NCERT Class 6:Honey Suckle:The Banyan Tree

Textual Questions and Exercises

Q1. Complete the following sentences.

1. The old banyan tree “did not belong” to grandfather, but only to the boy, because the grandfather at sixty-five could no longer climb it.

2. The small gray squirrel became friendly when he found that the boy did not arm himself with catapult or air-gun.

3. When the boy started to bring him pieces of cake and biscuit, the squirrel quite bold and was soon taking morsels from the author’s hand.

4. In the spring, the banyan tree was full of small red figs and birds of all kinds would come there.

5. The banyan tree served the boy as a library.

6. The young boy spent his afternoons in the tree when it was not too hot

Q2. Answer the following questions.

“It was to be a battle of champions.”

(i) What qualities did the two champions have? Pick out words and phrases from the paragraph above this line in the text and write them down.

 

Cobra	Mongoose
(a) superb fighter	(a) skilful
(b) clever	(b) experienced
(c) aggresive	(c) swift

 

Q3. What did the cobra and the mongoose do, to show their readiness for the fight?

 Ans. To show its readiness for the fight, the cobra hissed defiance, his forked tongue darting in and out. It raised three of its six feet off the ground, and spread its broad and spectacled hood. The mongoose bushed his tail. The long hair on his spine stood up.

Q4. Who were the other two spectators? What did they do? (Did they watch, or did they join in the fight?)

 Ans. The other two spectators were a jungle crow and a myna. They settled on a cactus to watch the outcome. But they did not just watch. They tried to join the fight by hurling themselves at the cobra.

Q5. Read the descriptions below of what the snake did and what the mongoose did. Arrange their actions in the proper order.

Ans.

Cobra	Mongoose
(ii) tried to mesmerise the mongoose	• refused to look into the snake’s eyes
(vi) struck on the side that the mongoose pretended to attack	• pretended to attack the cobra on side
(v) struck again and missed	• sprang aside, jumped in and bit
(iv) struck the crow	• darted away and bit the cobra on the back
(iii) coiled itself around the mongoose	• grabbed the snake by the snout
(i) ceased to struggle	• dragged the snake into the bushes

Q6. What happened to the crow in the end?

 Ans. In the end the crow flung nearly twenty feet across the garden by a blow from the cobra’s snout. It fluttered about for a while and then lay still.

Q7. What did the myna do finally?

 Ans. Myna finally dropped cautiously to the ground, hopped about, peered into the bushes from a safe distance and then with a shrill cry of congratulations flew away.

Working with Language

Q1. The word ‘round’ usually means a kind of shape. What is its meaning in the story?

 Ans. The word ’round’ in the story means the different phases of the fight between the cobra and the mongoose.

Q2. Find five words in the following paragraph, which are generally associated with trees. But here, they have been used differently. Underline the words.

Hari leaves for work at nine every morning. He works in the local branch of the firm of which his uncle is the owner. Hari’s success is really the fruit of his own labour. He is happy, but he has a small problem. The root cause of his problem is a stray dog near his office. The dog welcomes Hari with a loud bark every day.

Ans. Leaves, branch, fruit, root and bark.

Q3. The words in the box are all words that describe movement. Use them to fill in the blanks in the sentences below.

 

Dived

Gliding

Sprang

Darting

Whipped….back

Delving

1. When he began to trust me, the squirrel began delving into my pockets for morsels of cake.
2. I saw a cobra gliding out of a clump of cactus.
3. The snake hissed, his forked tongue darting in and out.
4. When the cobra tried to bite it, the mongoose sprang aside.
5. The snake whipped his head back to strike at the crow.
6. The birds dived at the snake.

Q4. Find words in the story, which show things striking violently against each other.

1. The cobra struck the crow, his snout thudding against its body.
2. The crow and the myna collided in mid-air.
3. The birds dived at the snake, but bumped into each other instead.

Q5. Choose would and could to replace the italicised words in the following sentences.

A

Ans.1. elephants could fly in the sky like clouds. They could change their shapes. They would fly behind clouds and frighten them. People would look up at the sky and wonder.

2. because there was no electricity, he would get up with the sun, and he would go to bed with the sun, like the birds.

3. like the owl, he could see quite well in the dark. He could tell who was coming by listening to their footsteps.