Question 2 - Chapter 2 - The Sound of Music - Beehive - Chapters (Literature) - English Class 9

Read the extract and answer the following questions- 

Extract:

But Evelyn was not going to give up. She was determined to lead a normal life and pursue her interest in music. One day she noticed a girl playing a xylophone and decided that she wanted to play it too. Most of the teachers discouraged her but percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her potential. He began by tuning two large drums to different notes. “Don’t listen through your ears,” he would say, “try to sense it some other way.” Says Evelyn, “Suddenly I realised I could feel the higher drum from the waist up and the lower one from the waist down.” Forbes repeated the exercise, and soon Evelyn discovered that she could sense certain notes in different parts of her body. “I had learnt to open my mind and body to sounds and vibrations.” The rest was sheer determination and hard work

(The Sound of the Music)

Question (i)

 State TRUE or FALSE. 

Evelyn was going to a music school in Scotland.

Answer:

Answer as written by the student:

FALSE

Step-by-step explanation:

• To answer this question, we need to evaluate whether Evelyn was going to a music school in Scotland based on the information given in the extract.
•  We can use clues from the extract and our prior knowledge to infer where Evelyn was going to a music school.
•  We can see that Evelyn was not going to a music school in Scotland, but in London. The extract says that it was her first day at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London. It also says that she was fresh from a Scottish farm, which implies that she had left Scotland to go to London.
•  We can conclude that the statement is false because Evelyn was not going to a music school in Scotland, but in London.

Question (ii)

 Why did most of the teachers discourage Evelyn from playing music? Answer in about 40 words.

Answer:

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Answer as written by the student:

Most of the teachers discouraged Evelyn from playing music because they thought that she could not do it because of her deafness. They did not believe that she had any potential or talent for music. They did not understand how she could sense sounds and vibrations.

Step-by-step explanation:

•  To answer this question, we need to explain why most of the teachers discouraged Evelyn from playing music based on the information given in the extract and our prior knowledge.
•  We can use clues from the extract and our prior knowledge to infer what they felt and thought about Evelyn and her music.
•  We can see that most of the teachers discouraged Evelyn from playing music because they thought that she could not do it because of her deafness . The extract says that most of the teachers discouraged her but percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her potential. This implies that they did not see any potential or talent in her for music because of her disability.
•  We can also see that most of the teachers did not understand how she could sense sounds and vibrations. The extract says that Ron Forbes taught her how to sense them in different parts of her body and that she had learnt to open her mind and body to them. This implies that this was a unique and unusual way of learning music that most of the teachers did not know or appreciate.
•  We can conclude that most of the teachers discouraged Evelyn from playing music because they thought that she could not do it because of her deafness. They did not believe that she had any potential or talent for music. They did not understand how she could sense sounds and vibrations.

Question (iii)

 Read the following descriptions (a)-(c) and identify which one correctly corresponds to this extract.

• (a) A flashback is a scene or an event that interrupts the present action of a story or a play to show something that happened in the past.
• (b) A foreshadowing is a hint or a clue that suggests what will happen later in a story or a play.
• (c) A suspense is a feeling of curiosity or uncertainty about what will happen next in a story or a play.

Answer:

Answer as written by the student:

(c) A suspense is a feeling of curiosity or uncertainty about what will happen next in a story or a play.

Step-by-step explanation:

• To answer this question, we need to identify which type of literary device or element is used in this extract.
•  We can use clues from the extract and our prior knowledge to infer what type of device or element it is.
•  We can see that this extract does not use a flashback because it does not interrupt the present action of the story or the play to show something that happened in the past. The extract shows what happened on Evelyn's first day at the music school, which is part of the present action of the story or the play.
•  We can also see that this extract does not use a foreshadowing because it does not hint or clue at what will happen later in the story or the play. The extract shows what happened on Evelyn's first day at the music school, which is part of the present action of the story or the play. It does not suggest anything about her future achievements or challenges as a musician.
•  We can conclude that this extract uses a suspense because it creates a feeling of curiosity or uncertainty about what will happen next in the story or the play. The extract shows how Evelyn overcame her deafness and learnt to sense sounds and vibrations with Ron Forbes' help. It makes us wonder how she will perform at the music school and whether she will succeed as a musician.

Question (iv)

 What was Evelyn’s interest that she wanted to pursue despite her deafness?

• (a) She wanted to pursue her interest in music. 
• (b) She wanted to pursue her interest in drums. 
• (c) She wanted to pursue her interest in xylophone.
• (d) She wanted to pursue her interest in percussion.

Answer:

Answer as written by the student:

(a) She wanted to pursue her interest in music.

Step-by-step explanation:

• To answer this question, we need to identify what was Evelyn’s interest that she wanted to pursue despite her deafness based on the information given in the extract.
• We can use clues from the extract to infer what her interest was.
• We can see that her interest was music because the extract says that she was determined to lead a normal life and pursue her interest in music. It also says that she noticed a girl playing a xylophone and decided that she wanted to play it too. It also says that she learnt to open her mind and body to sounds and vibrations.
• We can conclude that her interest was music.

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