Oral Comprehension Check
Page 5
Question 1.
What did Lencho hope for?
Answer:
Lencho hoped for a good rain as
it was much needed for a good harvest.
Question 2.
Why did Lencho say the
raindrops were like ‘new coins’?
Answer:
Lencho compared the raindrops
with new coins because they were promising him a good harvest resulting in
more prosperity.
Question 3.
How did the rain change? What happened to Lencho’s fields?
Answer:
The rain changed into
hailstones as a strong wind began to blow and huge hailstones began to fall
alongwith the rain. All the crops in Lencho’s field got destroyed because of
the weather conditions.
Question 4.
What were Lencho’s feelings
when the hail stopped?
Answer:
Lencho was filled with grief after the hail stopped as everything was ruined
and there was nothing that he could feed his family with. He could see a bleak
future for him and his family.
Page 6
Question 5.
Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do?
Answer:
Lencho had firm faith in God.
He believed ‘ that God sees everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience
and help everyone in one’s problems. He wrote a letter to God demanding him a
hundred pesos to sow his field again.
Question 6.
Who read the letter?
Answer:
Postmaster read the letter.
Question 7.
What did the postmaster do
after reading a letter?
Answer:
The postmaster laughed when he read
Lencho’s letter but soon he became serious and was moved by the writer’s
faith in God. He didn’t want to shake Lencho’s faith. So, he decided to
collect ,money and send it to Lencho on behalf of God.
Page 7
Question 8.
Was Lencho surprised to find a letter for him with money in it?
Answer:
Lencho was not surprised to
find a letter with money from God as he believed that God will help him.
Question 9.
What made Lencho angry?
Answer:
There were only seventy pesos
in the envelope whereas Lencho had demanded a hundred pesos. The difference in
the amount made him angry.
Thinking about the Text (Page 7,8)
Question 1.
Who does Lencho have complete
faith in? Which sentences in the story tell you this?
Answer:
Lencho has complete faith in
God as he is instructed that God knows everything and helps us in our
problems. There are few sentences which show this
- But in the hearts of all who lived in that solitary house in the middle of the valley, there was a single hope help from God.
- All through the night, Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God, whose eyes, as he had been instructed, see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience.
- “God”, he wrote, “if you don’t help me, my family and I will go hungry this year”.
- He wrote ‘To God’ on the envelope, put the letter inside and still troubled, went to town.
- God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested.
Question 2.
Why does the postmaster send
money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter God?
Answer:
The postmaster sends money to
Lencho in order to keep
Lencho’s faith in
God alive and firm as he was completely moved by it.
When postmaster reads the letter of Lencho to God, he becomes serious and
does not want to shake his faith and decides to answer the letter. He gathers
money with the help of his post office employees and friends on behalf of God
and signs the letter ‘God’ so that Lencho’s faith does not get shaken.
Question 3.
Did Lencho try to find out
who had sent the money to him? Why or why not?
Answer:
Lencho did not try to find out
who had sent the money to him because he never suspected the presence of God
and had complete faith in God. He could not believe that it could be – anybody
else other than him who would send him the money.
His faith in God was so strong that he believed that he had sent money to
him for his help in his problem.
Question 4.
Who does Lencho think has
taken the rest of the money? What is the irony in the situation? (Remember
that the irony of a situation is an unexpected aspect of it. An ironic
situation is strange or amusing because it is the opposite of what is
expected).
Answer:
Lencho thinks that the post office employees have taken the rest of the
money as he had demanded a hundred pesos from God and in the letter there was
only seventy pesos and God cannot make such a mistake. So, he assumes that
they have stolen the money.
The irony in
this situation is that Lencho suspects those people who helped him in his
problem and tried to keep his faith alive in God.
Question 5.
Are there people like Lencho
in the real world? What kind of a person would you say he is? You may select
appropriate words from the box to answer the question.
- Greedy
- Naive
- Stupid
- Ungrateful
- Selfish
- Comical
- Unquestioning
Answer:
It is almost impossible to find a
person like Lencho as he is an unquestioning and naive kind of person. He is
not stupid if he doesn’t know who has sent him money or a letter will reach
God without any address. It is Lencho’s faith in God. In real world, people
are selfish and greedy and Lencho is totally lovable and different.
Question 6.
There are two kinds of
conflict in the story between humans and nature and between humans themselves.
How are these conflicts illustrated?
