix) He never settled down.
x) George’s friend could only sympathize with him for his brother’s
attitudes.
Some
Useful Links
[ Full Story Not Covered in the text above < 9 minutes]
[
Full Story Summary < 9 minutes]
The End
Compiled, Edited and Prepared by Jaya Narayan Bhusal
Department of English
