Extract Based Questions: The Midnight Visitor | English Class 10 PDF Download

Read the following extracts carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Q1: And then there was his accent. Though he spoke French and German passably, he had never altogether lost the American accent he had brought to Paris from Boston twenty years ago.
(a) Who is ‘he’ in the above extract?
(b) Where is he at present?
(c) Find the word from the extract that means the opposite of ‘fluently’.
(d) What is the present tense of ‘speak’?
Ans: (a) ‘He’ in the above extract is Ausable, a secret agent.
(b) At present he is about to enter his room on the sixth floor of a French hotel.
(c) The word is ‘passably’.
(d) ‘Speak’ is its present tense.

Q2: “You are disillusioned”, Ausable told him. “But take cheer, my young friend. Presently you will see a paper, a quite important paper for which several men and women have risked their lives, come to me. Some day soon that paper may well affect the course of history. In that thought is drama, is there not?” [CBSE2015]
(a) Who is ‘my young friend’ in the above extract?
(b) What is the ‘important paper’ referred to here?
(c) Find a word from the passage that means the same as ‘disappointed’.
(d) What is the opposite ofjimportant’?
Ans:
(a) ‘My young friend’ in the above extract is Fowler, a young romantic writer.
(b) The ‘important paper’ referred to here is a report regarding some new missiles.
(c) The word is ‘disillusioned’.
(d) Its opposite is ‘unimportant’.

Q3: And as the light came on, Fowler had his first authentic thrill of the day. For halfway across the room, a small automatic pistol in his hand, stood a man.
(a) Who is the ‘man’ referred to in the above extract?
(b) Why did the ‘man’ have a pistol in his hand?
(c) What is meant by the phrase ‘authentic thrill’ in the above extract?
(d) What is the opposite of ‘automatic’?
Ans: (a) The ‘man’ referred to in the above extract is Max, a secret agent.
(b) He had’ a pistol in his hand because he wanted to forcibly take the report on new missiles from Ausable.
(c) The meaning is ‘real feeling of excitement’.
(d) Its opposite is ‘manual’.

Q4: “You can get onto it from the empty room two doors down – and somebody did, last month. The management promised to block it off. But they haven’t.” [CBSE2012]
(a) Who is speaking these words to whom?
(b) What is ‘it’ in the above extract?
(c) Find a phrase in the passage that means the same as ‘close it up’.
(d) The opposite of ’empty’ is………..
Ans: (a) Ausable is speaking these words to Fowler, but he also wants Max to hear them.
(b) ‘It’ refers to the (non-existent) balcony.
(c) The jphrase is ‘block it off.
(d) Its opposite is ‘full’.