CBSE Class 8 English Practice Worksheet Set A

SECTION A – READING

2. Read the following poem carefully :-

LEISURE

What is life, if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long at sheep and cows,
No time to see when woods we pass
Where squirrels hide then nuts in grass.
No time to see in broad day light
Streams full of stars like Alices at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began
A poor life this, if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
--- W.H. Davies

On the basis of your reading of the above poem, complete the following sentences as fastly as possibly:-
(a) Leisure means ---------------------
(b) The poet needs leisure because ----------------------
(c) According to the poet life is worth less if ----------------------
(d) The poet sees stars in daylight in the ------------------
(e) While passing through the woods the poet would like --------------
(f) The poet does not favour a life ----------------
(g) The poet has written beauty with a capital ‘B’ to suggest ------------
(h) The smile born in eyes is ----------------------

SECTION B – WRITING
Writing Tasks :-
1. Report for the school magazine.
2. Poster writing
1. Report for the School Magazine :-
You are Raj/Rohini, the captain of your school, write a REPORT FOR/THE SCHOOL MAGAZINE about ‘EIFFEL TOWER’. Use the hints given below:-
- Built for the 1889 World Fair
- 1792 steps to the top
- It has 12.5 million rivets (screws)
- Blue prints covered 14,000 sq.ft drafting paper.
- Panels used for warning of approaching planes.
- No one killed, during actual construction, one killed during the installation of the lifts.

2. 31st May is observed as ‘WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY’. You are the secretary of you school. Write a report for a school magazine about the health hazards due to smoking. Use the hints given below:
- 10 lakh people in India die every years due to smoking
- Lung, throat, mouth cancer, chronic bronchitis.
- Passive smoking – more harmful.
- --------------------------------------------------- for children’s education.
- Banned and fined – motivated to get rid of addiction.

3) Poster Writing:-
1. Jaya Academy Rishitesh is organizing a fete to raise funds for its new Auditorium. Draft an attractive poster inviting people to make the fete a grand success. Give all the necessary details.
2. Lack of clean surroundings not only promotes spread of diseases but also maligns such national image. Design a poster promoting cleanliness. Give all the necessary details.
3. The fitness Health Club is organizing a fair on various fitness equipments. Design a poster for the same by using the guidelines given below:-
• create awareness about health issues to the public.
• Public about the benefits provided by the fitness equipments.
• have slogans which are catchy.
• mention the place, date, entry ticket, things sold etc.
• mention the person to the contacted for details.
• make the poster attractive by using colours, drawings and different writing styles.

Read the following poem carefully :-
Helping other in Real Kindness

1. To feel for others and to do righteous acts of help to living creatures is indeed real kindness. If one can stop a heart from breaking, if one can ease the aching in one’s life or cool one’s pain, he has not lived in vain.

2. To come, helping others is matter of faith. An elderly stranger went to a hospital in Peter Brough. New Hampshire and performed countless tasks. Sweeping, dusting, building ramps, removing limit from the place where clothes are washed etc. for four months. He never revealed his identity. Only after he had left the place, the hospital staff realized that he was former Vice President of the Peninsular Rail Road, a private railway company in the USA.

3. All along the route of the funeral procession of Lord Shaftesbury, a well known social reformer of England, stood groups of people (whom he had helped in one way or the other) to pay homage to him. Thousands of people hailing from all classes of society held a loft banners with the words that he had helped them in their hour of suffering substances of this type are many.

4. In India, Saints and sages throughout the ages have preached the gospel of service to the sick and the suffering, the distressed and the downtrodden. In every town in India, there are a few sympathizers to the suffering who pay the tuition fees of poor students, give them books and stationary, pay substance allowances to needy, widows and arrange their daughter’s marriages, give blankets in winter and umbrellas in monsoons. Added to them are many persons who have given up their everything for the service of humanity and join service organization.

Complete the following:-
1. According to the authors, real kindness is (i) ----------------- and (ii) ---------------
2. The life of a person is not in vain if ------------------------
3. The hospital staff could identify the elderly gentleman -----------------
4. Groups of people paid their homage to Lord Shaftesbury because -------------------------
5. In India, saint and sages have rendered their service to
(i) ------------------------------------ and (ii) ---------------------------
6. In India everywhere there are people who help other by (i) --------------------------------, (ii) -------------------------------, (iii) --------------------------.

II) Find words from the above passage which have the same meaning as the following:-
a) Virtuous, holy (para 1)
b) a group of people (para 3)
c) delivered sermons (para 4)
d) troubled, afflicted (para 4)

1. “You have got to wear and your own eyes nothing and night and use every once of energy, then perhaps you will learn the subject.”
a) Who spoke these words and to whom ?
b) Which subject is being referred in the above lines.
c) What is the intention of the speaker ?

