UNIT 3C
A TRYST WITH BRILLIANCE
THE SECRET OF THE MACHINES, Rudyard Kipling
WORD MENAING
1. Mine
– underground place from where ore is taken out
2. Melted – made liquid by heating
3. Pit – garbage
4. Cast – direction
5. Tooled – made into tools
6. Haul – pull heavily
7. Plough – digging land
8. Weave – stitching cloth
9. Crackling – noise when something is broken
10. Hurled – throw something away with force
11. Decked – narrow path on ship to walk
A.2 Work in pairs
a. Can you think of three different things that we use machines for?
DO BY SELF
C.4 Choose the
correct options: (Page 82)
Would you call a friend from half across
the world?
If you’ll let us have his name and town
and state,
You shall see and hear your crackling
questions hurled
Across the arch of heaven while you
wait.
Has he answered? Does he need you at his
side?
You can start this very evening if you
choose,
And take the Western Ocean in the stride
Of seventy thousand horses and some screws!
a. If
you’ll let us have his name and town and state … What does the underlined word
mean in the line quoted from the poem?
ii. a region forming a part of a country
b. What has been referred to as the arch
of heaven?
iii. the sky
c. … Across the arch of heaven while you
wait… The word arch means
iii. a curved structure that supports the
weight of something above it.
d. What do the words seventy thousand
horses and some screws refer to?
i. an ocean-going ship
e. Which of these sentences can be
inferred based on the given extract?
1. We
can communicate with each other over large distances using machines.
2. We
cannot communicate halfway across the world as the curve of the Earth would
stop the signals.
3. Modern
ships can be as powerful as seventy thousand horses.
4. Modern
ships are pulled by seventy thousand horses.
ii. Sentences 1 and 3
C.6 Answer these questions briefly.
a. According to the excerpt from the poem The Secret of the
Machines, how have machine helped people communicate more easily?
According
to the excerpt from the poem, ‘The Secret of the Machines’, with the invention
of communication technology and transportation, the machine helped people communicate
more easily.
The poem
talks about the invention of the telephone and ships, which helped people to
contact their friends and family and travel longer distances.
b. Who or what is narrating this poem? How can you tell?
The
machine in this poem is narrating its own story. This we come to know from the subjects
of every lines of the poem, 'We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine. We
were melted in the furnace and the pit…’ and goes on to explain various aspects
of its existence and work it does.
c. Why do you think the words seventy thousand horses have been
used to talk about a ship?
A ship requires a lot of power to move in the ocean. This power is understood as equal to the power of a thousand horses and is termed as ‘horsepower’. Therefore, seventy thousand horses have been used to talk about the ship.
C.7 Answer the following questions in
detail.
a. The poem The Secret of the Machines highlights how
machines and tools have brought ease and convenience to our lives. Justify this
statement with examples from the poem.
Every
tool that makes our work easier and more convenient is called a machine. We are
surrounded by machines that make our daily job more manageable, eg., transport,
communication, health, comforts, education, life-style and so on; our life is
supported by machine. Mobiles, fans, vehicles, induction, iron, remote control,
screwdriver, hammer any many more, have provided us with so much convenience
that now we cannot imagine our lives without them.
b. Imagine that you are one of the tools or machines that have been
used by humans to make their life easier. Think of such a machine or tool you
want to be and write a short autobiography in about 100 words.
DO BY SELF
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