Oral Comprehension Check (Page 65)
Question 1. Where in the classroom does Wanda sit and why?
Answer 1 Wanda used to sit in the seat next to the last seat, in the last row. She was a very poor, shy and quiet girl. Her feet were normally very dirty, so in order to avoid being laughed at her by classmates, she sat there to hide her dirty feet.
Question 2. Where does Wanda live? What kind of a place do you think it is?
Answer 2 Wanda lived at Boggins Heights. The place is far away from school and is covered lots of mud. There are no proper roads or streets and it is a kind of slum.
Question 3. When and why do Peggy and Maddie notice Wanda’s absence?
Answer 3 Wanda didn’t come to school on Monday and Tuesday but nobody noticed her absence as she did not have friends in the class. Peggy and Maddie waited for Wanda to make fun of her after the school was off, then they noticed that she was absent.
Question 4. What do you think “to have fun with her” means?
Answer 4 The girls used to make fun of her. This gave them a lot of pleasure because of her shy nature, dust laden feet and appearance.
Oral Comprehension Check (Page 67)
Question 1. In what way was Wanda different from the other children?
Answer 1 She did not have any friends. She came to school alone and went home alone.she did not talk to anybody. She preferred to sit alone in the last in the class. She had only one blue dress which was faded but claimed of having a hundred dresses.
Question 2. Did Wanda have a hundred dresses? Why do you think she said she did?
Answer 2 Wanda was teased by her classmates after school hours. They used to make fun of her dress and her name. She was poor and wore the same faded dress to school everyday. She had an inferiority complex. In order to hide the complex and impress the other girls, she always said that she had a hundred dresses.
Question 3. Why is Maddie embarrassed by the questions Peggy asks Wanda? Is she also like Wanda, or is she different?
Answer 3 Maddie was embarrassed by the questions Peggy asked Wanda because she was poor herself. She usually wore old clothes, which were handed down by rich people. She was worried that later, everyone would start teasing her too. She was different from Wanda in the sense that she never claim that she had a hundred dresses, yet she was afraid that the others might mock her too.
Oral Comprehension Check (Page 70)
Question 1. Why didn’t Maddie ask Peggie to stop teasing Wanda? What was she afraid of?
Answer 1 Maddie couldn’t ask Peggie to stop teasing Wanda because Peggie was her best friend, a popular school girl and a nice girl. She was afraid of being the next target of such taunts and teasings.
Question 2. Who did Maddie think would win the drawing contest? Why?
Answer 2 Maddie believed that Peggy would win the drawing contest as she was good in drawing. She could copy a picture in a magazine, or some film star’s face so well that one could draw as her.
Question 3. Who won the drawing contest? What had the winner drawn?
Answer 3 Wanda won the drawing contest. Wanda had drawn all the dresses which she had claimed to have had in the class. Everybody was very impressed with her drawing skill and clapped for her.
Thinking about the Text (Page 70)
Question 1. How is Wanda seen as different by the other girls? How do they treat her?
Answer 1 Wanda came to school in same faded blue dress everyday with her feet always covered with mud.The girls made fun of her poverty and teased her by commenting on her dress. After being teased, she claimed to have had a hundred dresses in her closet.
Question 2. How does Wanda feel about the dresses game? Why does she say that she has a hundred dresses?
Answer 2 Wanda did not show any feeling regarding the dresses game. She feels very embarrassed but remains silent in the class. She doesn’t talk to anyone and sits on the back bench with rough boys so that nobody can give attention to her. She is deeply hurt but never complains about it.
To avoid their taunts and humiliation, Wanda says that she has a hundred dresses and sixty pairs of matching shoes in her closet. She wanted to draw attention of her friends.
Question 3. Why does Maddie stand by and not do anything? How is she different from Peggy? (Was Peggy’s friendship important to Maddie? Why? Which lines in the text tell you this?)
Answer 3 Peggy is the most popular girl in the class and Maddie is her closest friend. Though, Maddie is poor, Peggy never teases her so Maddie is afraid of losing her friendship. She did not have courage to go against her.
Some of the lines from text which shows that Pegg’s friendship was important to Maddie’s are as follow:
1) Peggy could not possibly do anything that was really wrong.
2) She was Pegg’s best friend, and Peggy was the best-liked girl in the whole room.
3) Oh, Maddie was sure Peggy would win.
Question 4. What does Miss Mason think of Wanda’s drawings? What do the children think of them? How do you know?
Answer 4 Miss Mason was very impressed at the creativity of the girl. She considers them really beautiful and worthy of winning individually. The children are also impressed by the drawing skills of Wanda that they all applaud and whistle when she wins among the girls.
Thinking about the Language (Page 71 – 72)
Question I Combine the following to make sentences like those above.
1. This is the bus (what kind of bus?). It goes to Agra. (use which or that)
2. I would like to buy (a) shirt (which shirt?). (The) shirt is in the shop window. (use which or that)
3. You must break your fast at a particular time (when?). You see the moon in the sky. (use when)
4. Find a word (what kind of word?). It begins with the letter Z. (use which or that)
5. Now find a person (what kind of person). His or her name begins with the letter Z. (use whose)
6. Then go to a place (what place?). There are no people whose name begins with Z in that place. (use where)
Answer I
1. This is the bus that goes to Agra.
2. I would like to buy a shirt that is in the shop window.
3. You must break your fast at a particular time when you see the moon in the sky.
4. Find a word that begins with letter Z.
5. Now find a person whose name begins with letter Z.
6. Then go to a place where there are no people whose name begins with letter Z.
Question II. The Narrative Voice
This story is in the ‘third person’ that is, the narrator is not a participant in the story. But the narrator often seems to tell the story from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. For example, look at the italicised
words in this sentence
Thank goodness, she did not live up on Boggins Heights or have a funny name.
Whose thoughts do the words ‘Thank goodness’ express? Maddie’s, who is grateful that although she is poor, she is yet not as poor as Wanda, or as ‘different’. (So she does not get teased; she is thankful about that.)
1. Here are two other sentences from the story.
Can you say whose point of view the italicised words express?
(i) But on Wednesday, Peggy and Maddie, who sat down front with other children who got good marks and who didn’t track in a whole lot of mud, did notice that Wanda wasn’t there.
(ii) Wanda Petronski. Most of the children in Room Thirteen didn’t have names like that. They had names easy to say, like Thomas, Smith or Allen.
1. The italicised words express the point of view of Peggy and Maddie.
2. These italicised words express the point of view of other children of Wanda’s class excluding Peggy and Maddie
Question III. Look at this sentence. The italicised adverb expresses an opinion or point of view. Obviously, the only dress Wanda had was the blue one she wore every day. (This was obvious to the speaker.)
Other such adverbs are apparently, evidently, surprisingly, possibly, hopefully, incredibly, luckily. Use these words appropriately in the blanks in the sentences below. (You may use a word more than once, and more than one word may be appropriate for a given blank.)
1.________ , he finished his work on time.
2. ________, it will not rain on the day of the match.
3.________ , he had been stealing money from his employer.
4. Television is________ to blame for the increase in violence in society.
5. The children will ________ learn from their mistakes.
6. I can’t ________ lend you that much money.
7. The thief had ________ been watching the house for many days.
8. The thief ________ escaped by bribing the jailor.
9.________ , no one had suggested this before.
10. The water was ________ hot.
Answer III
1. Surprisingly
2. Hopefully
3. Possibly
4. evidently
5. hopefully
6. possibly
7. apparently
8. luckily
9. Incredibly
10. incredibly
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