GRAMMAR English - GRAMMAR

1 They didn’t hear the two people coming down the gully path, Dad and the pretty girl with the hard, bright face like a China doll’s. But they heard her laugh, right by the porch, and the tune stopped on a wrong, high, startled note. Dad didn’t say anything, but the girl came forward and spoke to Granddad prettily, “I’ll not be seeing you leave in the morning, so I came over to say goodbye.”
2 “It’s kind of you,” said Granddad, with his eyes cast down ; and then, seeing the blanket at his feet, he stooped to pick it up. “And will you look at this,” he said in embarrassment, “the fine blanket my son has given me to go away with !”
3 “Yes,” she said, “it’s a fine blanket.” She felt the wool, and repeated in surprise, “A fine blanket—I’ll say it is !” She turned to Dad and said to him coldly, “It cost something, didn’t it ?”
4 He cleared his throat, and said defensively, “I wanted him to have the best…”
5 The boy went abruptly into the shanty. He was looking for something. He could hear the girl reproaching Dad, and Dad becoming angry in his slow way. And now she was suddenly going away in a huff… As Petey came out, she turned and called back, “All the same, he doesn’t need a double blanket!” And she ran up the gully path.
6 “Oh, she’s right,” said the body coldly. “Here, Dad”—and he held out a pair of scissors. “Cut the blanket in two.”
7 Both of them stared at the boy, startled. “Cut it in two, I tell you, Dad!” he cried out. “And keep the other half!”
8 “That’s not a bad idea,” said Granddad gently. “I don’t need so much of a blanket.”
9 “Yes,” said the boy harshly, “a single blanket’s enough for an old man when he’s sent away. We’ll save the other half, Dad, it will come in handy later.”
10 “Now what do you mean by that ?” asked Dad.
11 “I mean,” said the boy slowly, “that I’ll give it to you, Dad—when you’re old and I’m sending you away.”
12 There was a silence, and then Dad went over to Granddad and stood before him, not speaking. But Granddad understood. Petey was watching them. And he heard Granddad whisper, for he put out a hand and laid it on Dad’s shoulder. “It’s all right, son—I know you didn’t mean it…” And then Petey cried.
13 But it didn’t matter—because they were all three crying together.

Q.1. ‘They’ in the first line refers to
(a) Dad and the girl
(b) Dad and Grand-dad
(c) the child and Grand-dad
(d) the girl and the child
Q.2. The girl’s feelings at seeing the blanket were of
(a) happiness
(b) surprise
(c) anger
(d) shock
Q.3. The girl’s reaction was what
(a) Dad had expected
(b) Dad never expected
(c) made the Dad angry
(d) shocked Dad
Q.4. Petey, really, wanted
(a) to cut the blanket
(b) to give the whole blanket to Grand-dad
(c) to teach his father a lesson
(d) to go with his Grand-dad

1 Being a woman in any other century must have been bad enough. Try being ill. There were no antibiotics until the 1930s, and a patient in a Victorian hospital was probably only marginally better off than if he’d stayed at home. Last century saw large parts of the world finally rid themselves of the plagues that periodically wiped out single and even double figure percentages of entire populations. Cholera and other epidemics ravaged European cities throughout the 19th century.
2 Global warming is perhaps the most serious part of the mindset that says things are getting inexorably worse. Most scientists, though not all, agree that something is going on. Yet there is little evidence to support the most outlandish predictions of doom.
3 Of course our world has new horrors: drug addiction, global terrorism, and in particular the conflict between wildlife and people that will almost certainly lead to the extinction of several of what biologists call the “charismatic megafauna” by the end of this century. It will be sad to live in a world without pandas or tigers, but we may have to.
4 There is a crisis of confidence among many people, especially the young, in the West. While our material needs have, for the most part, been accommodated, our psychological welfare has been given some severe knocks. In the new century, the seemingly global epidemics of anxiety, depression and stress wifi need to be addressed with as much vigour as TB and malaria were in the last. Then there’s AIDS, of course proving that the old spectre of infectious diseases is very much with us.
5 It is possible that something may come out of the blue and get us. It seems that nuclear war remains the most plausible short-term threat to our civilization, but we cannot discount the possibility of a terrifying genetically mutated viral plague wiping us out in weeks; or of some particle physics experiment going terribly wrong. Clearly we need to be on our guard.
6 Why do we persist in believing that things are getting worse ? It has always been thus, and we always forget the previous, failed merchants of doom : Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 prophecy that a population explosion would lead to starvation in America by the 1980s ; all those silly pundits claiming that the world would end on January 1, 2000, as the millennium bug struck.
7 Today is good; we live in the freest, healthiest, most peaceful and longest lived era in
human history. The future barring some calamitous accident, will be better. The past truly is a different country—a hungry, violent, bigoted place. They did things differently there. Good riddance to them.

