WINTER SEMESTER 2019 – 2020

English notes
Grade Level: VIII ARRIVAL AT SOUTH POLE

Vocabulary

1. Descry – catch sight of

2. Protracted – long-drawn out
3. Weather-beaten – worn by exposure to harsh weather
4. Frost-bitten – receiving injuries to the tissue due to freezing
5. Despatch – deal with quickly
6. Haste - hurry.
7. Endeavor - try hard to do or achieve something.
8. Reckon - establish by calculation.
9. Desolate - uninhabited and giving an impression of bleak emptiness
10. Unfurled - make or become spread out from a rolled or folded state

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1. Why did the writer and his companions have a feeling of ‘intense expectation’?
Ans: The writer and his companions had a feeling of ‘intense expectation’ because they know what
was going to happen the next day.
2. Describe the weather on the day the party arrived at the South Pole.
Ans: The weather was of the finest. At 10 a.m. a light breeze had sprung up from the south-east, and
it had clouded over, so that they got no noon altitude; but the clouds were not thick, and from time to
time they had a glimpse of the through them.
3. How did the explorers know they had reached their destination?
Ans: They had carefully examined their sledge-meters, and they all showed the full distance. Thus
the explorers knew that they had reached their destination by reckoning.
4. What were the writer’s feelings on reaching the South Pole?
Ans: The writer cannot express his feelings through words. Even though he knew, it would sound
much more effective that the object of his life was attained. That would be romancing rather too
bare-facedly. He feels like, he had better be honest and admit straight out that he had never known
any man to be placed in such a diametrically opposite position to the goal of desires as the writer was
at that moment.
5. Why did the party decide to make a wide circle around their camp?
Ans: The party knew that that they were not standing on the absolute point. However, they were so
near to the exact point that the few miles which possibly separated them from it could not be of the
slightest importance. Therefore, it was their intention to make a circle round their camp, with a
radius of twelve and a half miles, and to be satisfied with that.
6. How did the party commemorate their arrival at the Pole?
Ans: Five weather-beaten, frost-bitten fists they were that grasped the pole, raised the waving flag in
the air, and planted it as the first at the geographical South Pole.
7. Why was it not possible to have protracted celebrations?
Ans: It was not possible to have protracted celebrations in those regions because of the adverse
climate. So the shorter they are the better.

Delta English School © 2018 Delta Education System, USA. All rights reserved │ Pg 1
 Our Differentiation Mould Innovators
Join the Network & Experience DES 24/7:
Visit our official social media pages Follow Us

ANTONYMS
1. desolate x fertile
2. staked x defund
3. halt x continue
4. proceed x stop
5. unfurled x wrap up

REFERENCE TO THE CONTEXT:

1. I cannot say- though I know it would sound much more effective- that the object of my life was
attained.
Ans. These are the words of Roald Amundsen. He cannot express his feelings when he achieved his
object of his life.

FRAME SENTENCES USING THE GIVEN WORDS:

1. Endeavour
2. Comrade

Delta English School © 2018 Delta Education System, USA. All rights reserved │ Pg 2
 Our Differentiation Mould Innovators
Join the Network & Experience DES 24/7:
Visit our official social media pages Follow Us

Delta English School © 2018 Delta Education System, USA. All rights reserved │ Pg 3