Class 7 English An Alien Hand Question Answers - Short & Long Questions with Solutions: The Tiny Teacher

Short Answer Type Questions

Q1: Who looks after the grubs and how?
Ans: Soldiers and workers look after the grubs. Soldiers guard them. Workers feed and clean them, and also carry them about daily for airing, exercise and sunshine.

Q2: How much time do grubs take for becoming cocoons? What do the cocoons do after that?
Ans: Grubs take two or three weeks for becoming cocoons. After that cocoons lie with- out-food or activity for three weeks more. Then they break and perfect ants ap­pear.

Q3: Why do ants want alien creatures to live in their nests?
Ans: Some give off smell pleasant to the ants’ senses; others give sweet juices; and some are just pets or playthings like cats and dogs to human beings.

Q4: Why do the ants train the greenfly?
Ans: The greenfly is the ants’ cow. The ants train it to give honeydew (like milk) with a touch of their antennae. They milk it just as we milk the cow.

Q5: What are the functions of feelers or antennae for an ant?
Ans: An ant uses its feelers or antennae to talk to other ants. It passes messages through them. It greets other ants by touching one another’s feelers.

Q6: What do you know about worker ants?
Ans: Worker ants live in their reserved quarters. They search for food most of their time. They do only their own share of work.

Long Answer Type Questions
Q1: What do you know about the homes of the ants?
Ans: The homes of the ants are called ‘nests’ or ‘anthills’. Each nest has hundreds of little rooms and passages. The queen ant lays eggs in some of the rooms. Other rooms serve as nurseries for the gurbs ( young ants). Some rooms serve as store houses for food. Some rooms serve as reserved quarters for workers or barracks for soldiers. Cleaners also live in the nests.

Q2: What do you know about the queen ant?
Ans: The queen ant is known as the ‘Mother Ant’. It has a pair of wings. It bites them off after its ‘wedding fight’. This fight takes place on a hot summer day. The queen leaves the nest and goes out to meet a male ant, or drone, high up in the air. On its return to earth, it gets rid of its wings and then does nothing but lay eggs.

Q3: Mention three things we can learn from the ‘tiny teacher’. Give reasons for choosing these items.

Ans: We can learn team work from ants as they do their work by sharing and contributing without interference in other’s work. We can learn hard work as ants spend most of their time in doing their respective jobs without hesitation. We can learn discipline as ants live a disciplined life and always follow the rules of their group and are loyal towards it.

Q4: How ants interact with each other?

Ans: An ant’s uses its feelers or antennae to ‘talk’ to other ants by passing massage through them watch a row of ants of moving up or down the wall. Each and greets all the others coming from the opposite direction by teaching their feelers.

Q5: How eggs are turned into ants?

Ans: Eggs are hatched and grubs come out soldiers guard them. Workers feed and clean them, and also carry them about daily for airing, exercise and sunshine. Two or three weeks later, grubs become cocoons and lie without food or activity for three weeks more. Then the cocoons break and perfect ants appear. New ants learn their duties from old ant’s as workers, soldiers, builders, cleaners, etc. After a few weeks training the small ants are ready to go out into the big world of work.