NATIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL

CHIKKABANAVARA
REVISION FOR UT II (2024-25)
ENGLISH
Class: IX Topic: Comprehension Passage

I. Read the passage given below carefully: 10 m

March 26, 1932, FOURTEEN months have passed by since I wrote to you from Naini Prison about
past history. Three months later, I added two short letters to that series from the Arabian Sea. We were
on board the Cracovia then, hurrying to Lanka (the great Lanka is the old name for Ceylon).
As I wrote, big sea stretched out before me and my hungry eyes gazed at it and could not take their
fill. Then came Lanka and for a month we made glorious holiday and tried to forget our troubles and
worries. Up and down that most beautiful of islands we went, wondering at its exceeding loveliness
and at the abundance of nature.
Above all, I love to think of the cool tropical jungle and its abundant life looking at you with a
thousand eyes and of the graceful areca tree, slender and straight and true and the innumerable
coconuts and the palm-fringed seashore where the emerald green of the island meets the blue of the
sea and the sky and the sea water glistens and plays on the surf and the wind rustles through the palm
leaves.
It was your first visit to the tropics and for me also, but for a brief stay long ago, the memory of which
had almost faded, it was a new experience. I had not been attracted to them, as I feared the heat. It was
the sea and the mountain, and above all high snows and glaciers, that fascinated me. Our month of
holiday in Ceylon ended too soon, and we crossed the narrow seas to the southern tip of India.
Do you remember our visit to Kanyakumari, where the virgin Goddess is said to dwell and keep guard
and which Westerners, with their genius for twisting and corrupting our names, have called Cape
Comoron? We sat, literally, at the feet of mother India then and we saw the Arabian Sea meet the
waters of the Bay of Bengal, and we liked to imagine that they were both paying homage to India!
Wonderfully peaceful it was there and my mind travelled several thousand miles to the other extremity
of India where the eternal snows crown the Himalayas. But between the two there is strife enough and
misery and poverty! We left the Cape and journeyed northwards.
(Jawaharlal Nehru)
On the basis of your understanding of the passage, answer the questions given below.

(a) Which of the following statement shows that Jawaharlal Nehru spent most of his time in prison?
(i) I am in a different prison now.
(ii) I complete three months in prison today.
(iii) All journeys, dream ones or real, end in prison!
(iv) Here I am back again behind my old familiar walls.

(b) Select the option that correctly expresses “my hungry eyes gazed at it and could not take their fill”.
(i) J.L. Nehru had never seen a sea in his life.
(ii) He was enamoured by the beauty of the sea.
(iii) He always wanted to visit Sri Lanka.
(iv) The sea made him forget his troubles and worries.

1
(c) Select the correct option to fill in the blanks.
From paragraph 5, we can infer that………….. and …………… of India and the waters of the Bay
of Bengal were paying homage to India.
1. Warmth
2. Beauty
3. Compassion
4. Population
(i) 1 and 2
(ii) 2 and 3
(iii) 1 and 3
(iv) 1 and 4

(d) Complete the following with a phrase from paragraph 1.

Opinion Reason

To make a succession of soft sound

(e) Which one of the following options is not related to the statement, “Nehru took a long time to
resume writing to his daughter.”
(i) The new prison interfered in his work.
(ii) J.L. Nehru’s mind was filled with the present difficulties.
(iii) He feared that his letters might not reach his daughter.
(iv) The sun took an hour and a half to reach him.

(f) Complete the following analogy correctly with a word/ phrase from paragraph 5.
recall: remember :: trouble: …………………..

(g) Supply one point to justify the following.

March 26, 1932, FOURTEEN months have passed by since I wrote to you from Naini prison
about past history.

(h) What is more specific about Kanyakumari that has been discussed in the paragraph?

(i) In the line, “the cool tropical jungle and its abundant life looking at you with a thousand eyes”,
which literary device has been used here?

(j) List one reason why the memory of the first visit to the tropics had almost faded.

************************************************