Question

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline's, on the ground floor. They were both old
and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing highland terriers who had names like
Hamish and Andrew and Jock. Once upon a time Miss Spink and Miss Forcible had been actresses, as
Miss Spink told Coraline the first time she met her.
"You see, Caroline," Miss Spink said, getting Coraline's name wrong, "Both myself and Miss Forcible
were famous actresses, in our time. We trod the boards, luvvy. Oh, don't let Hamish eat the fruit cake,
or he'll be up all night with his tummy." "It's Coraline. Not Caroline. Coraline," said Coraline.
In the flat above Coraline's, under the roof, was a crazy old man with a big moustache. He told Coraline
that he was training a mouse circus. He wouldn't let anyone see it.
"One day, little Caroline, when they are all ready, everyone in the whole world will see the wonders of
my mouse circus. You ask me why you cannot see it now. Is that what you asked me?"
"No," said Coraline quietly, "I asked you not to call me Caroline. It's Coraline."
"The reason you cannot see the Mouse Circus," said the man upstairs, "is that the mice are not yet ready
and rehearsed. Also, they refuse to play the songs I have written for them. All the songs I have written
for the mice to play go oompah oompah. But the white mice will only play toodle oodle, like that. I am
thinking of trying them on different types of cheese."
Coraline didn't think there really was a mouse circus. She thought the old man was probably making it
up.
The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring.
She explored the garden. It was a big garden: at the very back was an old tennis court, but no-one in the
house played tennis and the fence around the court had holes in it and the net had mostly rotted away;
there was an old rose garden, filled with stunted, flyblown rose-bushes; there was a rockery that was all
rocks; there was a fairy ring, made of squidgy brown toadstools which smelled dreadful if you
accidentally trod on them.
There was also a well. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the
well was, on the first day Coraline's family moved in, and warned her to be sure she kept away from it.
So Coraline set off to explore for it, so that sheknew where it was, to keep away from it properly.
She found it on the third day, in an overgrown meadow beside the tennis court, behind a clump of trees
-- a low brick circle almost hidden in the high grass. The wellhadbeen covered upbywooden boards, to
stop anyone falling in. There was a small knot-hole in one of the boards, and Coraline spent an
afternoon dropping pebbles and acorns through the hole, and waiting, and counting, until she heard the
plop as they hit the water, far below.
(a) Give the meaning of each of the following words as used in the passage. One-word answers
or short phrases will be accepted.
(i) stunted (ii) trod (iii) meadow
(b) Answer the following questions briefly, in your own words.
i) Describe the people living on the ground floor.
ii) In what way and how did Miss Pink meet Caroline?
iii) Why do you think Coraline did not believe the old man's story about his mice?
iv) What was Coraline told about the well? What did she do then?
v) What was people's confusion with Coraline's name?
(c) In not more than 50 words describe Coraline's garden.

Answer 1

Answer:

Describe the people living on the ground floor