Class 8 English: Unseen Passages Type II

Read the passages given below and answer the questions that follow each of them:

Passage 1
1. Can’t Sleep ? Join the crowd. Millions of people have trouble getting enough restorative shut-eye. With recent research linking lack of sleep to health problems ranging from hypertension to weight gain, there’s more reason than ever to make over your sleep habits. But how ?
2. You may have tried medication. You know to stay away from saboteurs like caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. And you’ve probably heard it’s not wise to exercise too vigorously or eat too big a meal a couple of hours before bedtime.
3. Let Go of Your Worries. Anxieties often seem magnified in the still of the night. Dealing with them can help you sleep. Just writing down worries, deadlines or to-dos before hitting the pillow can make them feel more manageable.
4. Do whatever helps you relax. Try simple yoga exercises, like the forward bend. Standing with your legs hip-width apart, bend at your waist, letting your arms and head dangle while releasing the tension in your neck and shoulders. Or while lying on your back, do progressive muscle relaxation, tensing and then releasing body parts, beginning with your feet and progressing towards your forehead.
5. Cut the Light at Night. Avoid bright light, which signals the brain to be alert, within two to three hours of bedtime or if you wake up during the night. Michael Breus, suggests aiming for no more than 45 to 60 watts of light in the room when winding down before bedtime, and no more than 30 to 40 watts of indirect light when you’re trying to sleep. Use low wattage or shielded night-lights in hallways and bathrooms. Make sure your bed is out of the way of direct sunlight, moonlight or streetlights.
6. Help cement the sleep-wake cycle by exposing yourself to bright light within an hour of waking up for the day, either by taking a 30-minute walk outside or by lingering in a part of the house that gets a lot of sunlight.
7. Follow the 20-Minute Rule. If you can’t fall asleep in about 20 minutes, whether at bedtime or after awakening in the night, go into another room and do something else until you get drowsy. "The bedroom needs to be associated with sleeping, not with being restless." Estimate the 20 minutes; don’t use a clock or watch, which causes alertness and possible stress.
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8. Avoid things requiring concentration, such as video games; stimulating activities, like vigorous exercise or cleaning; or anything upsetting, like watching the news or paying bills. Try light reading or listening to music.
9. Re-do Your Bedroom. Make your bedroom more sleep-friendly. If noise from an adjacent room keeps you up, move your bed to another wall. Replace a sagging mattress and deflated pillows. If you must keep a computer switched on in the. bedroom, cover the green light on the monitor’s switch with black electrical tape. If you insist on falling asleep with the TV on, use a timer.
(481 words)

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow :
Questions
1. Why is it important to sleep well ?
2. How should the eating and drinking habits be regulated to have good sleep ?
3. How can the worries be made manageable before going to sleep ?
4. What do you understand by the phrase ‘progressive muscle relaxation’ ?
5. How much light should be there when one tries to sleep ?
6. How should the light be used when one gets up ?
7. What should one do if one is unable to sleep even after being in bed for twenty minutes or so.
8. What does the author suggest about mattresses and pillows in the bedroom ?
9. Which word in para 2 means the same as ‘destroyers’ ?
10. Find the word in para 8 which is the opposite of ‘discourage’.
11. Give the noun form of‘expose’.
12. Which part of speech is the word ‘sagging’ in para 9 ?
Answers:
1. Lack of sleep can cause health problems ranging from hypertension to weight gain.
2. For a good sleep drinks containing, caffeine, nicotine and alcohol should be avoided. Nothing heavy should be eaten a couple of hours before sleeping.
3. Writing down the worries before going to sleep can help manage them.
4. ‘Progressive muscle relaxation’ is a yogic exercise meant to relax the body. It means lying on the back, tensing and then releasing the body parts beginning with the feet and going towards the forehead.
5. No more than 30 to 40 watts of indirect light should be used when one is trying to sleep.
6. Within an hour of getting up in the morning, one must linger in a part of house that gets a lot of sunlight. In other words one should pass at least some time in bright light.
7. When one fails to sleep even after 20 minutes of being in the bed, one should go into another room and do something else until one gets drowsy. While doing so, the clock or watch should be avoided.
8. Mattresses must be tight and the pillows must not be deflated.
9. saboteur.
10. stimulate.
11. exposure.
12. present participle.

