English is the study of the English language. The goal is to improve communication skills by practicing listening, speaking, reading, writing, and understanding language rules like pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dust green trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute blue bottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun. The nights are clear but suffused with sloth and sullen expectations.
But by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn mossgreen. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spilt across the flooded roads. Boats ply in the bazaars. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways. It was raining when Rahel came
back to Ayemenem.
Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, ploughing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives.In the undergrowth, a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf-strewn driveway. The house itself looked empty. The doors and windows were locked. The front verandah bare. Unfurnished.
But the sky blue Plymouth with chrome tail fins was still parked outside, and inside, Baby Kochamma was still alive. She was Rahel's baby grand aunt, her grandfather's younger sister. Her name was really Navomi, Navomi Ipe, but everybody called her Baby. She became Baby Kochamma when she was old enough to be an aunt. Rahel hadn't come to see her, though.
Neither niece nor baby grandaunt laboured under any illusions on that account. Rahel had come to see her brother, Estha. They were two-egg twins. "Dizygotic' doctors called them. Born from separate but simultaneously fertilized eggs. Estha Esthappen-was the older by 18 minutes.
What rubbed itself against a glistening stone?
Options:In 1973 a Japanese sericulturist arrives in Malawi with a batch of 40,000 silkworm eggs. They were taken to the Bvumbwe Agricultural Research Station in Thyolo District. In this station, work is being done to determine favourable silkworm rearing conditions and areas where mulberry trees, leaves the worms feed on, could grow well. According to researchers, the silkworms- which eventually develop into cocoons from which raw silk is produced – do well with warm climatic conditions.
Silk is one of the strongest of fibers. Infect, for thousands of years, silk fabrics have been regarded as the most beautiful and durable materials woven by man. Many people call silk the cloth of kings and queens’.
The weaving of silk originated in china. An old Chinese book believed to be written by Confucius, tells us that the wife of Emperor Huang ti was the first person fabrics of silk. Around 2640 B.C Emperor Huang ti asked his wife His Ling-shih to study the worms that were destroying the mulberry trees in his garden. The Empress took some of the cocoons into the palace to see what they were made of. She dropped one of the cocoons into a bowl of boiling water and was amazed to see a cobweb-like tangle separate itself from the cocoon. She picked up the gauzy mass and found that one of the threads could be unwound almost without end from the cocoon. His Ling-shih had discovered silk. She was delighted with the discovery and even wove a ceremonial robe for the Emperor out of the cocoon threads. After that, the officials in the Emperor’s court wore brightly dyed silk robes on important occasions.
People in other countries regarded the new fibers as something rare and beautiful. A few traders went to China to learn about making cloth from silk, but the Chines kept their silkworm a closely guarded secret.
According to sericulturist, silkworms Options:Delinquency describes actions that would not be crimes if performed by adults. If a young person performs one of such actions then he has committed a crime. Delinquency is one of several status offences- offences that can be committed only by people in particular stations of life as determined by age, profession or a person’s role in society. For young people such offences include drinking, driving and smoking under age usually they are offences only to the extent that they help to preserve some of the good things of life for the exclusive enjoyment of the adult world. Delinquency is therefore a weapon forged in adult pride and intolerance. If the world changed overnight and the responsibility would than certainly refer only to many of the adult actions now freely committed by them.
The writer of the passage believes that delinquency laws are Options:One day, Alan, a friend of mine, who likes country life, was fishing in a river, when he caught a trout. He tried to put fish in but it slipped off the hook, flew over his head and landed in a field behind him.
Alan put down his rod, went through the gate and started searching for his trout. Some people, obviously from the city were having a picnic in the field. One of the men shouted. ‘What on earth are you doing? Thinking that it was a silly question because they could see how hews dressed, Alan replied ‘Fishing’.
‘Don’t be silly, the fish are down in the river’, answered the man, ‘Fish don’t live fields! He turned to his friends, laughing, thinking that he had made a good joke.
Oh, but they do, ‘said Alan, They jump out of the river to look for flies and I catch them with my hands. At that moment he found his trout in the grass and picked it up and showed it to the picnickers. He put it in his basket and bent down, as if he was hunting for another one. The picnickers, no longer laughing, spent the rest of the day searching the field.
The picnickers were Options:In question below fill the gap with the appropriate option:
_____ , sign post words are used to readers
Options:In the question below choose the word(s) or phrase(s) which best fill(s) the gap(s):
He was not a very _____ student when i first met him but the years _____ his character ultimately
Options:From the options lettered A-D, choose the option that is nearest in meaning to the underlined word.
It is wise not to depend on mundane things.
Options:Fill each gap with the most appropriate option from the list following the gap.
Where _____ buses _____ ?
Options: