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Chapter 3, Two Stories about Flying, , I. His First Flight - Thinking about the Text, , 1. Why was the young seagull afraid to fly? Do all young birds are afraid, to make their first flight or are some birds more timid than the others? Do, you think a human baby also finds it a challenge to take its first step?, , Ans.: The young Seagull was afraid of flying as he thought that his wings, were not able to support him. Yes, it is a natural fact that all young birds, are afraid to make their first flight. Yes, even a human baby is also, confronted with the fear of taking its first steps., , 2. “The sight of the food maddened him.” What does this suggest? What, compelled the young seagull to finally fly?, , Ans.: “The sight of the food maddened him,” suggests that the seagull, was so hungry that when he saw the food, he excitedly wanted to have it., The young seagull had been hungry for the past 24 hours and desperately, wanted to eat something but he could not get it which made him furious., The sight of a fish in his mother’s beak who flew upwards was eventually, successful in making the seagull spread his wings for the first time. Thus,, it was the food that forced the seagull to take the risk of his life., , 3. “They were beckoning to him, calling shrilly.” Why did the seagull’s, father and mother threaten him and cajole him to fly?

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Ans.: The young seagull was afraid to fly as he thought that his wings, would not support him. His two brothers and his sister had already flown, away the day before and so, he was left alone and hungry on the ledge., His father and mother threatened to starve him on the ledge and cajoled, him to fly because learning the art of flight was very necessary for a bird., But the young seagull was too timid to fly., , 4. Have you ever had a similar experience, where your parents, encouraged you to do something that you were too scared to try? Discuss, this in pairs or groups., , Ans.: Yes, I have had a similar experience in my life. It is absolutely, natural to feel scared in doing something new. It also happened to me, when I was a small child. I had a great fear of cycling. I thought that I, would not be able to balance it properly. This feeling had seized me, , altogether. However, my parents encouraged me to conquer my fears and, go ahead., , One day my father took me to the ground with my bicycle. I began to ride, it but failed in my initial attempts. But my father’s continuous help and, support eventually helped me fearlessly in completing my first round., Then I gradually gained confidence and after the second and third rounds,, I was able to make a good balance. Thus I was able to overcome my fear, of cycling., , Q.5 In the case of a bird flying, it seems a natural act and a foregone, conclusion that it should succeed. In the examples you have given in, answer to the previous question, was your success guaranteed or was it, important for you to try, regardless of a possibility of failure?

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Ans.: When we learn any new skill, we come across a set of difficulties., However, it is these difficulties that have to be bridged in order to be, successful in learning a new skill., , In the case of the seagull, his parents cajoled him to fly., , In the same way, I was cajoled by my father to learn cycling. Although, my success was not guaranteed it was very important to try as it has been, very rightly said, “Try try until you succeed.”, , I. His First Flight — Speaking, , Q.1 We have read about the first flight of a young seagull. Your teacher, will now divide the class into groups. Each group will work on one of the, following topics. Prepare a presentation with your group member’s and, then present it to the entire class., , A) Progression of models of Airplane, B) Progression of models of Motor cars, C) Birds and their wing span, , D) Migratory birds-tracing their flights, , Ans.: A) The very first model of an aircraft was found long back in Egypt, in 1898. And, with the dream of flying in the sky came Wright brothers, from America. They were the first in the world to successfully invent and, fly the airplane. The two brothers set a milestone for the aviation industry., And today, there exist many models of airplane and aircraft., , B) The credit of inventing the first motor car goes to a French person. He, invented the first internal combustion motor car in 1808. After him,, another successful discovery of the first petrol car was invented by a

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German engineer, Karl Benz in 1885. And, then finally a diesel motor car, was invented in 1890’s by Rudolf Diesel., , C) Birds are amazing animals which can fly around in the sky and are, exist different types of species according to different environmental, conditions. Birds have wings of different lengths, some have short wings, whereas some have very large wings. The wingspan of a bird is the, distance from one wingtip to another wingtip. In the living birds, the, wandering albatross has the largest wingspan ranging from 8 ft to 11 ft., , D) The birds migrate due to various reasons. The two most important, reasons being the food and nesting conditions. Due to the scarcity of food, in one location to the regions of high resources of food. But a very, common fact is known about migrating birds is that two-thirds of the birds, prefer flying in the nights., , I. His First Flight — Writing, , Q.1 Write a short composition on your initial attempt at learning a skill., You could describe the challenges of learning to ride a bicycle or learning, to swim. Make it as humorous as possible., , Ans.: I remember that I faced a lot of difficulties in learning swimming., The Yamuna River flows near to my village and I had the fear of, swimming. But the children of my age often went there to enjoy and play, in the water. I too wanted to enjoy but was always taken aback due to my, deep seated fears. However, one day I decided to go in the river in the, presence of my uncle. He held me with his hands and I gave my first, attempt in shallow waters. Slowly I started to move my hands and legs, and gradually began to float in water. I repeated it again and again and

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within some days of rigorous practice, I gained a lot of confidence., Eventually, I overcame my fears and learned to swim confidently., , II. The Black Aeroplane - Thinking about the Text, , Q.1 Study the sentences given below:, , (a) They looked like black mountains., , (b) Inside the clouds, everything was suddenly black., , (c) In the black clouds near me, I saw another aero plane., (d) The strange black aero plane was there., , The word ‘black’ in sentences (a) and (c) refer to a very dark colour i.e., the colour of the clouds mentioned in both these sentences., , Whereas, , In sentences (b) and (d) it means lack of light or without light., , Thus, the word ‘Black’ has a variety of meanings in different contexts., Now, consider the following sentences for example:, , (a) ‘I prefer black tea’ means ‘I prefer tea without milk’., , (b) ‘With increasing pollution the future of the world is Black ‘which, means ‘with increasing pollution the future of the world is very, depressing/without hope.”, , In sentence (a) the person is conveying his preference by saying that he, prefers Black Tea which is a Tea without milk., , Whereas