HIGH SCHOOL RESULTS
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
1. The suspense was over when my high school results finally came out. But I was upset. I hadn’t done as well as I had expected. My father tried to console me. “Why are you worried? You have done very well, my dear.” “No, I haven’t, Baba,” I protested, controlling my tears, and wondering if I had disappointed him. “It doesn’t really matter,” he assured me. “Do you know what I got when I finished high school ?” I looked into Baba’s face and waited for the answer to his own question. “You know,” he told me. “I’ve never told you this. I got just a third division. But, look at me, I’ve done quite well.” Baba got the third division! I was almost in shock, but the thought of my having done a lot better than that made me realize that I had no reason to complain. I certainly felt better ! “Everything is under control!” said Baba, smiling. That was his favourite phrase. Posted in Kolkata, my father was then a senior official in the Indian Railway Service and an expert in goods traffic operations. He was soon to become a director with the Railway Board. By the time he retired in 1981, he was general manager of the Central Railways. By the time Baba passed away in November 2000, his name had found a place in several hearts as well. He was open, easy to know, and full of life. We were extremely close, but I had so much more to learn about him from many things I came to know after his death.
2.In September 2000, he was in the hospital for treatment of cancer and given just two months to live. When he found out, his reaction was an extremely rational one. He asked me to fetch files from his cupboard so that he could explain the details of my mother’s pension. He also dictated his will from his hospital bed. “Everything is under control !” After Baba’s death, Satish, our old family retainer, was inconsolable. We tried to cheer him up. “Your Baba had scolded me only once in all these years !” he cried. Satish pointed to the watch on his left hand. “I had been coming late for work and everyone in the family was complaining about it,” said Satish. “Then, one day, your Baba gave me this watch and told me, ‘now that you have a watch, you can’t be late.'” That was the scolding Satish received. On the fourth day after Baba’s death, my sister and I had to perform a ceremony. Since several relatives were expected, we decided to order lunch from a caterer in our locality, reputed for his home cooked food. But, when we went to pay the owner, we got a surprise. He refused to accept any money! “When I wanted to start my catering business, it was your father who lent me money,” he told us. It seems Baba never asked for it back. Now, after four or five years, the caterer wanted to repay that debt. Of course, we made him accept the full payment for the fine food and service. ‘It was Baba’s gift and it ought to remain so,’ I told him.
3.Some days later, there was yet another piece of information as we were preparing for the main ceremony. Vikram, my brother drove me to the local market. On recognizing our car, the parking assistant, in his twenties, came running towards us and asked why he had not seen its owner for long. We had to break the news to him and to our utter surprise, he started crying. We were really surprised by this reaction from a stranger — until the man told us that Baba used to pay his daughter’s school fees and buy her books. It seems it was on my father’s advice that he’d even started sending the child to school. More than three years after Baba’s death, as we were looking into Baba’s personal things, we came across an old file with Baba’s certificates and I found among them, his high school diploma from 1937, the one he’d told me about 30 years earlier, about the third division that had made no difference in his life or career. It had made me see beyond mere marks and first classes as the main road to success. But there was one more fact. Baba had actually got a first division, a rare achievement in his day. Today, years after his passing, when I think of Baba, I see a man who was able to sympathise with others so easily and touch their lives in such a special way (CBSE 2016)
On the basis of your understanding of the above passage answer each of the questions given below with the help of options that follow:
(a) The narrator was in tears when her school results were out because
(i) she had done better than she had expected
(ii) she did not do as well as she had expected
(iii) her Baba had scolded her
(iv) her Baba had done better than her
(b) On learning of her result, the narrator’s father
(i) scolded her (ii) beat her
(iii) consoled her (iv) made fun of her
(c) The narrator said that she had done nothing to complain because
(i) she had done better than her father
(ii) she had done as well as her father
(iii) she had topped in her school
(iv) she had not worked hard enough
(d) Choose the option that is not correct
(i) Baba was a senior official in the Indian Railway Service
(ii) Baba was to become a director with the Railway Board
(iii) Baba was the general manager of the Central Railways
(iv) Baba had got the third division in high school
Answer the following questions briefly in your own words:
(e) Why did the narrator’s sick father want her to fetch files from his cupboard?
(f) Why did Baba buy Satish a watch?
(g) Why did the caterer not want to take money from the narrator?
(h) Why were the narrator and her brother surprised at meeting the parking assistant?
(i) Today years after her father’s passing away what has the narrator realized about him?
(j) What was the story that Baba had invented on the day the narrator’s result had been published?
(k) Find words from the passage which mean the same as each of the following:
(i) tension/anxiety (para 1)
(ii) servant (para 2)
ANSWERS:-
(a) (ii); (b) (iii);
(c) (i); (d) (iv)
(e) He asked for the files, which contained details of his wife’s pension so that he could explain it to his children.
(f) Satish would always come late to work, and the other family members had started to complain about it. Therefore, Baba bought Satish a watch so that he could always be on time.
(g) Baba had lent the caterer some money to start his catering business and had never asked for it to be repaid. Therefore, the caterer refused to take money from the narrator, as he felt it would help him pay off his debt to Baba.
(h) The narrator and her brother were surprised because the parking attendant started crying on hearing of Baba’s death. He was upset because Baba had been paying for his daughter’s school fees and for her books.
(i) Years after her father’s death, the narrator realised that he was a very compassionate man, who did everything possible to help other people.
(j) The narrator had been upset about her result, so Baba had made up a story that he had only got a third division in his high school exams. Despite that, he had gone on to do very well in life. Later, the narrator found his old certificates and learnt that he had actually got the first division.
(k) (i) suspense (ii) retainer
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