ENGLISH FIRST LANGUAGE
PROSE: - A VILLAGE CRICKET MATCH A.G.
PROSE: - A VILLAGE CRICKET MATCH A.G.
MACDONELL
I. About the Author
A. G. Macdonell (1895–1941) British novelist, born in India, educated at Winchester. Following two years of active service in Flanders, he was invalided out of the army in 1918 and rapidly established himself as a freelance journalist, becoming drama critic for the London Mercury in 1919. From 1922 to 1927 he was a member of staff with the League of Nations; he subsequently produced a succession of thrillers using the pseudonyms ‘Neil Gordon’ and ‘John Cameron’. England, Their England, the first of his books to appear under his own name, was published in 1933; the work's good-humoured but incisive satire of a wide range of English institutions appealed to the prevailing disillusionment of the time and earned Macdonell considerable renown. Class pretensions and political insincerity were among the chief targets of the elegantly written and memorably comic novel Autobiography of a Cad (1938). His numerous other works include the historical study Napoleon and His Marshalls (1934), the short stories of The Spanish Pistol (1939), and the novels How Like an Angel (1934), What Next Baby? (1939), and The Crew of the Anaconda (1940). Macdonell also contributed regularly to the Observer and made a highly valued series of broadcasts for the BBC's Empire Service in 1940, applying his keenly satirical sense of the absurd to undermining the claims of Nazi propaganda.
I. Question and Answers
1. Name the two teams.
Ans: - The two teams were in the Scottish and the English teams.
2. Name the fielders in the field mentioned in paragraph 1.
Ans: - The fielders mentioned are Mr. Shakespeare Pollock, Mr. Southcott and Mr. Hodge.
3. What behaviour of Livingstone, Pollock and Southcott show that they are tense?
Ans: - Livingstone was balancing himself on his toes. Pollock hopped about almost on top of the batsman and breathed excitedly. Southcott was chewing steadily ban some piece of grass.
4. What is the humorous reference to the Major in the first paragraph?
Ans: - The humorous reference to the major is that he had already downed a quartan a half of drinks.
5. Why didn't Sexton and the postman take a run when it was possible?
Ans: - The sexton was old, therefore was of cautious nature and the postman was a government official who did not take any risks. Therefore they both did not take a run when it was possible.
6. How does the writer take a dig at the government officials?
Ans: - The writer mocks at the government officials that they never do any work citing the reason of not wanting to take any risks.
7. The ball struck powerfully by the Sexton went straight and hit Boone's stomach.
a. What comparison does the writer make?
Ans: - The writer compares the ball striking powerfully and hitting Boone's stomach as a thunderbolt striking him in the midriff like a red-hot cannonball upon a Spanish galleon.
b. What is humorous about the comparison?
Ans: - Comparing a red cricket ball to a red-hot cannonball is very humorous.
8. Why was Boone angry after catching the ball?
Ans: - Boone was angry even after catching the ball because it had hit his midriff very hard causing great pain.
9. a. What is the chief invention of Sir Isaac Newton referred to here?
Ans: - The chief invention of Sir Isaac Newton referred to here is the Theory of Gravity.
b. What does the ball in the sky" battling against the chief invention" mean here?
Ans: - It means that according to the theory of gravity, the ball had to crash down immediately, but it defied gravity and remained suspended in the air for quite some time before falling down.
10. Who ran like "a pair of high-stepping hackneys"?
Ans: - The blacksmith and the baker ran like a pair of high-stepping hackneys.
11. a. Why were the three batsmen running for a run?
Ans: - The ball hit by the blacksmith went high up in the air and fell back quite slowly. Therefore the batsman the blacksmith, the baker who was his substitute runner and Joe began running for getting a run.
b. How were they running?
Ans: - All the three had their heads turned towards the balling ball, and did not notice the batsman running from the other end they also did not see where they were going. Therefore they crashed into one another and fell down.
12. What fatal mistake did Hodge make?
Ans: - Initially, Hodge ordered Livingstone to catch the falling ball. Then he remembered Livingstone's two missed catches and so reversed his decision and roared to Bobby to catch it that was the fatal mistake committed by him because Livingstone had not heard the second-order of Hodge and continued running and all crashed together.
13. How did Mr. Pollock finally catch the ball?
Ans: - The ball landed on the head of the professor and it leapt up into the air a foot or so, hit Boone's head and trickled slowly down the wicket keeper's broad back. When it was only a foot from the ground Mr. Pollock sprang with a loud roar and grabbed it off the seat of the wicket keeper's trousers.
14. The writer says that Mr. Hodge disagreed with Napoleon's dictum.
a. What was Napoleon's dictum?
Ans: - Napoleon laid a dictum that it was impossible to have too many men upon a battlefield but used to do everything in his power to call up every available man for a battle.
b. How did Mr. Hodge disagree with the dictum?
Ans: - When Mr. Hodge saw his fielders getting ready to catch the descending ball, he disagreed with the dictum that it was bad to have too many men in the field.
15. Who won the match?
Ans: - Neither of the teams won the match. It ended in a tie.
0 Comments