Test No: Name:

Date: Reg. No:

Sub: English III Dept
F. “These damned rich!” exclaimed Dittu contemptuously. As he parked his taxi opposite his
kholi, he noticed a wallet lying on the back seat bulging with currency notes. Evidently it
belonged to some passenger. Rather than feel happy about it - it was a windfall - Dittu felt
frightfully uneasy. What should he do with it? It was already late in the evening. He had been
plying his taxi throughout the length and breadth of the town the whole day. His last
passenger he had picked him up on the roadside and dropped him at the railway station.
Where could he look for the owner of the purse?
Dittu was convinced that money found like this was always accused. He had already suffered
once. Some hussy had forgotten her attaché - case in his taxi. They hardly have their wits
about them. These moneyed people. Every article in the attaché - case was like the plague. It
was then that his wife contacted leukoderma. She put on someone else’s blouse and sari. The
stupid woman! And was afflicted with the incurable malady.
For a long time thereafter, whosoever engaged his taxi, Dittu would first ask the name and
address of the passenger. People thought that the Sikh taxi driver was crazy. Dittu explained
to them, “You rich folk are most careless. You may leave something behind in the taxi. And
then it becomes a problem for the poor taxi driver. He can neither return it nor retain it.”
Dittu had to give up this practice because every time he asked this question, the passengers
would start arguing with him. And today it had happened again. Now if only he knew the
name and address of the passengers, he could have gone and returned the purse and have
done with it.
Whenever he saw the white blotches on his wife’s face, he told himself, “I will never have
anything to do with what doesn’t belong to me,”
With someone else’s wallet in his hand today. Dittu remembered an incident that had taken
place several years ago in the main bazaar of their home town back in Pakistan. He was then
not Dittu, the refugee: he was young Hardit Singh, son of well to do parents. He had just
finished his matriculation examination. One evening when he was passing through the bazaar
on his bicycle, he saw a parcel lying in the middle of the road. He got down from the bicycle
and picked it up. It was properly sealed. It was also fairly heavy. He looked around. The
traffic in the bazaar seemed endless. The shopkeepers were preoccupied with their customer.
Nobody seemed to have noticed him. Without giving it any thought. Dittu put his feet on the
pedal and rode out of the bazaar with the parcel. At the very first opportunity, he’s topped in a
secluded corner and started to open the parcel - one layer of the packing paper, another, still
another, and then layer after layer. It looked as though someone had played a trick. The parcel
was so many layers of packing paper, and nothing else. The shopkeepers who are maligned
day in and day out were obviously testing the honesty of the common citizens. And Dittu felt
he had blackened his face. He felt like a bewitched hen. Every bit of his body seemed to be
disintegrating. Some shopkeeper had made a fool of him. He ought to have handed over the
parcel to one of the shopkeepers around. The one who had supposedly lost it would have
come looking for it and the shopkeeper could have restored it to him. On the contrary, Dittu
had picked it up and hurried out of the bazaar riding his cycle.
Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
1. Why did Dittu give up the practice?
2. What does it mean “These damned rich!”

G. The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with which the law expected
him to rehabilitate himself into good citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar,
Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
and shook hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books, "Pardoned by Governor,"
and Mr. James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.
Disregarding the song of the birds, the waving green trees, and the smell of the flowers,
Jimmy headed straight for a restaurant. There he tasted the first sweet joys of liberty in the
shape of a broiled chicken and a bottle of white wine--followed by a cigar a grade better than
the one the warden had given him. From there he proceeded leisurely to the depot. He tossed
a quarter into the hat of a blind man sitting by the door, and boarded his train. Three hours set
him down in a little town near the state line. He went to the cafe of one Mike Dolan and
shook hands with Mike, who was alone behind the bar.
"Sorry we couldn't make it sooner, Jimmy, me boy," said Mike. "But we had that protest from
Springfield to buck against, and the governor nearly balked. Feeling all right?"
"Fine," said Jimmy. "Got my key?"
He got his key and went upstairs, unlocking the door of a room at the rear. Everything was
just as he had left it. There on the floor was still Ben Price's collar-button that had been torn
from that eminent detective's shirt-band when they had overpowered Jimmy to arrest him.
Pulling out from the wall a folding-bed, Jimmy slid back a panel in the wall and dragged out
a dust-covered suit-case. He opened this and gazed fondly at the finest set of burglar's tools in
the East. It was a complete set, made of specially tempered steel, the latest designs in drills,
punches, braces and bits, jimmies, clamps, and augers, with two or three novelties, invented
by Jimmy himself, in which he took pride. Over nine hundred dollars they had cost him to
have made at----, a place where they make such things for the profession.
In half an hour Jimmy went down stairs and through the cafe. He was now dressed in tasteful
and well-fitting clothes, and carried his dusted and cleaned suit-case in his hand.
"Got anything on?" asked Mike Dolan, genially.
"Me?" said Jimmy, in a puzzled tone. "I don't understand. I'm representing the New York
Amalgamated Short Snap Biscuit Cracker and Frazzled Wheat Company."
This statement delighted Mike to such an extent that Jimmy had to take a seltzer-and-milk on
the spot. He never touched "hard" drinks.
A week after the release of Valentine, 9762, there was a neat job of safe-burglary done in
Richmond, Indiana, with no clue to the author. A scant eight hundred dollars was all that was
secured. Two weeks after that a patented, improved, burglar-proof safe in Logansport was
opened like a cheese to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars, currency; securities and silver
untouched. That began to interest the rogue- catchers. Then an old-fashioned bank-safe in
Jefferson City became active and threw out of its crater an eruption of bank-notes amounting
to five thousand dollars. The losses were now high enough to bring the matter up into Ben
Price's class of work. By comparing notes, a remarkable similarity in the methods of the
burglaries was noticed.

