English Homework 29th April
Give yourself a maximum of 20 minutes to read and answer the questions
The Jungle Book – an extract
This is an early part of Kipling's The Jungle Book when the wolf pack first finds the
baby Mowgli.
Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley, he heard the dry, angry,
snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who has caught nothing and does not
care if all the jungle knows it.
“Shere Khan — the fool!” said Father Wolf. “To begin a night’s hunting with that
noise!”
“Hush. It is neither bullock nor deer he hunts tonight,” said Mother Wolf,
“It is Man.”
“Man!” said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. “Ha! Are there not
enough beetles and frogs that he must eat Man, and on our ground too!”
The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason,
forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his
children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting-grounds
of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing means,
sooner or later, the arrival of men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds
of men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the
Jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among themselves is that
Man is the weakest and most defenceless of all living things, and it is
unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too — and it is true — that maneaters become mangy, and lose their teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated “Aargh!” of the tiger’s
charge.
Then there was a howl — an untigerish howl — from Shere Khan. “He has missed,”
said Mother Wolf. “What is it?”
Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering and
mumbling savagely, as he tumbled about in the scrub.
“The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter’s
camp-fire, and has burned his feet,” said Father Wolf, with a grunt.
“Something is coming,” said Mother Wolf, twitching one car. Get ready.”
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English Homework 29th April
Give yourself a maximum of 20 minutes to read and answer the questions
The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped
with his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then if you had been
watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world the wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what
it was he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result
was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing
almost where he left ground.
“Man!” he snapped. “A man’s cub. Look!”
Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked
baby who could just walk - as soft and as dimpled a little thing as ever
came to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf’s face, and
laughed.
“Is that a man’s cub?” said Mother Wolf “1 have never seen one. Bring
it here.”
A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an
egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolf’s jaws closed right on
the child’s back, not a tooth even scratched the skin, as he laid it down
among the cubs.
“How little! How naked, and how bold!” said Mother Wolf softly. The
baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm
hide. “Ah! He is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a man’s
cub, Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man’s cub among
her children?”
“I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in
my time,” said Father Wolf. “He is altogether without hair, and I could
kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not afraid.”
Page 2
English Homework 29th April
Give yourself a maximum of 20 minutes to read and answer the questions
1.
Choose the best word or group of words to fit the passage and put a ring around your choice.
The story begins with Shere Khan setting out to hunt. Father Wolf knows that the tiger has not
caught anything so far because of his
a)
1 mark
Father Wolf thinks that making a noise while hunting is
b)
1 mark
Mother Wolf senses that Shere Khan is hunting
c)
1 mark
Another noise rips through the jungle. This time, Shere Khan lets out a loud howl of
d)
1 mark
as he crashes into
e)
1 mark
The wolves become worried when they hear the nearby bushes rustle.
In his alarm, Father Wolf
f)
1 mark
Instead of being under attack, they find a human baby. They are filled with
g)
1 mark
Page 3
English Homework 29th April
Give yourself a maximum of 20 minutes to read and answer the questions
3.
Tick true or false to show whether the following are laws of the jungle in The Jungle Book.
Animals are allowed to...
true
false
hunt other animals.
hunt humans if they are hungry.
hunt humans for training cubs.
hunt humans for sport.
hunt humans anywhere in the jungle
2 marks
4.
Look at the paragraph beginning: The Law of the Jungle...
The animals of the jungle avoid hunting Man because it is:
•
harmful to all the animals of the jungle
•
harmful to the man-eater.
Explain how it is harmful in the table below.
harmful to all the animals
harmful to the man-eater
.............................................
.............................................
.............................................
.............................................
1 mark
6.
In the paragraph beginning: The bushes rustled... , the writer uses other words meaning jump.
Find and copy two other words.
1. ......................................................................
2. ......................................................................
1 mark
Page 4
English Homework 29th April
Give yourself a maximum of 20 minutes to read and answer the questions
8.
Use this paragraph to answer all of question 8.
"How little! How naked, and – how bold!" said Mother Wolf, softly. The
baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm
hide. "Ah! He is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a man's
cub. Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man's cub among
her children?"
a)
From this short paragraph you can tell that:
Tick one.
The baby was really a
wolf cub.
The baby was about one
year old.
Mother Wolf was fierce.
Mother Wolf wanted to keep the
baby.
1 mark
b)
Underline the word that shows that Mother Wolf would be proud to have a human baby
in her family.
1 mark
c)
Find and copy one word that shows that Mother Wolf did not want to alarm the baby.
1 mark
d)
How can you tell from this paragraph that the baby is not frightened?
...............................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................
1 mark
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