Question

My grandmother’s house is like a chambered sea shell. It has many rooms, yet it is not a

mansion. Its proportions are small and its design simple. It is a house that has grown

organically, according to the needs of its inhabitants. To all of us in the family it is known as

La casa de Mama. It is the place of our origin; the stage for our memories and dreams of

Island life.

I remember how in my childhood it sat on stilts; this was before it had a downstairs-it rested

on its perch like a great blue bird-not a flying sort of bird, more like a nesting hen, but with

spread wings.

Grandfather had built it soon after their marriage. He was a painter and house builder by

trade-a poet and meditative man by nature. The eight rooms reminded us that they were

built one by one as children were born. After a few years, the paint didn’t exactly match, nor

the materials, so that there was a chronology to it, like the rings of a tree, and Mama could

tell you the history of each room in her casa, and thus the genealogy of the family along

with it.

Her own room is the heart of the house. Though I have seen it recently- and both woman

and room have diminished in size, changed by the new perspective of my eyes, now capable

of looking over countertops and tall beds-it is not this picture I carry in my memory of

Mama’s casa. Instead, I see her room as a queen’s chamber where a small woman loomed

large, a throne room with a massive four poster bed in its center, which stood taller than a

child’s head.

It was on this bed, where her own children had been born, that the smallest grandchildren

were allowed to take naps in the afternoons; here too was where Mama secluded herself to

dispense private advice to her daughters, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at

whoever sat on the rocker where generations of babies had been sung to sleep. To me she

looked like a wise Empress right out of the fairy tales I was addicted to reading.

And there was the monstrous wardrobe she kept locked with a little golden key she did not

hide. This was a test of her dominion over us; though my cousins and I wanted a look inside

that massive wardrobe more than anything, we never reached for that little key lying on top

of her Bible on the dresser. This was also where she placed her earrings and rosary when

she took them off at night. God’s word was her security system. This wardrobe was the

place where I imagined she kept jewels, satin slippers, and elegant silk, sequined gowns of

heartbreaking fineness.

I lusted after those imaginary costumes. I had heard that Mama had been a great beauty in

her youth, and the belle of many balls. My cousins had ideas as to what she kept in that wooden vault: its secret could be money (Mama’s did not hand cash to strangers, banks

were out of the question), so there were stories that her mattress was stuffed with dollar

bills, and that she buried coins in jars in her garden under rose-bushes, or kept them in her

untouched wardrobe there might be that legendary gun salvaged from the Spanish American

conflict over the Island. We went wild over suspected treasures that we made up simply

because children have to fill locked trunks with something wonderful.

On the basis of your reading the passage, chose the most appropriate answer from

the options given below.

1. The La casa de Mama was a ‘stilt’ house. It refers to ____________

(a) a lonely cottage

(b) a house in an uninhabited island

(c) a house raised on piles over a body of water

(d) a house that looked like a nesting hen

2. ___________ seem to dwindle.

(a) La casa de Mama (b) Mama and her room

(c)The massive four posts (d) The monstrous wardrobe

3. The author says that they never tried to reach the little golden key because __________

(a) they were afraid of Mama

(b) Mama was a strict disciplinarian

(c) they couldn’t unlock the monstrous wardrobe

(d)her supremacy was checked

4. Which of the following statement is TRUE?

(a) Mama had imaginary costumes in her wardrobe.

(b)She placed her earrings, jewels, satin slippers, and elegant silk, sequined gowns in ‘

the wardrobe

(c) She buried coins in jars in her garden under rose-bushes

(d) She looked like an Empress in a fairy tale

5. Pick out the synonym for the word, ‘salvaged’

(a) adorned (b) retrieve (c) desire (d)hazardous​

Answer 1

Answer:

Hii

Explanation:

Q1 -- b

Q2--- a

Q3--c

Q4--b