1. What does the statement refer to "Got anything on?"

Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
2. Explain the role of the clerk.

H. The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

1. What is the Quality of Mercy?

2. What is the Rhyming Scheme of the poem?
3. Define the form of the poem.

I. Even rocks crack, I'm telling you,

and not on account of age.
For years they lie on their backs
in the heat and the cold,
so many years,
Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
it almost creates the illusion of calm.
They don't move, so the cracks stay hidden.
A kind of pride.
Years pass over them as they wait.
Whoever is going to shatter them
hasn't come yet.
And so the moss flourishes, the seaweed
whips around,
the sea bursts forth and rolls back --
and still they seem motionless.
Till a little seal comes to rub up against the rocks,
comes and goes.
And suddenly the rock has an open wound.
I told you, when rocks crack, it comes as a surprise.
All the more so, people.
1. What does pride refer to here?
2. Define the form of the poem.

J. NARRATOR 1: Many years ago, in the north of Ireland, there lived a giant named Fin
MacCool.
FIN: (proudly, to audience) That’s me name!
NARRATOR 4: One thing Fin is said to have done was to make a road that crossed the sea
from Ireland to Scotland. You can still see what’s supposed to be the first stretch of that road.
It’s called the Giant’s Causeway, and it’s a group of great rocks all fitting together.
Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
NARRATOR 2: Now, this story happened when Fin was building his road. At the time we’re
talking about, Fin was a worried giant. He’d been told that another giant, called Cuhullin, was
looking for him to challenge him to a fight, to find out which of them was the strongest.
CUHULLIN: (growls, to audience)
NARRATOR 3: This Cuhullin was said to have beaten every giant in Ireland except Fin, and
the thought of meeting him face to face made Fin shake in his boots.
NARRATOR 1: Well, when Fin had been working away from home a good many months, he
took it into his head to go home and see his wife, a fine woman named Oona. It was two
counties away—but sure that wasn’t far for a man like Fin.
NARRATOR 4: He pulled up a fir tree by its roots—a full-grown tree, mind you—and
stripped off the branches to make himself a walking stick. Then off he set, and in no time at
all he reached his own mountain and the house he’d built on it, and there was Oona to greet
him.
FIN: (heartily, with arms outstretched) Oona, me love!
OONA: (warmly) Ach, Fin, it’s glad I am to see you. I hope you’re a bit hungry, for I fixed a
little something when I saw you coming.
NARRATOR 2: She sat him down to a grand meal of three whole roast oxen, thirty boiled
cabbages, and a pile of her best bread loaves, which she’d just taken from the oven.
FIN: (starts eating) A finer cook never filled this great belly! (keeps eating, but distractedly)
NARRATOR 3: But Oona could see that her husband was worried about something.
OONA: What ails you, Fin?
FIN: Ach, Oona, it’s this Cuhullin.
NARRATOR 1: Fin told her how the dreaded giant was looking for him.
FIN: And every time I suck me thumb, I get more worried about him.
NARRATOR 4: You see, Fin had a magic thumb, and if he sucked it, it would warn him of
any danger.
NARRATOR 2: Now, Oona was worried too, but she had an idea.
OONA: Go now, and look across the mountain for his coming. You’re sure to see him on his
way, and that’ll give us time to prepare a welcome.
NARRATOR 3: So Fin MacCool did what his wife bid, for he knew her to be a woman of
great good sense. And inside the house, Oona cleared the table and began baking a new batch
of bread loaves. These were the big, flat loaves you can see in Ireland to this day. But this
was a special batch indeed, for inside each loaf she put a great iron griddle.

1. Explain the role of Fin here.

Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
2. Describe the main theme of the tale.

K. Exercise 1: Change into indirect speech

Read the following sentences and convert them into indirect speech.

1. Rahul told to me, “When are you leaving?”

2. “Where do you live?” the stranger asked Aladdin.

3. The teacher said to Shelly, “Why are you laughing?”

Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
4. Dhronacharya said to Arjun, “Shoot the bird’s eye.”

5. “Call the first convict,” said the jury.

6. “Call the ambulance,” said the man.

7. Bruce said to me, “I shall do the work.”

8. My mother said to me, “You were wrong.”

9. Mr Richard said to me, “Please wait here till I return.”

10. The captain said to me, “Bravo! You have played well.”

L. Exercise 1: Change into indirect speech

Read the following sentences and convert them into direct speech

1. Raj exclaimed sadly that his pet died.

2. Ruchi said that she might go there.

Test No: Name:
Date: Reg. No:
Sub: English III Dept
3. Bucky asked Steve if he heard him.

4. The boy asked to let him come in.

5. Granny prayed that God might bless me