Summer Assignment

Class XII
Subject
Topic – The Last Lesson, My Mother at Sixty Six,
1. “What a thunderclap these words were to me!” What were the words that shocked
and surprised the narrator?
2. What changes did the narrator find in the school when the order from Berlin came?
3. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
I looked again at her, wan, pale
as a late winter’s moon and felt that old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,
but all I said was see you soon, Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and smile ………
(a) What was the poet’s childhood fear?
(b) What were the poet’s parting words?
(c) What is the poetic device used in these lines?
(d) Why did the poet smile and smile?
4. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Old
Familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,
but all I said was, see you soon,
Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and smile

Questions
a) What does the phrase, ‘familiar ache’ mean?
b) What was the poet’s childhood fear?
c) What do the first two lines tell us about the poet’s feelings for her mother?
d) What does the repeated use of the word, ‘smile’ mean?

5. Discuss the importance of Sam’s letter to Charley.

6. What was the third level like? How did Charley know he had bumped into the past?

7. Apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to be a futuristic projection? Discuss.

8. Philately helps keep the past alive. Discuss other ways in which this is done. What do
you think of the
human tendency to constantly move between the past, the present and the future?

9. You have read ‘Adventure’ by Jayant Narlikar in Hornbill Class XI. Compare the
interweaving of fantasy and reality in the two stories.

10. The modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry, tension and stress. What
are the ways in which we attempt to overcome them?