Brain Grain · braingrain.in
English — Practice Paper · Set 1
Part I — Short Answer Questions 18 × 2 = 36
Answer briefly. (Answer all questions.)
1.“Griffin was rather a lawless person.” Comment.[2]
2.Who does ‘I’ refer to in this story?[2]
3.What did Valli find out about the bus journey? How did she find out these details?[2]
4.How did the invisible man first become visible?[2]
5.What was Valli’s favourite pastime?[2]
6.Now that you have read the poem in detail, we can begin to ask what the poem might mean. Here are two suggestions. Can you think of others? (i) Does the poem present a conflict between man and nature? Compare it with A Tiger in the Zoo. Is the poet suggesting that plants and trees, used for ‘interior decoration’ in cities while forests are cut down, are ‘imprisoned’, and need to ‘break out’? (ii) On the other hand, Adrienne Rich has been known to use trees as a metaphor for human beings; this is a recurrent image in her poetry. What new meanings emerge from the poem if you take its trees to be symbolic of this particular meaning?[2]
7.Who invites the comment — “he is dressed like a pader”? Why?[2]
8.What did the bakers wear: (i) in the Portuguese days? (ii) when the author was young?[2]
9.What was the cause of Matilda’s ruin? How could she have avoided it?[2]
10.What does Valli tell the elderly man when he calls her a child?[2]
11.What did Lencho hope for?[2]
12.Why does the marriage not take place?[2]
13.How does Mandela describe the systems of government in his country (i) in the first decade, and (ii) in the final decade, of the twentieth century?[2]
14.How does the thief think Anil will react to the theft?[2]
15.What was a source of unending joy for Valli? What was her strongest desire?[2]
16.Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do?[2]
17.What were Lencho’s feelings when the hail stopped?[2]
18.Did you begin to suspect, before the end of the story, that the lady was not the person Horace Danby took her to be? If so, at what point did you realise this, and how?[2]
🔑 Show Answer Key — Set 1
- 1. Griffin repeatedly uses his scientific discovery without moral restraint. He burns his landlord’s house in revenge, steals clothes and food from the London store, attacks a shopkeeper, robs a clergyman’s desk, frightens Mrs Hall and resists lawful arrest by striking people who cannot see him. These are not isolated acts of survival: anger, theft and violence become his usual methods. His invisibility gives him power without accountability, and he chooses to exploit it. The description ‘lawless’ is therefore fully justified.
- 2. ‘I’ refers to James Herriot, the veterinary surgeon who narrates the episode and treats Tricki.
- 3. She learned that the town was six miles away, the fare was thirty paise each way and the trip took forty-five minutes. She listened carefully to regular passengers and asked discreet questions over many days.
- 4. After entering a London shop for warmth, Griffin dressed himself in shoes, an overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat. He also ate cold meat and drank coffee. The clothing around his invisible body made him appear as a visible, if oddly covered, person.
- 5. She stood in the front doorway watching the street and the people passing through the village.
- 6. (i) The poem can represent human domination of nature: trees kept as decoration inside a house struggle back toward a forest emptied by human action. Like the caged tiger, they retain strength but suffer confinement and instinctively seek their proper habitat. (ii) As a human metaphor, the roots, branches and leaves become people breaking restrictive social structures. The ‘long-cramped boughs’ resemble patients emerging after enforced dependence, and the collective forest suggests that isolated individuals gain freedom and community by moving together. The poem can therefore address ecological captivity and human liberation at once.
- 7. Anyone wearing trousers that end below the knees is jokingly said to be dressed like a pader because that resembles the traditional baker’s distinctive clothing.
- 8. In Portuguese days they wore the kabai, a single-piece frock reaching the knees. In the author’s childhood they wore a shirt and trousers shorter than full-length trousers but longer than half-pants.
- 9. The immediate cause is the lost necklace, but deeper causes are Matilda’s vanity, discontent and fear of appearing poor. She borrows an ornament to create a wealthy appearance, then conceals its loss because she is ashamed to admit the truth. She could have avoided ruin by being content with a simpler appearance, wearing flowers as her husband suggests, taking greater care of the borrowed necklace, or—most decisively—telling Mme Forestier immediately. An honest confession would have revealed that the necklace was inexpensive imitation jewellery.
- 10. She declares that she is not a child because she has paid her full thirty-paise fare like everyone else.
- 11. Lencho hoped for a good rain or shower that would nourish his ripe corn crop.
- 12. After seeing Bholi’s pockmarked face, Bishamber demands five thousand rupees and threatens to leave. Ramlal pays, but Bholi rejects a man she now recognises as mean, greedy and cowardly. She throws the garland into the fire and refuses the marriage.
- 13. In the first decade, white rulers created a system of racial domination that became one of the world’s harshest and most inhumane societies. In the final decade, that system was overturned and replaced by a government recognising the rights and freedoms of all people regardless of colour.
- 14. He believes Anil will show only a touch of sadness—not because of the money, but because Hari has betrayed his trust.
- 15. The bus travelling hourly between her village and town, carrying a changing set of passengers, fascinated her. Her strongest desire was to ride on it at least once.
- 16. Lencho had complete faith in God. He wrote a letter asking God for one hundred pesos to sow the field again and support his family until the next crop.
- 17. He was filled with sadness and despair because the crop was ruined and the family faced hunger, although his faith in God remained.
- 18. A careful reader may begin to suspect her when she calmly confronts an armed possibility, handles the room as though performing ownership, and claims to have forgotten the safe combination. Her willingness to let a burglar break her husband’s safe is especially suspicious. The strongest clue comes when Horace removes his gloves to light her cigarette and then opens the safe: she is arranging for his fingerprints to identify him while leaving no trace of herself. The ending confirms that her confidence came from being a professional thief, not the owner.