Read the passage.
Underline the words you donıt know
Try to replace them in the sentence with words that
make sense.
Form a picture of the reading.
(If you canıt)
Try to put the sentence into your own words, if you
donıt understand it the first time.
Passage:
The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later
when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was
to get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous
conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's at
night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I
should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to
me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and
indeed began to carry out her promise within five minutes.
The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle's
great-aunt may be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate
apples and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr Wopsle's great-aunt
collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a
birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the pupils
formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand. The book
had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and a little spelling - that is
to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began to circulate, Mr.
Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of coma; arising either from sleep or a
rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then entered among themselves upon a
competitive examination on the subject of Boots, with the view of ascertaining
who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until
Biddy made a rush at them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if
they had been unskilfully cut off the chump-end of something), more illegibly
printed at the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with,
speckled all over with ironmould, and having various specimens of the insect
world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was usually
lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory students. When
the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a page, and then we all read
aloud what we could - or what we couldn't - in a frightful chorus; Biddy
leading with a high shrill monotonous voice, and none of us having the least
notion of, or reverence for, what we were reading about. When this horrible din
had lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who
staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to
terminate the Course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks
of intellectual victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition
against any pupil's entertaining himself with a slate or even with the ink
(when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch of study
in the winter season, on account of the little general shop in which the
classes were holden - and which was also Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's sitting-room
and bed-chamber - being but faintly illuminated through the agency of one
low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers.
Questions:
Read the passage.
Underline the words you donıt know
Try to replace them in the
sentence with words that make sense.
Form a picture of the reading.
(If you canıt)
Try to put the sentence
into your own words, if you donıt understand it the first time.
Reading:
I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to
walk Miss Havisham round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once,
and she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have
been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr.
Pumblechook's chaise-cart.
She was not physically strong, and after a little time said, "Slower!" Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we went, she twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a while she said, "Call Estella!" so I went out on the landing and roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round and round the room.
If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our
proceedings, I should have felt sufficiently discontented; but, as she brought
with her the three ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn't
know what to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped; but, Miss Havisham
twitched my shoulder, and we posted on - with a shame-faced consciousness on my
part that they would think it was all my doing.
"Dear Miss Havisham," said Miss Sarah Pocket.
"How well you look!"
"I do not," returned Miss Havisham. "I am
yellow skin and bone."
Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff;
and she murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, "Poor
dear soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The
idea!"
"And how are you?" said Miss Havisham to
Camilla. As we were close to Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of
course, only Miss Havisham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was
highly obnoxious to Camilla.
"Thank you, Miss Havisham," she returned,
"I am as well as can be expected."
"Why, what's the matter with you?" asked Miss
Havisham, with exceeding sharpness.
"Nothing worth mentioning," replied Camilla.
"I don't wish to make a display of my feelings, but I have habitually
thought of you more in the night than I am quite equal to."
"Then don't think of me," retorted Miss
Havisham.
"Very easily said!" remarked Camilla, amiably
repressing a sob, while a hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears
overflowed. "Raymond is a witness what ginger and sal volatile I am
obliged to take in the night. Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have
in my legs. Chokings and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when
I think with anxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and
sensitive, I should have a better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am
sure I wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the night - The
idea!" Here, a burst of tears.
The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman
present, and him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this
point, and said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, "Camilla, my
dear, it is well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you
to the extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other."
Questions:
Read the passage.
Underline the words you donıt know
Try to replace them in the
sentence with words that make sense.
Form a picture of the reading.
(If you canıt)
Try to put the sentence
into your own words, if you donıt understand it the first time.
Reading:
My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young
gentleman. The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman
on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the more
certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that the pale
young gentleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it.
Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear
to me that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging the
houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of England, without
laying themselves open to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close
at home, and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and
trepidation before going on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail
should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman's nose had stained my trousers,
and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had
cut my knuckles against the pale young gentleman's teeth, and I twisted my
imagination into a thousand tangles, as I devised incredible ways of accounting
for that damnatory circumstance when I should be haled before the Judges.
When the day came round for my return to the scene of the
deed of violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of
Justice, specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the
gate? Whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an
outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a
pistol, and shoot me dead? Whether suborned boys - a numerous band of
mercenaries - might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me
until I was no more? It was high testimony to my confidence in the spirit of
the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him accessory to these
retaliations; they always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious
relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant
sympathy with the family features.
However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did.
And behold! nothing came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any
way, and no pale young gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I found
the same gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in at the
windows of the detached house; but, my view was suddenly stopped by the closed
shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner where the combat had
taken place, could I detect any evidence of the young gentleman's existence.
There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with
garden-mould from the eye of man.