Answer:
Conflict between Humans and
Nature: The conflict between humans and nature is illustrated by the
destruction of Lencho’s crop by the hailstorm as Lencho was expecting a good
rain to have good harvest as that was the only hope he had for his earning. He
worked so hard to feed his family, but nature turned violent and destroyed
everything.
Conflict between Humans and
Humans: The story also illustrated another conflict, between humans themselves
as the postmaster alongwith his friends and staff sent Lencho money that
Lencho demanded from God although they didn’t know Lencho. Lencho blamed them
for taking away some amount of money. He called them “a bunch of crook”. This
shows that man does not have faith in other man, thereby giving rise to this
conflict.
Thinking about Language (Page 8,9,10,11)
1. There are different names in different parts of the world for storms, depending on their nature. Can you match the names in the box with their descriptions below, and fill in the blanks?
- gale,
- whirlwind,
- cyclone,
- hurricane,
- tornado,
- typhoon.
Question 1.
A violent tropical storm in
which strong winds move in a circle c__.
Answer:
cyclone
Question 2.
An extremely strong wind __ a
__.
Answer:
gale
Question 3.
A violent tropical storm with
very strong wind __ p __.
Answer:
typhoon
Question 4.
A violent storm whose centre
is a cloud in the shape of a funnel __n__.
Answer:
tornado
Question 5.
A violent storm with very
strong winds, especially in the Western Atlantic Ocean __ r__.
Answer:
Hurricane
Question 6.
A very strong wind that moves
very fast in a spinning movement and causes a lot of damage __l__.
Answer:
whirlwind
Question 7.
Match the sentences in column
A with the meaning of ‘hope’ in column B.
Answer:
| A | B | ||
| 1. | Will you get the subjects you want to study in college? I hope so. | (a) | a feeling that something good will probably happen. |
| 2. | 1 hope you don’t mind my saying this but 1 don’t like the way you are arguing. | (b) | thinking that this would happen (it may or may not have happened.) |
| 3. | This discovery will give new hope to HIV/AIDS sufferers. | (c) | stopped believing that this good thing would happen. |
| 4. | We were hoping against hope that the judges would not notice our mistakes. | (d) | wanting something to happen (and thinking it quite possible) |
| 5. | 1 called early in the hope of speaking to her before she went to school. | (e) | showing concern that what you say should not offend or disturb the other person a way of being polite. |
| 6. | Just when everybody had given up hope, the fishermen came back, seven days after the cyclone. | (f) | wishing for something to happen, although this is very unlikely. |
Answer:
1. (b)
2. (e)
3. (a)
4. (f)
5. (d)
6. (c)
3. Join the sentences given below using who, whom, whose, which, as
suggested.
Question 1.
I often go to Mumbai. Mumbai is the commercial capital of India, (which)
Answer:
I often go to Mumbai which is
the commercial capital of India.
Question 2.
My mother is going to host a
TV show on cooking. She cooks very well, (who)
Answer:
My Mother who cooks very well,
is going to host a TV show on cooking.
Question 3.
These sportsperson are going
to meet the President. Their performance has been excellent, (whose)
Answer:
These sportspersons, whose
performance has been excellent, are going to meet the President.
Question 4.
Lencho prayed to God. His
eyes see into our minds, (whose)
Answer:
Lencho prayed to God, whose
eyes see into our minds.
Question 5.
This man cheated me. I
trusted him. (whom)
Answer:
This man whom I trusted cheated me.
4. Find sentences in the story with negative words, which express the
following ideas emphatically.
(a) The
trees lost all their leaves.
(b) The
letter was addressed to God himself.
(c)
The postman saw this address for the first time in his career.
Answer:
(a) Not a leaf remained on the
trees.
(b) It was nothing less than a
letter to God.
(c) Never in his career as
a postman had he seen that address.
5. In pairs, find metaphors from the story to complete the table below. Try to say what qualities are being compared. One has been done for you.
| Object | Metaphor | Quality or Feature Compared |
| Cloud | Huge mountains of clouds | The mass or ‘hugeness’ of mountains |
| Raindrops | ||
| Hailstones | ||
| Locusts | An ox of a man | An epidemic (a disease) (hat spreads very rapidly and leaves many people dead |
Answer:
| Object | Metaphor | Quality or Feature Compared |
| Cloud | Huge mountains of clouds | The mass or ‘hugeness’ of mountains |
| Raindrops | Coins | Money that a good crop will bring |
| Hailstones | Frozen pearls | brightness of pearls |
| Locusts | a plague of locusts | An epidemic (a disease) that spreads very rapidly and leaves many people dead |
| Lencho | An ox of a man | strong |