2. “I was thoroughly ashamed by this new approach of his “
a) What is the ‘new approach’ referred in the above line ?
b) Why was the speaker ashamed ?
c) Name the lesson and the author.

3. “As a result, even the little, I used to study earlier because of my brother ceased. “
a) Who is the speaker ?
b) Give the meaning of ceased ?
c) Why does the speaker make such a comment ?

4. ‘ Who may you be, lady louse ?
I’m the guardian of this house.’
a) Who is the speaker ?
b) What is referred as “this house” ?
c) Name ‘the poem and the poet.’

5. “You, I fear would cause all these
I can’t rise my family.’
a) Who spoke these words and to whom ?
b) What are the ‘three causes’ referred by the speaker ?
c) Give the meaning of the second line in the extract.

6. “Keep your state advice.”
a) Who is the speaker ?
b) Give the meaning of state advice
c) What is the state advice mentioned by the speaker ?

1) Here is some information about Bollywood super star Amitabh Bachchan. Read the information and write a biography.
Date of Birth : 11th October, 1942 Allahabad, India
Nick Name : Pratiksha 10th Road, J.V.P.D. Scheme Mumbai – 400049
Height : 6’ – 2” (1.88 m)
Education – Master of Arts
Debut Film – Saat Hindustani

Film awards:-
Film Face Award
Best Actor Critics for ‘Aks’
Best supporting Actor for ‘Mahabatein’
Best supporting Actor for ‘Anand’
Best supporting Actor for ‘Veer-Zaara’
Best Actor for ‘Hum’
Best Actor for ‘Don’
Super star of the millennium
National film awards, India.

2) Write an article on the ‘Aim of Education’ to the ‘Hindustan Times’, New Delhi. You are Anooj or Anooja living in Sarojini Nagar, New Delhi (word limit : 200 words)
Hints:-
Harmonious development of all facilities, not passing exams – development of minds – enriches mind.
Present education – failure in solving bread problem – developing talent – no root in our culture and tradition – students – imitate – no knowledge of practical things – present generation should be educated – make better citizens.
System should be evaluated and overhauled – should be treated as means to attain desired objectives.

3) Imagine you are Manich/ Manisher living in 23/c, D Block, Gagan Apartments, M.G.Road Shahpur – 4400005. Every day on your way to scholl and back, you find many big trees either totally dried up or on the verge of withering away due to the pavement being too closed to the roots of these trees. As a Keen lover of trees, you write a letter to the Editor of the local newspaper. The Diar, expressing your anguish at this chocking of trees due to indiscriminate building of pavements and suggest ways in which one can save the trees.
Hints:-
1) Trees need mud to let water percolate into the ground.
2) Tiling & cementing of road side have ensured the slow but sure death of trees.
3) Trees, shrubs and grass reduce levels of air pollution, dust and noise.
4) Existing files on the pavements should be dug up
5) Local residents can act as environmental police or watch dogs to same precious trees in their area.

I. Change the following sentences into Indirect speech :-
1. Ram said, “ I am very busy now.”
2. He said, ‘I have passed the examination.’
3. The policeman said to us, ‘where are you going’ ?
4. ‘Do you really come from China ? said the prince.
5. He said, ‘what a lazy boy you are ! How badly have you done your work !
6. He said to his wife, ‘I saw that blind beggar long ago.’
7. The trade union leader said to the workers, ‘Let us call off this strike.”
8. ‘Go down to the bazaar. Bring me some oil and a lump of ice,’ ordered his master.
9. He asked his friend, ’you are alright, aren’t you ?’
10. He says, ‘I am glad to be here this evening.’

Change the following sentences to direct speech :-
1. Reena said she was getting late for school and had no time for breakfast.
2. Mother told Anuj that he would be late for the school if he did not hurry.’
3. Mother told Hari that he was a good boy.
4. He said that he had gone to cinema the previous day.
5. The rebel begged the kind to pardon his fault.

Read the following conversation and complete the paragraph given in reported speech:-
1. Sanju : I have lost my lucky bat with which I made all my runs. Tomorrow we are playing a Delhi school and I will be act for a duck.
Father: You can still make all the runs you want.
Sanju: What do you mean ?
It is the batsman and not the bat that matters. What you need is
confidence not a bat.

2. Mother: I have washed the car for you today.
Daughter : Thank you, Mam.
Mother : Now do not drive fast, dear.
Daughter: I need to, as I have to blow dry the car.

LEISURE

What is life, if, full of care

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long at sheep and cows,

No time to see when woods we pass

Where squirrels hide then nuts in grass.

No time to see in broad day light

Streams full of stars like Alices at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began

A poor life this, if, full of care

We have no time to stand and stare.

