Question

The attack came after ten years of little or no trouble from man-eating sharks, a period in which I had encountered some hundreds and in fact half a dozen big ones. It seemed absurdly unreal and nightmarish, but it was real enough and serious enough. Max and I had gone diving at the end of Seal’s Island with spear guns to catch our dinner. There the water sloped away over an underwater cliff from green shallows to seventy feet and a ledge and away from that again into who-knows-what depth of murky black water. I had always thought of it as a sinister place, but there were good fish there the year before, and we were tired of tinned meat and tempted to go after them. This year the bottom was empty of fish. I made dives to sixty feet and peering about in disturbingly dark water, saw no tell-tale silvery tails waving in the current. Max gave up in disgust and swam back to the boat. “Better pack it in—it's too late to be swimming in this kind of water,” he warned on the surface. I dived again, was poised over a volcano-like knoll at the edge of the seventy foot ledge—dark, evil water misty below me—and was considering following him when the shark appeared on the edge of my vision, coming out of the deep and moving very fast. I swung to meet him, following the old routine which had proved itself dozens of times before: Stick your speargun out in front; make yourself look as big as possible; growl to convince yourself if you like; then swim right at your shark as ' though you mean to eat him. He will circle nervously and depart, convinced that you are a dangerous animal. This shark was the exception. He stood my bluff with watchful, yellow eyes, and as I closed, turned his big head up towards me in a horrible, inquiring manner. He was about eight or nine feet long, thick as a barrel, with long gill slits; a—whaler shark, which is always identified as dangerous to man in text books. I ran out of breath—we don’t use breathing apparatus when spear-fishing—and ascended to the surface, watching him closely. Suddenly, without warning and without any of the usual preliminary circling, he attacked. A tremendous lunge had him inside my guard and smashing up my flippers from behind before I could bring my speargun around to fire. I heaved and squirmed; trying to prevent him from getting to my thigh and taking that fatal artery—slashing bite into the hamstring muscle at the back of the leg. Somehow, I got the gun around and with a controlled effort sent the spear thudding into his side, through his left pectoral fin and out again. There was no chance to reload. (a) Give the meaning of each of the following words as used in the passage. One word answers or short phrases will be accepted. [5] i) Sinister- ii) Tell-tale- iii) Poised- iv) Bluff- v) Lunge- (b ) Answer the following questions briefly in your own words: [12 ] i) What had the writer thought of as a sinister place? 2 ii) What were they tired of? Why had the writer gone to the sinister place? 2 iii) What disgusted the writer? 2 iv) According to the writer, what was the usual manner of attacking sharks? 2 v) Describe the whale shark. 2 vi) How was the writer taken by surprise by the shark? 2 (c) In not more than 50 words, describe what happened when the shark attacked suddenly.

Answer 1

Answer:

can't understand this question

Answer 2

Answer:

What? I don´t undertstand this or is a story?

Explanation: