Specimen Activities
On Seen Extract For Practice
1.3 The Turning Point Of My Life
Q l (A) Read the first activity, read the extract and then do all the activities that follows: (12 Marks)
A l. Complete (2)
Complete the following sentences with factual information from the extract.
I) The writer felt emancipated when------------
ii) The writer regained his health ----------
iii) The Book Society chose the novel and ---------------
iv) The aim of any individual about the job is to -------------
Extract-- (Coursebook Pg. No. 15))
I lost myself in the ferociousness of my purpose. I would not be beaten, I would not give in. I wrote harder than ever. At last, towards the end of the third month, I wrote finis. The relief, the sense of emancipation, was unbelievable. I had kept my word. I had created a book. Whether it was good, bad or indifferent I did not care.
I chose a publisher by the simple expedient of closing my eyes and pricking a catalogue with a pin. I dispatched the completed manuscript and promptly forgot about it.
In the days which followed I gradually regained my health, and I began to chafe at idleness. I wanted to e back in harness.
At last the date of my deliverance drew near. I went around the village saying good-bye to the simple folk who had become my friends. As I entered the post office, the post master presented me with a telegram-an urgent invitation to meet the publisher.I took it straight away and showed it, without a word, to John Angus.
The novel I had thrown away was chosen by the Book Society, dramatized and serialized, translated into 19languages, bought by Hollywood. It has sold millions of copies. It altered my life radically, beyond my wildest dreams... and all because of a timely lesson in the grace of perseverance.
But that lesson goes deeper still. Today, when the air resounds with shrill defeatist cries, when half our stricken world is wailing in discouragement: "What is the use...to work...to save...to go on living...with Armageddon round the comer?" I am glad to recollect it. The door is wide open to darkness and despair. The way to close that door is to go on doing whatever job we are doing and to finish it.
The virtue of all achievenent, as known to my old Scots farmer, is victory over oneself. Those who know this victory can never know defeat.
A2. Explain (2)
The writer says, The relief, the sense of emancipation, was unbelievable." Explain what the writer means by it.
A3. Guess (2)
Read the following sentence:
--------------------and all because of a timely lesson in the grace of perseverance. The sentence means -----------------
A4. Vocabulary (2)
Give antonyms of-
(i) defeat
(ii) discouragement
(iii) forgot
(iv) despair
A5. Personal Response (2)
Explain the various things one has to do to achieve victory over oneself.
A6. Grammar (2)
Rewrite the following sentences in the ways instructed:
I) I dispatched the completed manuscript and promptly forgot about it.
(Make it a simple sentence.)
ii) As I entered the post office, the Post master presented me with a telegram. (Use "No sooner".)
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