Q.1. The author believes that future will be
(a) worse
(b) better
(c) same
(d) more horrible
Q.2. The word ‘mindset’ (Para 2) means the same as
(a) mindless
(b) mindful
(c) idea
(d) ideal
Q.3. The word ‘outlandish’ (Para 2) is the opposite of
(a) inland
(b) inside land
(c) attractive
(d) fearful
Q.4. The phrase ‘out of the blue’ (Para 5) means
(a) of blue colour
(b) without blue colour
(c) from water
(d) from sky.

1. Being a woman in any other century must have been bad enough. Try being ill. There were no antibiotics until the 1930s, and a patient in a Victorian hospital was probably only marginally better off than if he’d stayed at home. Last century saw large parts of the world finally rid themselves of the plagues that periodically wiped out single and even double figure percentages of entire populations. Cholera and other epidemics ravaged European cities throughout the 19th century.
2. Global warming is perhaps the most serious part of the mindset that says things are getting inexorably worse. Most scientists, though not all, agree that something is going on. Yet there is little evidence to support the most outlandish predictions of doom.
3. Of course our world has new horrors: drug addiction, global terrorism, and in particular the conflict between wildlife and people that will almost certainly lead to the extinction of several of what biologists call the “charismatic megafauna” by the end of this century. It will be sad to live in a world without pandas or tigers, but we may have to.
4. There is a crisis of confidence among many people, especially the young, in the West. While our material needs have, for the most part, been accommodated, our psychological welfare has been given some severe knocks. In the new century, the seemingly global epidemics of anxiety, depression and stress wifi need to be addressed with as much vigour as TB and malaria were in the last. Then there’s AIDS, of course proving that the old spectre of infectious diseases is very much with us.
5. It is possible that something may come out of the blue and get us. It seems that nuclear war remains the most plausible short-term threat to our civilization, but we cannot discount the possibility of a terrifying genetically mutated viral plague wiping us out in weeks; or of some particle physics experiment going terribly wrong. Clearly we need to be on our guard.
6. Why do we persist in believing that things are getting worse ? It has always been thus, and we always forget the previous, failed merchants of doom : Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 prophecy that a population explosion would lead to starvation in America by the 1980s ; all those silly pundits claiming that the world would end on January 1, 2000, as the millennium bug struck.
7. Today is good; we live in the freest, healthiest, most peaceful and longest lived era in human history. The future barring some calamitous accident, will be better. The past truly is a different country—a hungry, violent, bigoted place. They did things differently there. Good riddance to them.

Q.1. Antibiotics were discovered in
(a) 1980’s
(b) 1930’s
(c) Eighteenth century
(d) nineteenth century
Q.2. The author believes that global warming is
(a) no threat
(b) an imaginary threat
(c) not as big a threat as some scientists believe
(d) a good thing for humanity
Q.3. The disease which reminds the author of old infectious diseases is
(a) drug addiction
(b) anxiety
(c) depression
(d) AIDS
Q.4. The author believes that our world, compared to the previous ages, is
(a) worse
(b) better
(c) same
(d) more horrible