--- W.H. Davies

On the basis of your reading of the above poem, complete the following sentences as fastly as possibly:-

(a) Leisure means ---------------------

(b) The poet needs leisure because ----------------------

(c) According to the poet life is worth less if ----------------------

(d) The poet sees stars in daylight in the ------------------

(e) While passing through the woods the poet would like --------------

(f) The poet does not favour a life ----------------

(g) The poet has written beauty with a capital ‘B’ to suggest ------------

(h) The smile born in eyes is ----------------------

SECTION B – WRITING

Writing Tasks :-
1. Report for the school magazine.
2. Informal Letter (Letter to a friend)
3. Poster writing

1. Report for the School Magazine :-
You are Raj/Rohini, the captain of your school, write a REPORT FOR/THE SCHOOL MAGAZINE about ‘EIFFEL TOWER’. Use the hints given below:-
- Built for the 1889 World Fair
- 1792 steps to the top
- It has 12.5 million rivets (screws)
- Blue prints covered 14,000 sq.ft drafting paper.
- Panels used for warning of approaching planes.
- No one killed, during actual construction, one killed during the installation of the lifts.

2. 31st May is observed as ‘WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY’. You are the secretary of you school. Write a report for a school magazine about the health hazards due to smoking. Use the hints given below:
- 10 lakh people in India die every years due to smoking
- Lung, throat, mouth cancer, chronic bronchitis.
- Passive smoking – more harmful.
- ------------------ for children’s education.
- Banned and fined – motivated to get rid of addiction.

3. Informal Letter :-
1. Write a letter to your friend inviting her to Shimla during the summer vacation.
2. You are Bindu/Bobby of 8, Gandhi Nagar, New Delhi. Write a letter in about 100 words to your uncle thanking him for sending you a wrist watch as a birth day gift.
3. You have received an unsatisfactory report of your younger brother Anil, studying in a public school at Mumbai. Write a letter to him advising him to give up bad company and devote more time to his studies using 100 words.

3) Poster Writing:-
1. Jaya Academy Rishitesh is organizing a fete to raise funds for its new Auditorium. Draft an attractive poster inviting people to make the fete a grand success. Give all the necessary details.
2. Lack of clean surroundings not only promotes spread of diseases but also maligns such national image. Design a poster promoting cleanliness. Give all the necessary details.
3. The fitness Health Club is organizing a fair on various fitness equipments. Design a poster for the same by using the guidelines given below:-
♦ create awareness about health issues to the public.
♦ Public about the benefits provided by the fitness equipments.
♦ have slogans which are catchy.
♦ mention the place, date, entry ticket, things sold etc.
♦ mention the person to the contacted for details.
♦ make the poster attractive by using colours, drawings and different writing styles.

GRAMMAR

Section C
Contents:-
1. Articles
2. Prepositions
3. Active and Passive voice

1) Articles:-
1. Rewrite the following sentences, inserting/omitting ARTICLES wherever necessary
2. I admire honesty of this boy.
3. Draw map of India
4. The iron is useful metal
5. A tomato is always a good to eat
6. Give him hundred rupees.

2. Fill in the blanks with suitable articles a, an, the :-
1. _____________teacher asked________ students to copy down ___________sentences written on __________black board.
2. I saw __________ rest of _______________ owl on __________ tree.
3. __________egg with___________ slice of bread and ___________glass of milk make _____________ good breakfast.
4. _____________teacher asked_____________ student to leave __________class room at once.

2) Prepositions:-
1. Fill in the blanks with suitable prepositions:-
1. She is related ______________ me
2. He has no interest ________________dancing
3. She objected ______________ my proposal.
4. We can go _____________the driver ______________ a boat
5. I took some money ________________her.

2. The following passage has not been EDITED. There is an error underlined in each of the line. Write the correct preposition against the correct blank number:-
26th January is a very special day of India (a) ___________
It is in this day that (b) India became a sovereign ____________
On 1950, Dr. Rajendra Prasad (c ) became the first ___________
President to the Indian Republic. ___________
(d) 26th January is celebrated in (e) great enthusiasm ___________
and futurity all over the country. ___________
First of all the Prime Minister visits the Amar Jawan ___________
Jyothi of (f) India Gate. There he offers floral tributes ___________
of the martys(g). Then begins the colourful parade which ___________
starts to Vijay (h) Chowk and terminates to the Red Fort. __________

3) There is a word OMITTED in each line with a blank along side it. Write the missing word along with the word that comes before and after the word against the correct blank number:-
The burglars broke the house at the dead of night. (a) _____________
They opened the almirah’s master keys and forced open (b) _____________
the locks of trunks. (c ) _____________
They took the cash and jewellery. They left the house quietly
the owner , a retired (d) ____________
army officer returned a late night party (e) ____________
along with the members his family (f)____________

4) Active and Passive Voice :-
I. Change the following sentences into ACTIVE VOICE :-
1. Is coffee liked by you ?
2. Let the lamp be put out.
3. We were surprised at your conduct.
4. My teachers are respected by me.
5. The game had been won by us easily.

