Short Answer Questions — 2 Marks Each

Answer: The phrase tells us that Mrs. Jones is an ordinary person who lives close to the speaker. It makes the poem feel like a small, everyday incident between two neighbours rather than a distant or serious event.

Answer: We usually think of a garden as a place full of plants, grass and flowers. Describing it as a “garden full of stones” makes Mrs. Jones’s garden seem unusual immediately.

Answer: The words help us picture an irregular path and a pond with lilies in Mrs. Jones’s garden. They make the unusual garden easier to imagine.

Answer: “Just beyond” makes us look farther into the garden. It moves our attention from the rockery towards the next feature, the sundial.

Answer: The word “strange” shows that the speaker finds the sundial unusual or odd. It tells us about his personal reaction to the object.

Answer: “Rather nice” shows that Mrs. Jones likes the sundial and is comfortable with her unusual taste in gardening.

Answer: The repeated line is “My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones,” . It is a refrain .

Answer: The line places small, delicate plants beside hard stones . The difference makes the plants seem even smaller.

Answer: The plants are very tiny and easily damaged. The words make us picture them as fragile and difficult to notice.

Answer: The line shows that the speaker thinks the tiny plants are unimportant. He does not value them in the same way as Mrs. Jones.

Answer: The speaker cannot understand how Mrs. Jones manages to fit such tiny plants into the small spaces between the stones.

Answer: The poet uses hyperbole , or a big exaggeration. Mrs. Jones does not really use a pin for gardening. The speaker exaggerates to show how tiny the plants seem to him.

Answer: The third stanza again begins with “My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones,” . This repeated line is the refrain.

Answer: “Asked me round” means that Mrs. Jones invited the speaker to visit her garden .

Answer: They are talking about one flower in Mrs. Jones’s garden.

Answer: They talk about the flower for a quarter of an hour, or fifteen minutes .

Answer: Here, “cried” means that the speaker exclaimed or called out suddenly .

Answer: The speaker expects the flower to be somewhere he can look at it, but he is actually standing on it. The unexpected answer makes the ending funny.