1 But when you are reading a thing as a task you need reasonable quiet, and that is what I didn’t get, for at the next station in came a couple of men, one of whom talked to his friend for the rest of the journey in a loud and pompous voice. He was one of those people who remind one of that story of Horn Tooke, who, meeting a person of immense swagger in the street, stopped him and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, but are you someone in particular ?’ This gentleman was someone in particular. As I wrestled with clauses and sections, his voice rose like a gale and his family history, the deeds of his sons in the war, and his criticisms of the generals and the politicians submerged my poor attempts to hang on to my job. I shut up the Blue Book, looked out of the window, and listened wearily while the voice thundered on with themes like these :
2 ‘Now what French ought to have done….’ ‘The mistake the Germans made….’ If only Asquith had….’ You know the sort of stuff. I had heard it all before, oh, so often. It was like a barrel-organ groaning out some banal song of long ago.
3 If I had asked him to be good enough to talk in a lower tone I dare say he would have thought I was a very rude fellow. It did not occur to him that anybody could have anything better to do than to listen to him and I have no doubt he left the carriage convinced that everybody in it had, thanks to him, had a very illuminating journey, and would carry away a pleasing impression of his encyclopaedic range. He was obviously a well- intentioned person. The thing that was wrong with him was that he had not the social sense. He was not a ‘clubbable man’.
4 A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings of others is the foundation of social conduct. It is commonly alleged against women that in this respect they are less civilized than men, and I am bound to confess that in my experience it is the woman— the well-dressed woman—who thrusts herself in front of you at the ticket office. The man would not attempt it, partly because he knows the thing would not be tolerated from him, but also because he has been better drilled in the small give and take of social relationships. He has lived more in the broad current of the world, where you have to learn to accommodate yourself to the general standard of conduct, and his school-life, and his games have in this respect given him a training that women are only now beginning to enjoy….
5 I suppose the fact is that we can be neither complete anarchists nor complete socialists in this complex world—or rather we must be a judicious mixture of both. We have both liberties to preserve—our individual liberty and our social liberty.

Q.1. With what impression did he leave the carriage ?
Q.2. Why is the man more civilized in his behaviour than the women ?
Q.3. Which word in para 5 means ‘freedom’ ?
Q.4. What is the adjective form of ‘consideration’ ?

1 But when you are reading a thing as a task you need reasonable quiet, and that is what I didn’t get, for at the next station in came a couple of men, one of whom talked to his friend for the rest of the journey in a loud and pompous voice. He was one of those people who remind one of that story of Horn Tooke, who, meeting a person of immense swagger in the street, stopped him and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, but are you someone in particular ?’ This gentleman was someone in particular. As I wrestled with clauses and sections, his voice rose like a gale and his family history, the deeds of his sons in the war, and his criticisms of the generals and the politicians submerged my poor attempts to hang on to my job. I shut up the Blue Book, looked out of the window, and listened wearily while the voice thundered on with themes like these :
2 ‘Now what French ought to have done….’ ‘The mistake the Germans made….’ If only Asquith had….’ You know the sort of stuff. I had heard it all before, oh, so often. It was like a barrel-organ groaning out some banal song of long ago.
3 If I had asked him to be good enough to talk in a lower tone I dare say he would have thought I was a very rude fellow. It did not occur to him that anybody could have anything better to do than to listen to him and I have no doubt he left the carriage convinced that everybody in it had, thanks to him, had a very illuminating journey, and would carry away a pleasing impression of his encyclopaedic range. He was obviously a well- intentioned person. The thing that was wrong with him was that he had not the social sense. He was not a ‘clubbable man’.
4 A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings of others is the foundation of social conduct. It is commonly alleged against women that in this respect they are less civilized than men, and I am bound to confess that in my experience it is the woman— the well-dressed woman—who thrusts herself in front of you at the ticket office. The man would not attempt it, partly because he knows the thing would not be tolerated from him, but also because he has been better drilled in the small give and take of social relationships. He has lived more in the broad current of the world, where you have to learn to accommodate yourself to the general standard of conduct, and his school-life, and his games have in this respect given him a training that women are only now beginning to enjoy….
5 I suppose the fact is that we can be neither complete anarchists nor complete socialists in this complex world—or rather we must be a judicious mixture of both. We have both liberties to preserve—our individual liberty and our social liberty.

Q.1. Why was the author not able to read ?
Q.2. What was the author reading ?
Q.3. Why did the author not ask the man to speak in a lower tone ?
Q.4. What did the man speaking a lot and in a loud tone not understand ?