II. Complete the following paragraph using the PASSIVE Voice form of the verbs in the brackets to fill in the blanks:-
Diwali ----------------- (celebrate) twenty days after Dusshera, Houses and shops ----------- (white-wash) before it. On the day of the festival, they ------- (decorate) nicely. Gifts --------- (exchange) with friends, relatives and neighbours. Thus joy --------- (share). Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth -------(worship) at night.

3) Given below is the set of instructions to prepare a cup of tea. Using the instructions, complete the paragraph that follows. (PASSIVE VOICE)
Preparing ‘A cup of Tea’
♦ Boil a cup of water in a kettle.
♦ pour the boiling water, into a tea cup.
♦ Add milk to taste.
♦ put a tea-bag into the cup, and shake it.
♦ The tea is ready to take.
A cup of water is boiled in a kettle. The boiling water ________into a tea cup. One or two sugar cubes ________ into it. Milk, to taste _________. A tea bag _________ into the cup and it is shaken. The tea is ready to be taken.

Note:- Practice questions in grammar in the form of FIB, MCQ, editing and gap filling.

SECTION – D LITERATURE
CONTENTS:-
Less 1 :- Cricket for the Crocodile.
Less 2:- Quality of Mercy.

I. Read the extracts below and answer the questions that follows:-
1. “ You might need match to work out yours batting average.
And as for history, wouldn’t you like to be a point of history ?”
a. Why does the speaker make such a comment ?
b. Explain the phrase “to be a part of history”, what does it mean ?
2. ‘Revenge was sweet, And the ball tasted good too. The combination of leather and cork was just right.
a. Explain the phrase ‘Revenge was sweet’.
b. Who tasted the ball and why was it tasted ?
3. “Is that the law”
a. Who is the speaker in the above line ?
b. What is the law ?
c. Name the author.
4. “O noble Judge ! O excellent young man.”
a. Whom does Shylock calls a noble judge ?
b. Why does he say so ?
c. Name the lesson

Read the extracts below and choose the correct option:-

1. ‘I don’t think it wants us to play’ said Sheroo.
a) Whom does it refer to ?
(1) Sheroo (2) Prem (3) Nakoo, the crocodile.
b) Name the author
(1) Vikram Seth (2) Rustin Bond (3) R.K. Narayan

2. “Sunder has them”
a) Who said to whom
(1) Ranji said to Nathu (2) Sheroo said to Nathu (3) Nathu said to Ran
b) What did Sunder have with him.
(1) ball (2) bat (3) stumps
c) To which team did Sunder belong ?
(1) Ranji’ team (2) Village boys team (3) Grown up’s team

3. “It is so nominated in the bond ?”
a) What do it refer to in the above sentence ?
(1) Only one pound of flesh (2) A surgeon
(3) Not a single drop of blood
b) Who is the speaker and to whom is it said to ?
(1) Portia to Bassario (2) Shylock to Portia (3)
c) Give the meaning of the word ‘nominated’
(1) agreement (b) appointed (c0 written/spelled out

Answer in brief:-
1. Do you think the boys were right in disturbing the crocodile while basking in the soft warm sunlight ? Why ?
2. Bassario is the true friend of Antonio. Was it wise of Bassario to hold Antonio in high esteem than his wife Portia. Why ?
3. In the lesson ‘Cricket for the Crocodile’ , the bank manager had a terrible frightening experience with Nakoo the crocodile. Imagine you are the bank manager to make a DIARY ENTRY about your experience about the incident with the crocodile.
4. In the lesson ‘Cricket for the Crocodile’, was Nakoo a dangerous man – eating crocodile. What kind of relationship did he share with the children.
5. Study Portia’s opening lines beginning with “The quality of mercy is not shared………”. What are the different qualities of mercy that she talks about ? Do they have any effect on Shylock ?
6. Imagine yourself to be Portia in the play. The ‘quality of Mercy’ and write how you helped Antonio from Shylock and what logic you used to trap Shylock in about 100 words.
7. In the lesson “The Quality of Mercy” do you think the punishment Shylock receives is fair ?

Note :- Revise all the Questions and Answers, Exercises, meanings, extracts behind the poems and lessons for the exam.
Practice the writing tasks in the form of ------
♦ Diary Entry
♦ Imagine yourself as ------- any character
♦ Character sketch should be written using suitable adjectives.