Reading Test-1015

Grade:10
English

 

Unit 4
Reporting Commands
Day 16
Reading Task: A

Lesson: 16                                                                                          Time: 50 Minutes

Full Marks: 20                                                                                   Pass Mark: 08

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 as 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

Go through the given checklist and see how differently you attempt to comprehend the text below.

 

Memoirs of my Visit to France

Most new thoughts originated in France. Most of them came to literature through art; they went to other kinds of literature from France. Later on when I studied the great works of Lainsingh Bangdel, his memoirs and travels and journals, I was moved, everybody will be moved to read him, his Muluk Bahira Ma, a magnum opus. Have you read this or his Spenko Samjhana? Or, his Romko Kanda Ra Pyarisko Phool? He spent 12 years in Paris and studied Fine Arts in those difficult days. He had to spend 42 days travelling by ship from Calcutta to London. Every young heart will be moved to read those great love letters exchanged between Bangdel and his beloved (Manu). Muluk Bahira Ma presents 500 pages of a rare collection of love letters exchanged between Lainsingh and his consort. There is wisdom, experience, hope, and sadness. His desire for great art and great literature is indomitable. I don’t recommend any other book to an avid reader like you more than this Muluk Bahira Ma. This book proves that he had gained an incomparable height and success in Nepali art. Mostly, it is in the form of a daily diary. On his regular entry of 17th   of August 1952, one year before I was born, he wrote these lines from Paris:

 I visited Musée d’Art Moderne (Museum of Modern Art) today. I had an opportunity to look at the paintings of all the artists of France, living and dead, together. The paintings of Braque and Picasso moved me exceedingly. I came across many artists who have imitated the form of Georges Seurat and styles of Cézanne and Gauguin. But I could not see here the paintings of Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Renoir. Probably they are upstairs. I will come some other day (Page 145).

 Nirmal bhaai had described my way to two Museums - Rodin’s and Monet’s. I set out all alone, for the first time in the megacity of Paris. I had to enter the metro station, deep down below, buy tickets from the vending machine. Nobody will speak English to me if I got lost, perhaps, because they speak French, but for me, everything is so strange and unknown. I must have spent innumerable days and nights learning France since SLC. We had a map of France, we had the history of France. The French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, First and Second World Wars, the Existentialists… It is an endless story. Lainsingh’s writing produces a living France; even B. P. Koirala has detailed his brief journey of France in his book Hitler and the Jews. I have known great people and the land, and I feel the French people too must know me. But when I think deeply, I know, nobody knows me. (459 words) 

(Credit Source: Govind Raj Bhattarai, Memoirs of my Vist to France)

Task I. Read the text and choose the correct ending for each statement from the box. One has been done for you as an example.                                                                                                                    [5]

Example: Most new thoughts originated in France came to - (vi) literature through art.

i) n his Academy project, the author had to present .........................................

ii) The author wrote briefly on new trends of art and their relationship with literature ……

iii) According to the author, most of the literature originated from …………

iv) Bangdel’s Muluk Bahira Ma is ………………………..

v)  In Musée d’Art Moderne, one can ………………………..

Endings

a)            art.

b)            using secondary sources of information.

c)            a glimpse of literary trends and movements of the world.

d)            a magnum opus.

e)            look at the paintings of Braque and Picasso.

f)             literature through art.

Task II. Find possible synonyms for the following words and phrases from the text above. [10]

i)             initiated ………………………………………..

ii)           masterpiece ………………………………………..

iii)         lover ………………………………………..

iv)         invincible ………………………………………..

v)            keen ………………………………………..

vi)         countless………………………………………..

vii)          unique………………………………………..

viii)        exceptionally………………………………………..

ix)         traveled………………………………………..

x)            sincerely………………………………………..

 

Task III. Answer these questions in short. [5]

1) Which book moved the speaker so much about his life and why?

®……………………………………………………………………………………………

2) What is Bangdel’s book, Muluk Bahira Ma all about?

3)            ®……………………………………………………………………………………………

4) What touched the speaker even more than that of Bangdel’s book?

®……………………………………………………………………………………………

5) Which paintings did the speaker miss at this visit?

®……………………………………………………………………………………………

6) Why does the speaker wish the French people to know him?

®……………………………………………………………………………………………

  

Useful Links

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezZk--0R4Hk                      [ < 2 minutes ]

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-3QQTM76Xk                   [ < 8 minutes ] 

 

Note Well: Use a separate Notebook for all your tasks or A4 size paper well-maintained in a portfolio/file in the same order for submission and evaluation later.

 

 

 The End

Compiled, Edited and Prepared by Jaya Narayan Bhusal

Department of English