Important Question For All Chapters – English Poorvi Class 8th
1. Who was Sven Olsen?
Answer: Sven Olsen was a wiry little fellow and one of the best construction men on the space station. He excelled at collecting assorted girders in free fall and fixing them into the right position.
2. Why was Sven able to qualify for space work easily?
Answer: Sven was thin and wiry, so he could easily qualify for the 150-pound bonus diet requirement that most spacers had to follow.
3. What pet did Sven bring aboard the space station?
Answer: Sven brought a small yellow canary named Claribel aboard the space station.
4. Why did Sven bring Claribel secretly to the station?
Answer: Sven smuggled Claribel out of sheer scientific curiosity. He wanted to see how a bird would operate in space without weight but with wings.
5. How did Claribel adjust to zero gravity?
Answer: Claribel quickly learned to fly in the absence of gravity. She floated effortlessly, did backward loops, and moved with only a few flicks of her wings.
6. How did the narrator first come to know about Claribel’s presence?
Answer: The narrator heard a musical whistle near his ear while working. At first, he thought it came from the intercom, but later he saw Claribel floating in the air.
7. How did the crew try to hide Claribel during VIP visits?
Answer: The crew concealed Claribel in the many hiding places of the space station, though it was sometimes difficult because she got noisy when upset.
8. What happened to Claribel one morning that shocked everyone?
Answer: One morning, Sven found Claribel lying like a tiny bundle of yellow feathers with claws clenched upward, as if she had fainted or died.
9. What did the crew do to save Claribel when she fainted?
Answer: The crew placed Claribel snugly into an oxygen mask, and she revived immediately but soon fainted again.
10. What memory helped the narrator understand the real problem?
Answer: The narrator remembered that miners used to carry canaries into mines to warn them of poisonous gases. This helped him realise that something was wrong with the air in the space station.
11. Why had the air purifier in the station failed?
Answer: The air purifier froze during a rare eclipse by Earth’s shadow. The alarm system also failed because the second circuit was not yet connected.
12. How did Claribel save the lives of the crew?
Answer: Claribel’s fainting warned the crew that the air was unsafe. Without her, they would not have noticed the danger, and all might have died.
13. What was the purpose of the alarm system in the space station?
Answer: The alarm system was meant to warn the crew if there was any problem with the air or the purifier system.
14. How did the crew feel after Claribel’s revival and the discovery of the danger?
Answer: The crew was delighted that Claribel revived and realised that she had saved their lives. They respected her as their little protector.
15. What is the significance of the line: “Without Claribel, we should soon have been slightly dead.”
Answer: It shows that Claribel’s fainting gave them an early warning of danger. Without her, the crew would have slowly suffocated and died.
16. Why was the story titled Feathered Friend?
Answer: The story is titled Feathered Friend because a tiny bird with feathers—Claribel—proved to be a true friend by saving the lives of the astronauts.
17. How does the writer present science with humour in the story?
Answer: The story mixes serious science (life in space, alarms, oxygen, air purifier) with humour—like smuggling a canary, hiding her from VIPs, and comparing her whistle to the intercom.
18. How did the crew finally view Claribel?
Answer: Though she was smuggled in secretly, Claribel became a general pet for the whole crew and was accepted as part of their life in space.
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