Answer Key, Preparatory I, English II

1.      

1.

·       Gratiano, 

·       Lorenzo, Bassanio

2.      

2.

·       Oracles are people who receive messages from God and communicates to the common people.

·       They are found in Greece

·       When they speak with authority, others should listen without asking any questions.

3.      

3.

·       Gratiano

·       I consider the world only as a stage.

·       My role is a sad one

4.      

4.

·       Lorenzo would become dumb as Gratiano doesn’t allow him to speak

·       Gratiano replied that if Lorenzo accompanied him for two more years,

·       He will not be able to recognize the sound of his own voice.

5.      

5.

Gratiano engages in idle talk, much more than any other man in Venice

His speech is like two grains of wheat hidden in two bushels

You may spend whole day to find them

When you find them, you find them not worth the search.

Question II

1.     To be late

Doves of Venus fly ten times faster when they are going to win over a new love.

Than love already established.

2.     His business engagements made him late

When his friends plan to steal a wife, he will for them/ do the same.

3.      A casket full of jewels and precious stones

She was dressed like a page boy

A torch bearer

4.     Wise, beautiful and truthful

5.     Who rises from a meal as hungry as when he sits down to eat?

Which horse returns with the same energy after  a race?

Joy is more when a dream is chased and than the joy felt when it is attained.

A ship never returns in the same shape and condition after its voyage

Question 3

1.     Robert Southey, long narrative poem which tells a story, a, a, b, b

2.     The abbot of Aberbrothok placed the Inchcape Bell on the Rock.

He did it so that no ship hits the rock and perishes.

From this action, one can conclude that the Abbot of Aberbrothok was a kind man who thought about others (altruistic) and did things to help others.

3.     The Inchcape Bell was placed on the rock in such a manner that it would float and swing over the waves whenever there is a storm.

The bell would thus provide a warning to the mariners that there is the Inchcape Rock and would help them in locating it so that the ship does not hit the rock and perish.

4.     The phrase “The buoy of the Inchcape Bell” means “the anchored float” (showing navigable) above the Inchcape Rock where the bell was placed.

It looked like “a darker speck” amidst the wide sea; it was like a darker patch.

The term “the ocean green” suggests the wide ocean which seems to be green in colour.

5.     The poem, The Inchcape Rock, teaches a moral lesson- As you sow, so shall you reap. A poem with a moral theme is called a didactic poem. The poem proves the principle that crime gets its own punishment. The Rover, cuts off the bell to peeve the good Abbot and the other helpless sailors but in the end he falls into his own laid trap.

Remorse and regrets later overtake him but it was too late already.

Question 4

1.     Micheal Mack

The phrase “scores of figures” refers to the dead bodies of soldiers.

The image of battle field where many people have wasted their lives comes to mind with the phrase “scores of figures”.

2.     The soldier boy is asking for help as he is in immense pain.

He is asking for help to the narrator of the poem.

The soldier boy asked for some water.

3.     The phrase “Asian dirt” refers to the Vietnam War as Michael Mack was a Vietnam War veteran.

Yes, instead of the word “Asian” we can use any other word which refers to any war. We can do so as the poem is universal and talks about the state and suffering of soldiers which is true of every war throughout the world.

4.     The soldier boy considers himself luckier as all the other soldiers of his troop are dead, whereas he has just survived with a pain in his chest.

No, he is not lucky at all. He is not lucky as he eventually succumbs to death because of the bullet that has hit his chest.

The rest are the other soldiers of his troop, his companions.

5.     “Deep craters” are depressions on the ground.

These depressions, as described in the poem, are created by the bomb shelling. The significance of the craters is that it shows the horror of warfare and the waste it is. The deep craters symbolically also suggest how warfare is a big depression for humanity at large.

Question 5

1.     Ms Reeta Baruah, students were excited, all the students completed the assignment

2.     Ajith Basu, Gayathri Chhbra, Sanjay Damle

3.     Hands shook, beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead, he was not used to face the entire class speak out aloud, didn’t have a flair for speech

4.     2007, 31,Gajendra Singh

5.     Rose as one, applauded and cheered

She knew that her  children would become the pillars that would uphold the virtues of peace, tolerance and selflessness

Question 6

Premchand’s short story “God Lives in the Panch” is written when the colonial British were ruling India. Premchand, through the story is criticizing the judicial system of the British saying that Indians

already have a rural judicial system (Panchayat) where impartial enquiry and judgements are already prevalent. When one is placed as a Panch or as the head of the Panch, he forgets about his earthly ties and give judgment only according to the norms of morality, legality and ethics. Panchayat is a system of administration of the rural India where the elected or selected representatives of the village take decisions for the development and day to day running of the village. Even while there are disputes in the villages, the villagers approach the Panchayat for immediate remedial measures. Both Jumman and Alagu went to the Panchayat with their problems/disputes, both of them also served as the head-panch. When they were head-panch they decided in favour of the right/the righteous/the good as at that moment, while one is the head-panch doing justice, one is like a God delivering judgments with impartiality. Thus Premchand tries to show through the short story how both the frieds did not let any relathionship matter to them when they sat as the head-panch. The role of Panchayat is to deliver justice and one needs to be god-like in delivering justice.