Passage 2
1. I remember taking punga with a German researcher in India from some provincial town. I think it was Tubingen. She declared, "Indians never travelled. It is something new for them," I asked, "inside or outside ?" She said, "both". We know that’s not true. Yes, we did not cross the seas. But there was an ancient practice of yatra or pilgrimage, since before the Buddha’s time. If you join the dots there’s a hug egrid of sacred geography underpinning this enormous subcontinent of ours and we should not be in such a hurry to accept feringhee opinions on ourselves and our ways. Do let us apply our own minds to understanding ourselves, so that neither the feringhee nor our own cynical politicians can make fools of us as they repeatedly have. Just think: there are twelve Jyotirlinga or Shaiva shrines of special sanctity scattered all over India. The Dwadasa Jyotirlinga Stotra lists them: Saurashtre Somanaatham cha, Srishaile Mallikarjunam, Ujjayinyaam Maha Kaalam, Omkaare Mamaleswaram, Himalayeto Kedaram, Daakinyaam Bhima Shankaram, Vaaranaasyaam cha Viswesam, Triyambakam Gautamitate, Paralyaam Vaidyanaatham cha, Naagesam Daarukaavane, Setubandhe Rameshwaram, Grushesam cha Shivaalaye.
2. Then you have the places where bits of Sati’s body are said to have fallen, of which two famous examples are Kamaakhya in Assam and Maihar in Madhya Pradesh. There is a separate Devi circuit memorised as "Kanchi Kamakshi, Madurai Meenakshi, Kashi Vishalakshi". There’s the Char Dham, which you’ll see shivering small-town South Indians, most woefully clad in thin woolies, staunchly assay in the Himalayas : Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri. Nothing in their entire lives has prepared them for mountain cold, but they gamely quake and quiver on this very holy pilgrimage as an act of pure faith. Each year the Amarnath pilgrims from every corner of India brave the real and present danger of terrorist attacks in J&K.
3. The south has a six-temple circuit to Kartikeya and the nine important, beautiful Navagraha temples of the Thanjavur district. Plus there are all those great stand-alone temples that you just show up at wherever you’re from and are welcomed at without questions : be it Dakshineshwar in Kolkata or Tirupati. Yes, there are issues at some temples, like not allowing women or non-Hindus. But the issue here is that there’s a dense, huge grid of tirthas and kshetras that has held up Bharat since forever. Other layers were added with Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Sikhism and Christianity.
4. The point is, sacred geography is an old, ticking concept. To dismiss it as just stories is unrealistic. Development does NOT have to be exactly there. Think how Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya became flashpoints only because a certain ruler who died in 1707 disrespected the common people’s beliefs. We’re still paying the price for his deeds, aren’t we ?
(455 words)

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow :
Questions
1. What falsehood had a German researcher told the author ?
2. Why according to the author are the foreigners and our cynical politicians able to make fools of us ?
3. What are Kamakhya and Maihar temples famous for ?
4. What makes the South Indians go to the Himalayas ?
5. What danger do the pilgrims of Amarnath face ?
6. What was the reason which made Mathura and Ayodhya the flashpoints?
7. Find a word in para 1 which means the same as ‘huge’.
8. Which word in para 1 is opposite of ‘profanity’.
Answers:
1. The German researcher had told the author that Indians never travelled. This was false.
2. The foreigners and cynical politicians are able to make fools of us because we do not apply our own minds.
3. Kamakhya and Maihar temples are famous and sacred because it is believed that the bits of Sati’s body had fallen there.
4. South Indians go to Himalayas for pilgrimage.
5. The Amarnath pilgrims face the danger of terrorism.
6. A ruler who died in 1707 did not respect the common people’s belief about the sacredness of Mathura and Ayodhya . This has made these places the flashpoints.
7. enormous.
8. sanctity.

Passage 3
The train for Gaya left at 8 p.m. and when that evening I returned to the bungalow a little before that hour, I found Lalajee with freshly washed clothes, and a bundle in his hand, a little bigger than the one he had arrived with, waiting in the veranda to say goodbye to me. When I put a ticket for Gaya and five one hundred rupee notes into his hand he, like the man with the coalgrimed face, was tongue-tied. All he could do was to keep glancing from the notes in his hand to my face, until the bell that warned passengers the train would leave in five minutes rang ; then, putting his head on my feet, he said ; ‘Within one year your slave will return you this money’.
And so Lalajee left me, taking with him the greater part of my savings. That I would see him again I never doubted, for the poor of India never forget a kindness ; but the promise Lalajee has made was, I felt sure, beyond his powers of accomplishment. In this I was wrong, for returning late one evening I saw a man dressed in spotless white standing in my veranda. The light from the room behind him was in my eyes, and I did not recognize him until he spoke. It was Lalajee, come a few days before the expiry of the time limit he had set himself. That night as he sat on the floor near my chair he told me of his trading transactions, and the success that had attended them. Starting with a few bags of grain and being content with a profit of only four annas per bag he had gradually, and steadily, built up his business until he was able to deal in consignments up to thirty tons in weight, on which he was making a profit of three rupees per ton. His son was in a good school, and as he could now afford to keep a wife he had married the daughter of a rich merchant of Patna ; all this he had accomplished in a little under twelve months. As the time drew near for his train to leave he laid five one-hundred rupee notes on my knee. Then, he took a bag from his pocket, held it out to me and said, ‘This is the interest, calculated at twenty five per cent, that I owe you on the money you lent me’. I believe I deprived him of half the pleasure he had anticipated from his visit when I told him it was not our custom to accept interest from our friends.
(438 words)

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow :
Questions
1. Who was Lalaji?
2. Why did Lalaji keep glancing from the notes to the author’s face?
3. What promise did Lalaji make to the author?
4. What did author feel about Lalaji’s promise at the time when it was made?
5. What gift of Lalaji did the author not accept?
6. Why did the author say while not accepting the interest?
7. Which word/phrase in para 1 means ‘unable to speak’.
8. What part of speech is the word ‘trading’ in para 2?
Answers:
1. Lalaji was a trader.
2. Lalaji was much surprised at the author’s generosity. He found it difficult to believe his eyes.
3. Lalaji promised to return the five hundred rupees of the author within a year.
4. The author believed in Lalaji’s honesty but he thought that it was beyond his power to return his money within a year.
5. The author did not accept the interest on his money.
6. The author said that it was not his custom to accept interest from his friends.
7. tongue-tied.
8. present participle.