KSEEB Solutions for Class 8 English Poem Chapter 4 For a Five Year Old Boy

Students can Download English Poem 4 For a Five Year Old Boy Questions and Answers, Summary, Notes Pdf, Activity, KSEEB Solutions for Class 8 English helps you to revise the complete Karnataka State Board Syllabus and to clear all their doubts, score well in final exams.

Karnataka State Syllabus Class 8 English Poem Chapter 4 For a Five Year Old Boy

For a Five Year Old Boy Questions and Answers, Summary, Notes

Textbook Questions and Answers:

C1. Answer the following questions and share your responses with your partner:

Question 1.
Name the creature mentioned in the Poem.
Answer:
A snail

Question 2.
Who do you think is the speaker?
Answer:
The speaker in the poem is a mother.

Question 3.
Who is the speaker addressing?
Answer:
The speaker is addressing her child.

Question 4.
What does the child want his mother to see?
Answer:
The child wants his mother to see a snail crawling up the windowsill.

Question 5.
What does the mother tell the child?
Answer:
The Mother tells her child to carry the snail carefully, outside, and leave to feed on daffodils.

Read and Write:

C2 Read and discuss your responses with your partner. Then write:

Question 1.
Why does the mother say ‘a kind of faith prevails’?
Answer:
The mother feels happy that a child learns good manners and good behaviour. And it develops a good character by words of advice and not by imitating others.

Question 2.
How has the mother treated other animals?
Answer:
The mother has not treated other animals kindly. She has trapped mice, shot wild birds, and drowned kitten.

Question 3.
Do you observe any difference between the mother’s treatment of the snail and her treatment of other animals and her own relatives?
Answer:
Yes, there is a lot of difference between the treatment of snail and other animals. Other animals were treated cruelly. The mother treated the snail very kindly and she advised her child to be kind to the snail.

Question 4.
How does the mother console herself? Read the last two lines and comment.
Answer:
Mother has behaved like others. A snail was harmless so it could be treated kindly but other animals are harmful, so it is not easy to treat them kindly. All people are like this only. Everyone preaches good but they do not follow it in action. So mother consoles herself like this and said that she and her child are kind to snails.

Comprehension:

Read the following extracts and answer the questions that follow:

Question 1.
I explain
That it would be unkind to leave it there:

1. Who is ‘I’?
2. What does ‘it’ refer to?
3. Why would it be unkind to leave it there?

Answer:

1. T is the mother or the poet.
2. ‘It’ refers to the snail.
3. It would be unkind to leave the snail there as it might crawl to the floor and get crushed under one’s foot.

Question 2.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
Your gentleness is moulded still by words.

1. What is the faith referred to?
2. In the extract, whose character has been moulded by words, according to the poet?
3. Is it correct to say that gentleness is still moulded by words of advice?

Answer:

1. The faith that character fs built by words of advice than by imitation of others.
2. The character of the five-year-old child.
3. No, it is not true to say so. It is only a prevailing belief, not based on truth.

Question 3.
and who purveyed the harshest kind of truth to many another.

1. From which poem are these lines taken?
2. Who has purveyed the harshest kind of truth?
3. What is the truth purveyed?

Answer:

1. From the poem ‘To a Five Year Old’.
2. The mother.
3. The truth that there is a difference between what we preach and what we practise.

Multiple Choice Questions:

Four alternatives are given for each of the following questions/ incomplete statements. Choose the most appropriate one:

Question 1.
The poem ‘For a Five Year Old’ is written by
A) Sarojini Naidu
B) Fleur Adcock
C) Clifford Dyment
D) James Kirkup
Answer:
B) Fleur Adcock

Question 2.
The poem tells us about
A) a snail
B) the character of the mother
C) the mother’s treatment of the snail
D) the contradictions in our dealings
Answer:
D) the contradictions in our dealings

Question 3.
‘And who purveyed the harshest kind of truth The word ‘purveyed’ means
A) carried away
B) delivered
C) taught
D) spoke
Answer:
B) delivered

Question 4.
The snail was climbing up the
A) door
B) window
C) wall
D) window sill
Answer:
D) window sill

Question 5.
It was unkind to leave the snail on the window sill because
A) it might get crushed if it crawled on to the floor
B) it might get crushed if someone opened the window
C) it might be eaten by mice
D) it may be drowned in the rain
Answer:
A) it might get crushed if it crawled on to the floor

For a Five Year Old Boy by Fleur Adcock About the Author:

Fleur Adcock was born in New Zealand in 1934. Later on, she migrated to England and became a British citizen. She worked as a librarian in London. Her poems mainly deal with the everyday experiences of a woman as a wife and a mother.

For a Five Year Old Boy Summary in English

“Practise what you preach” is an old saying. The poet, in this poem, brings out the contradictions in our behaviour. A mother is the speaker in the poem. She narrates an incident and points out the big difference in what we preach and what we practise.

Achild sees a snail climbing up the windowsill into his room. It calls its mother to see it. The mother tells the child that it is unsafe for the snail to be left like that.

It might crawl to the floor and might get crushed under ones foot. The child understands. It picks up the snail gently, carries it outside carefully and leaves it near a daffodil plant so that it could feed on a daffodil flower.

The mother is happy that still the belief that gentleness and good character are learnt by words of advice prevails. Children develop such good qualities by listening to what parent and other elders say.

At the same time she feels guilty. She has adviced her child to be kind and compassionate towards the snail, but she herself had killed mice, wild birds, kittens and so on.

She had not treated her own relatives properly. She had conveyed the harshest kind of truth to many others, without bothering how it would affect them. She herself had not practised what she wanted her child to learn.

She consoles herself at the end. She is practical-minded and knows that is how things are happening around her. People say one thing and do exactly the opposite.

It reminds us of another saying “Do as I say, but don’t do as I do”. The mother consoles herself saying that she and her child are kind to snails.

For a Five Year Old Boy Summary in Kannada

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