You are going to go through FOR A FIVE-YEAR-OLD Chapter 4 Poem Extra Questions And Answers OF Karnataka Board Class 8. Understanding a text meticulously in its entirety is very important for a learner for scoring better in the exam. Experts made ample to ensure a thorough critical and line-by-line analysis. Let us find FOR A FIVE-YEAR-OLD Chapter 4 Poem Extra Questions And Answers OF Karnataka Board Class 8.
Extra questions
Comprehension:
Read the following extracts and answer the questions that follow:
Question 1. I explain That it would be unkind to leave it there:
Who is ‘I’? What does ‘it’ refer to? Why would it be unkind to leave it there?
Answer:
T is the mother or the poet.
‘It’ refers to the snail.
It would be unkind to leave the snail there as it might crawl to the floor and get crushed under one’s foot.
Question 2. I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
Your gentleness is moulded still by words.
What is the faith referred to?
In the extract, whose character has been moulded by words, according to the poet?
Is it correct to say that gentleness is still moulded by words of advice?
Answer:
The faith that character fs built by words of advice than by imitation of others.
The character of the five-year-old child.
No, it is not true to say so. It is only a prevailing belief, not based on truth.
Question 3. And who purveyed the harshest kind of truth to many another.
From which poem are these lines taken? Who has purveyed the harshest kind of truth? What is the truth purveyed?
Answer:
From the poem ‘To a Five Year Old’.
The mother. The truth that there is a difference between what we preach and what we practise.
Extra Questions And Answers of FOR A FIVE-YEAR-OLD Chapter 4 Poem Karnataka Board Class 8
Summary
“Practise what you preach” is an old saying. The poet, in this poem, brings out the contradictions in our behaviour. A mother is a speaker in the poem. She narrates an incident and points out the big difference between what we preach and what we practise.
A child sees a snail climbing up the windowsill into his room. It calls its mother to see it. The mother tells the child that it is unsafe for the snail to be left like that.
It might crawl to the floor and might get crushed under one foot. The child understands. It picks up the snail gently, carries it outside carefully and leaves it near a daffodil plant so that it could feed on a daffodil flower.
The mother is happy that still, the belief that gentleness and good character are learnt by words of advice prevails. Children develop such good qualities by listening to what parent and other elders say.
Extra Questions And Answers of FOR A FIVE-YEAR-OLD Chapter 4 Poem Karnataka Board Class 8
At the same time, she feels guilty. She has advised her child to be kind and compassionate towards the snail, but she had killed mice, wild birds, kittens and so on.
She had not treated her relatives properly. Also, she had conveyed the harshest kind of truth to many others, without bothering how it would affect them. She had not practised what she wanted her child to learn.
She consoles herself at the end. And, she is practical-minded and knows that is how things are happening around her. People say one thing and do exactly the opposite. It reminds us of another saying “Do as I say, but don’t do as I do”. The mother consoles herself saying that she and her child are kind to snails.