Unseen Passage - 2 | English Grammar Class 8 PDF Download

Important Tips to score good marks in the unseen passage

• You should know the meaning of every word in the passage.
• After reading the passage completely, come to a question and find the answer.
• Ensure that you find a correct answer before writing them.
• Write your answers in the same tense in which questions is given.
• Try to write the answer on the basis of information given in the passage. Do not try to write the answer in your view, expression, and Imagination.
• Answers the question in your own language we should see that answer is clear and complete in itself.
• After writing the answer, don’t forget to check your answer if there is a mistake then correct it.
• Follow time management during your exam. Because you have another question in your exams. So, find that how much time is needed you to write the answer by solving our unseen passage for class 8 in English. If you take much more time to write the answer try to manage it.

1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:

1. I met Mr. Franks at Susie’s birthday party. Susie had told me, “He’s my grandpa’s closest friend – lives in the Home for the Aged. He must be eighty at least!” I took a great liking to Mr. Franks the moment I started talking to him. He had a great enthusiasm for life, despite his poor health – and the most interesting stories to tell. His anecdotes kept us laughing and amused throughout the evening. As I rose to get back to my school hostel, he said, “Why don’t you come and see me at the Home sometime? Though you might think it boring to sit and chat with an old man like me!” I assured him that I would surely come with Susie to the Home to meet him. From then on, I met Mr. Franks every Wednesday. He would be sitting in his tiny garden and soaking in the warm winter sunshine. He had been an expert gardener in his younger days and had many certificates to prove it.

2. Mr. Franks had served in the army, and somehow most of his anecdotes were an amusing mixture of plant and military life. “You know, misunderstandings can be quite embarrassing sometimes! Once when I was away on leave, our unit mess got the electricity connection they had been wanting for quite some time. I did not know that. When I returned, the colonel asked me to get new bulbs put in the whole mess. I informed him that I had already put in the bulbs, and could not put in new ones. He was extremely angry at me for disobeying orders and we continued arguing. It was only much later that we realized that he was talking of the electric bulbs and I of the bulbs of the lily plant!”

I. On the basis of your reading of the passage, choose the correct option to complete each of the statements below:

(i) Mr. Franks was ______.
(a) the narrator’s grandfather
(b) a friend of the narrator’s grandfather
(c) Susie’s grandfather
(d) the closest friend of Susie’s grandfather

Correct Answer is Option (d)

(ii) Mr. Franks lived in ______.
(a) his own little house with a tiny garden
(b) a home for the aged
(c) the school hostel
(d) the same house as Susie’s grandfather

Correct Answer is Option (b)

(iii) Mr. Franks had been a good gardener in his younger days and he had
______ to prove it.
(a) many certificates
(b) many gardening magazines
(c) many flowers
(d) a tiny garden

Correct Answer is Option (a)

(iv) Mr. Franks had confused ______ with electric bulbs and refused to put new bulbs in the mess when ordered by the colonel.
(a) bulbs of the onion plant
(b) bulbs of the daffodil plant
(c) bulbs of the lily plant
(d) bulbs of the tulip plant

Correct Answer is Option (c)

(v) The word ‘anecdotes’ means ______.
(a) a kind of antibiotics
(b) short, interesting stories about real people or events
(c) photograph albums
(d) fairy tales

Correct Answer is Option (b)

II. Unscramble the following words and phrases to make meaningful sentences and rewrite them on the lines given:
(i) spring-blooming / tulips / plants / are ______.

Tulips are spring-blooming plants.

(ii) are / and / flowers / usually large / the / coloured / brightly

The flowers are usually large and brightly coloured.

(iii) have been/ from the / in / tulips / century / cultivated/ Asia / tenth

Tulips have been cultivated in Asia from the tenth century. / …… from the tenth century in Asia

III. Choose the word with the correct spelling:
(i) (a) coloumn
(b) colum
(c) column
(d) colomn

Correct Answer is Option (c)

(ii) (a) embroidered
(b) embroydered
(c) imbrodered
(d) embroidered

Correct Answer is Option (a)

(iii) (a) palaquin
(b) pallacuin
(c) pallanquin
(d) palanquin

Correct Answer is Option (d)

(iv) (a) seemstress
(b) seamstress
(c) seamtress
(d) seamtrace

Correct Answer is Option (b)

IV. Write the meanings of the words given below. Provide the contextual meaning where mentioned:

(i) Grate (contextual): ______

Grate (contextual): frame of metal bars for confining fuel in the recess of fireplace/ furnace

(ii) Gilded: ______

Gilded: covered with a thin layer of gold or gold paint

(iii) Sensible: ______

Sensible: having or showing common sense/ practical/ realistic

(v) Curious (contextual): ______

Curious (contextual): odd/ strange/ peculiar

V. Frame a meaningful sentence of your own with the word given below:

(i) Fanning: ______

Any meaningful sentence of the student’s own

VI. Read the extract given below carefully and answer the questions that follow:

“Alas! I have no ruby now. My eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought from India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him.”

(i) Who said this to whom?

… the Happy Prince…..the Swallow.

(ii) Why did the speaker not have the ruby with him any longer?

… to the poor seamstress …. son … ill , crying … nothing to give him except water.

(iii) To whom does ‘him’ refer? What did the speaker want to give ‘him’?

… ‘him’ – young playwright/ writer/ writer of plays…. wanted to give ‘him’ … one of his sapphire eyes.