Chapter 1
Thinking about the Text
I. Answer these questions in a few words or a couple of sentences each.
1. How old are Margie and Tommy?
Answer: Margie is eleven and Tommy is thirteen years old.
2. What did Margie write in her diary?
Answer: Margie wrote in her diary “Today Tommy found a real book!”
3. Had Margie ever seen a book before?
Answer: No, Margie had never seen a book before.
4. What things about the book did she find strange?
Answer: The things about the book that she found strange were the following:
i) The pages of the book were yellow and crinkly.
ii) The words stood still instead of moving.
iii) When they turned back to the previous page, it still had the same words on it that it had when they first read it.
5. What do you think a telebook is?
Answer: I think the telebook must be a book that gets displayed on the screen of the television.
6. Where was Margie’s school? Did she have any classmates?
Answer: Margie’s school was next to her bedroom. No, she did not have any classmates.
7. What subjects did Margie and Tommy learn?
Answer: Margie and Tommy learnt Geography, History and Arithmetic.
II. Answer the following with reference to the story.
1. “I wouldn’t throw it away.”
(i) Who says these words?
(ii) What does ‘it’ refer to?
(iii) What is it being compared with by the speaker?
Answer: (i) Tommy says these words.
(ii) “It” refers to the books.
(iii) The paperback book is being compared with the telebooks by the speaker.
2. “Sure they had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular teacher. It was a man.”
(i) Who does ‘they’ refer to?
(ii) What does ‘regular’ mean here?
(iii) What is it contrasted with?
Answer: (i) “They” refers to the students centuries ago.
(ii) “Regular” means the usual for the people in 2157. Here, regular teacher means the mechanical teacher.
(iii) The mechanical teacher is contrasted with humans as teachers of earlier times.
III. Answer each of these questions in a short paragraph (about 30 words).
1. What kind of teachers did Margie and Tommy have?
Answer:Margie and Tommy were taught by mechanical teachers. These teachers were computers with large screens that displayed lessons and asked questions. They didn’t go to school or have human teachers.
2. Why did Margie’s mother send for the County Inspector?
Answer: Margie’s mother sent for the County Inspector because the mechanical teacher of Margie was not functioning properly. It kept giving Margie Geography tests and Margie was performing worse every time. Margie’s mother was concerned and thus sent for the County Inspector.
3. What did he do?
Answer:The County Inspector gave Margie an apple and checked her mechanical teacher. He repaired it by slowing down the geography section and explained that it was set too fast for her age.
4. Why was Margie doing badly in geography? What did the County Inspector do to help her?
Answer: argie couldn’t do well in geography because her mechanical teacher was too fast for her to understand. The County Inspector fixed it by adjusting the speed to suit her age.
5. What had once happened to Tommy’s teacher?
Answer:Once, Tommy’s mechanical teacher stopped working because the history section had completely failed. It had to be removed entirely for a month to get repaired.
Answer: Yes, Margie followed a fixed schedule for school. Her mother thought that studying at the same time every day would help her learn more effectively, just like in a real school.
7. How does Tommy describe the old kind of school?
Answer: Tommy says that the old kind of school had special buildings. All the kids went to that building for studying.
IV. Answer each of these questions in two or three paragraphs (100 –150 words).
1: What are the main features of the mechanical teachers and the schoolrooms that Margie and Tommy have in the story?
Answer:The main features of the mechanical teachers that Margie and Tommy have are as follows:
The mechanical teachers have big black screens on which lessons are displayed and questions are asked. The students need to put their homework and test papers in a slot that is present in the mechanical teacher. The students write answers in punch code and the mechanical teacher calculates the results right away.
The main features of the schoolrooms that Margie and Tommy have are given below:
In the story, the schools are there in the homes. For instance, Margie’s school was right next to her bedroom. The students do not have classmates. They study subjects like arithmetic, history, geography, etc. The mechanical teacher would turn on at the same time every day except on the weekends.
2: Why did Margie hate school? Why did she think the old kind of school must have been fun?
Answer: Margie hated school because she felt it boring. The mechanical teacher started the class at the same time regularly. Margie’s mechanical teacher was giving her test after test on Geography and she was performing badly.
Margie also did not like inserting homework and test papers in the slot on the mechanical teacher.
She thought that the old kind of school must have been fun because it would have had kids from various places of the neighbourhood. It would have been so interesting to sit together in the classroom and leave the school together at the end of the day. All the kids learned the same things so they could help each other in studies and homework.
Question 3: Do you agree with Margie that schools today are more fun than the school in the story? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer: Yes, I agree with Margie that schools today are more fun than the school in the story. In the story, the schools are in the students’ homes. This gives no space for interaction between students. Studying from screen and taking up tests sounds boring. Inserting homework and test papers in a slot on a mechanical teacher every day is monotonous. Writing answers in punch codes is even more draining.
Learning together in a class gives students a wider view of the people. Students also get familiar with others and learn how to interact and socialize. Getting taught by human teachers is way more dynamic than being taught by a machine. If there is any issue with any lesson or concept, the student can ask the human teacher then and there. But, mechanical teachers are programmed with a certain lesson and concept for a particular day. When the student solves homework, he/she can get help from classmates. That’s how the schools today are more fun than the school in the story.
Thinking about Language
