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ReadingRoom8 PDF
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MEDDLESOME MATTY
CLASS 8
COMPREHENSION PASSAGE 1
NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________
1. Which, like a cloud before the skies, hid all her better qualities.
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2. In vain you told her not to touch, her trick of meddling grew so much.
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3. Forthwith she placed upon her nose, the glasses large and wide;
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4. And presently a mighty jerk, the mighty mischief did;
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5. She dashed the spectacles away, to wipe her tingling eyes,
and as in twenty bits they lay, her grandmamma she spies.
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D. Describe an experience when you or someone else got into trouble for meddling with something.
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… Even as we left Chamoli and began the steady, winding climb to Badrinath, the nature
of the nature of the terrain underwent a dramatic change. No longer did the green fields
slope gently down to the riverbed. Here they clung precariously to rocky slopes and
ledges that grew steeper and narrower, while the river below, impatient to reach its con-
fluence with the Bhagirathi at Deoprayag, thundered along the narrow gorge.
Badrinath is one of the four dhams, or four most holy places in India. (The other three are
Rameshwaram, Dwarka and Jagannath Puri.) For the pilgrim traveling to this holiest of
the holies, the journey is exciting, possibly even uplifting, but for those who live perma-
nently on these crags and ridges, life is harsh, a struggle from one day to the next. No
wonder so many young men from Garhwal find their way into the Army. Little grows on
these rocky promontories; and what does grow is at the mercy of the weather. For most of
the year the fields lie fallow. Rivers, unfortunately, run downhill and not uphill.
The harshness of life, typical of much of Garhwal, was brought home to me at Pipalkoti,
where we stopped for the night. Pilgrims stop here by the coach load, for the Garhwal
Mandal Vikas Nigam’s rest-house is fairly capacious, and small hotels and dharamshalas
abound. Just off the busy road is a tiny hospital, and here, late in evening, we came across
a woman keeping vigil over the dead body of her husband. The body had been laid out on
a bench in the courtyard. A few feet away, the road was crowded with pilgrims in festival
mood; no one glanced over the low wall to notice this tragedy.
...
Pipalkoti is hot (and pipal trees are conspicuous by their absence), but Joshimath, the win-
ter resort of the Badrinath Temple establishment, is about 6,000 feet above sea-level and
has an equable climate. It is now a fairly large town, and although the surrounding hills
are rather bare, it does have one great tree that has survived the ravages of time. This is an
ancient mulberry tree, known as the Kalpavriksha
(Immortal Wishing tree), beneath which the great
Sankaracharya meditated, a few centuries ago. It is re-
putedly over two thousand years old, and is certainly
larger than my modest four-roomed flat in Mussourie.
Sixty pilgrims holding hands might just about encircle
its trunk.
I have seen some big trees, but this is certainly the old-
est and broadest of them. I am glad that Sankaracharya
meditated beneath it and thus ensured its preservation.
Otherwise it might well have gone the way of other
great trees and forests that once flourished in this area.
A small boy reminds me that it is a Wishing tree, so I make my wish. I wish that other
trees might prosper like this one.
‘Have you made a wish?’ I ask the boy.
‘I wish that you will give me one rupee,’ he says.
His wish comes true with immediate effect. Mine lies in the uncertain future.
But he has given me a lesson in wishing…
C. Get into groups of five and make posters to spread awareness about the benefits of planting tress
and taking care of plants. Put them up in your class and try to emulate the points in the posters.
Write your plan in the space given below. Then make the poster.
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A. Read the poem carefully and fill in the blanks to complete the summary.
The poetess feels that the colour has a shine. She compares this to the soft colours
that are ___________________ in the ocean’s waters and to the __________________
that poured from the bodies of valiant soldiers so that their queen could hold her
head high.
She feels that there is a sense of pride in its flame-like colour and compares this
flame to the flame of _________________________ and _________________________
And also that which lights the ___________________________ of a wife who dies
for her husband.
B. Find the words in each stanza that rhyme. The first stanza has been done for you.
C. The poetess has used metaphors, which are comparisons. Similes are also comparisons using
words such as ‘like’ or ’as’. Pick out the metaphors and change them to similes. The first one has
been done for you.
METAPHOR SIMILE
The glimmering red of a bridal robe The hue is glimmering red like that
of a bride’s robe
D. These are some words from the poem with their letters jumbled up. Write the correct word and
its meaning. The first one is done for you.
