Q3 Read the following passage carefully:      (5 Marks)

 The tree was young and strong and it took a long time to kill. It took two workmen with axes, two days, including tea breaks. Which without conscious irony, they took in the shade of the leafy branches of the tree they were chopping down. It was a Gulmohar I had planted 13 years ago, along with several other saplings, when Bunny and I moved into the National media centre. The NMC is built on a little over 22 acres and many hundreds of the local babul trees that used to cloak that part of the Haryana countryside like smoke from evening chullas must have been cut down to make way for the brick and cement of our colony. I’m not a tree hugger but still felt that some restitution was due. So Bunny and  I planted several saplings.

The two gulmohars at the rear were foot high saplings when we put them in the soil. In a few years their branches aflame with scarlet flowers in summer, rose above the first floor window, flooding the room with afterglow and screening from view the ugly scars of new construction in what had once been open fields behind our house. I felt the smugness of satisfaction, of having done the right thing. I’d given back, in however small a way, a little bit of what we take away from the earth everyday, everywhere.

Righteousness invites its own revenge. The roots of one of the trees had spread, crushing the sewage system. The handyman gave us the choice of either cutting down the tree or its roots would endanger the foundations of the house.

Answer the following questions by selecting the most appropriate option from the ones given below:

1)  The irony in the first para is that the

a)  The tree was planted by the author but cut by the workmen

b)  The workmen chopped the tree that gave them shade.

c)  It took 13 years for the tree to grow

d)  The author was not passionate about trees yet he planted them

 

2)  When the colony was settled, the author decided to

a)   make  the outskirts  greener

b)  plant a few saplings around the house

c)  sulk in depression

d)  start a movement

 

3)  The feeling  the newly grown gulmohar trees evoked in the author was of

a)  remorse

b)  pride

c)  self - satisfaction

d)  regret

 

 

 

 

4)  The writer had to get the free felled because

a)  he was being righteous

b)  the house was in danger of being destroyed

c)  the tree had grown too tall

d)  the sewage system was damaged

 

 

5)  Being righteous means

a)  Doing things the correct way

b)  Being aware of your rights

c)  Following your heart

d)  Conscious of the ways of the world