K R MANGALAM WORLD SCHOOL, GURUGRAM

CLASS – XI
SUBJECT - ENGLISH
PRACTICE WORKSHEET - 1

Reference to Context

1. Till the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup

A suddenness, a startlement, at a branch end.

Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt,

She enters the thickness,

1 What effect is produced at the branch end with the sitting of the mother goldfinch bird on it?

2. Why is the mother goldfinch bird ‘alert’ while entering the thickness?

3. Which figure of speech is used to describe the movement of the mother goldfinch bird?

4. What does the word ‘twitching’ mean?

2. She enters the thickness, and a machine starts up

Of chitterings, and a tremor of wings, and trillings —

The whole tree trembles and thrills.

1. How do the baby goldfinch birds react at the arrival of the mother goldfinch bird?

2. What is referred to here as ‘thickness’?

3. What does the word ‘thrills’ mean?

4. Why are the baby goldfinch birds looked upon as a machine?

3. It is the engine of her family.

She stokes it full, then flirts out to a branch-end

Showing her barred face identity mask

1 What is referred to here as “the engine”?

2. Where does the mother goldfinch bird flirt out?

3. In which sense is the ‘face’ of the mother goldfinch bird ‘barred’?

4. What ‘masks’ the identity of the mother goldfinch bird?

4. Answer the questions in 30-40 words

1. Why did the goldfinch enter the thickness of the laburnum tree?

2. How is the tree transformed during the bird’s visit?

3. Why is the image of the engine evoked by the poet in ‘The Laburnum Top’?

5. Answer the question in 50-60 words

How does the poem express the sentiment of co-dependency? How do the laburnum and the
goldfinch help each other? Elaborate.