Question

You have read how Wanda was passionate about her talent and pursued it in spite of so many hurdles. Wangari Mathai, the Nobel Prize winner, is another person who fought a battle to save the environment. She had a humble start but she dreamt big and succeeded. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. When we said we wanted to plant fifteen million trees, a forester laughed and said we could have as many seedlings as we wanted because he was convinced that we could not plant that many trees. Before too long, he had to withdraw that offer because we were collecting more trees than he could give away free of charge. But we didn’t have the money. We decided that we could produce the seedlings ourselves. We would go and collect seeds from trees, come back and plant them the way women planted other seeds —beans, corn, and other grains. And so the women actually developed forestry management techniques, using “appropriate technology” to fit their needs. Here is the basic method—take a pot, put in the soil, and put in the seeds. Put the pot in an elevated position so that the chickens and the goats don’t come and eat the seedlings. Ordaining all the inventive techniques that the women developed, for example, sometimes trees produce seeds carried by the wind. These germinate in the fields with the first rain. It was very interesting to see a woman cultivating a field with a small container of water. But, she was cultivating weeds! She had learned that among these weeds were also tree seedlings and that she could pick the seedlings and put them in a container. In the evening, she went home with several hundred seedling trees! These techniques developed by the women became extremely helpful. We planted more than twenty million trees in Kenya alone. In other African countries, we have not kept records.

Answer 1

Explanation:

• Q1: The forester laughed that way because he taught it is not possible to get so many seedlings to plants such a number of trees.
• Q2: Wangari Mathai wanted to plant fifteen million trees. For buying the seedlings, there was a need of money, which she couldn’t afford.
• Q3: When you plant a tree yourself and you see it growing, you will feel so happy that you have given life to something. Moreover, the trees help us in many ways for which we feel grateful.
• Q4: Rain is a blessing because it helps in growing the plants. It is a curse because if we do not protect the soil, it washes away the soil.
• Q5: The relationship between the environment and the person.