E. Collect information on any one of the following: Shalimar Bagh (Srinagar), Nishad Bagh
(Srinagar), Vrindavan Gardens (Mysore) or Botanical Gardens (Kolkata). Write a short
article on any one of them.
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One night, I woke up suddenly. It was about two o’clock in the morning. I thought I heard
a sound. Everything was very quiet. I listened carefully and the sound came again. Some-
one was walking about outside my room.
‘Who’s there?’ I called. Nobody answered. I felt cold and frightened. The house was silent.
I tried to sleep again.
Then I heard a laugh. It was a terrible, cruel laugh! I listened. Someone was walking away,
going up the stairs to the attic. What was happening? I decided to go and find Mrs Fairfax.
I put on some clothes and left my room. The house was quiet now, but suddenly could
smell smoke. Something was burning! I ran to find out.
The smoke was coming from Mr Rochester’s room. I ran into the room and looked around.
Mr Rochester’s was sleeping in his bed, and the bed was on fire. ‘What can I do?’ I
thought. Quickly, I looked around the room, Luckily, there was some water in one corner.
As quickly as I could, I took the water and threw it all over the bed. Mr Rochester woke
up.
He jumped out of bed. There was water everywhere and the fire was still smoking. ‘Jane,
you’ve saved me from the fire! How did you know about it? Why did you wake up?’ Mr
Rochester asked.
I told him about the noise outside the door and the terrible laugh.
Mr Rochester looked serious and angry. ‘I must go upstairs to the attic. Stay here and wait
for me, please. Do not wake Mrs Fairfax.’ he left the room and I waited for him.
At last, he came back. He was still looking very serious. ‘You can go back to bed, now,
Jane. Everything is all right now.’
‘Who lives in the attic?’ I asked Mrs Fairfax the next day.
‘Only Grace Poole,’ she answered. ‘She is one of the servants. She is a strange woman.’
I remembered Grace Poole. She was a strange, silent woman who did not often speak to
other servants. So perhaps it was Grace Poole who walked around late at night and
laughed strangely outside the doors.
B. ‘I must go upstairs to the attic. Stay here and wait for me please.’
1. Who said this and to whom was this said?
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2. Who lived in the attic?
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3. What do you think were the speaker’s feelings when he said this?
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C. When we tell someone else what conversation we had with a third person, we use reported
speech.. Often you go home and tell your parents what a friend saidto you in school. At such times
you do not use the exact words used by the speaker.
Read these examples of direct speech from the passage and see how they read when changed to re-
ported speech.
1. Direct speech: ‘Who’s there?’ I called.
Reported speech: I asked who was there.
2. Direct speech: ‘What can I do?’ I thought.
Reported speech: I wondered what I could do.
When the direct speech is a bit longer, reporting it becomes more complicated. Look at the next example:
1. Direct speech: ‘What’s happening?’ he shouted. ‘Jane! Is it you? What are you
doing?
Reported speech: Mr Rochester shouted out to Jane asking her if it was she. He
wanted to know what was happening and what she was doing.
3. Mr Rochester looked serious and angry. ‘I must go upstairs to the attic. Stay
here and wait for me, please. Do not wake Mrs Fairfax.’
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4. ‘You can go back to bed now, Jane. Everything is all right now.’
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5. ‘Mr Rochester left the house early this morning,’ she said. ‘He is going to stay
with his friends. I think he will stay with them for some weeks. I do not know
when he will come back.’
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D. There can be several ways of expressing a thought, an idea, etc. Look at the following sentences:
Jane heard a sound. She woke up and listened carefully.
Hearing a sound, Jane woke up and listened carefully.
E. What firefighting equipment do you have in your school? How would you deal with a small fire?
What should be done in the case of a bigger one? How would you deal with a burn? Discuss these
important issues in class. Now write a composition on the given situation.
A fire breaks out in your house; you are alone at home. What do you do?
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B. Have a class discussion about the characters mentioned in the poem. Write a character sketch of
the following persons.
1. Granny ____________________________________________________________
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2. The poet’s father ______________________________________________________
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D. The opposite of ‘gracefully’ is ‘disgracefully’. Add prefixes to the following to form opposites.
We often make mistakes while using ‘for’ and ‘since’. Read the rule for this in the word box.
F. People who do odd things are often called eccentric. Talk about some eccentric persons
you may know, or have heard, or read about. Wrote a composition describing this person
and some of his/her eccentricities. The composition should be in form of a narrative.
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