Entrance examination would consist of two papers i.e. 1st paper consisting of three parts of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics of equal weight age with objective type questions for B.E/B.Tech courses in offline/online mode and 2nd paper – consisting of Mathematics, Aptitude Test and Drawing for B.Architecture and B. Planning in offline mode. The Aptitude Test is designed to evaluate candidate’s perception, imagination, observation, creativity and architectural awareness.

Scoring and Negative Marking

There will be objective type questions with four options having single correct answer. For each incorrect response, one fourth (1/4) of the total marks allotted to the question would be deducted. No deduction from the total score will, however, be made if no response is indicated for an item in the answer sheet. The candidates appearing for Offline Exam are advised not to attempt such item in the answer sheet if they are not sure of the correct response. More than one answer indicated against a question will be deemed as incorrect response and will be negatively marked. All objective type questions are required to be answered on specially designed machine gradable answer sheets. Answers are to be marked using ball point pen (black/blue) only. For the purpose of evaluation, Test Booklet Code as printed in the Answer Sheet on Side-2 will be accepted as final.

Aspirants across the nation will be both dreading and anticipating the result of XAT-2011. Fortunately, they will not have to wait for the final result to get a fair idea of how well they have done. TCYonline.com, India’s premier online test prep platform, will be helping students out of the agonizing wait by solving the XAT-2011 test paper and hosting the answer on the website. The responses will be available on the website by 4.00 p.m. on the day of the exam itself. Students across India can not only compare their responses with the correct answers, but can also know of the attempt pattern of thousands of other aspirants. With the right responses of thousands of candidates in all the three sections being input, a rough idea of the XAT 2011 cut-offs will also emerge on the homepage of XAT 2011 analysis on www.TCYonline.com.

For more information, students can log onto http://www.tcyonline.com/exam-analysis/xat-2011-solutions for further details.

All of us at Team TCY wish the aspirants of XAT a very Happy New Year and the Best of Luck for XAT-2011.

by

Iris Devadason.

At Post-Graduate level, Reading should not be a receptive skill but  should be as productive as writing is. Teachers  should provide  various aids to introduce the idea of reading as interaction between the reader and writer, a recognition of the writer’s voice.

Questioning  a text before  and while reading it is to many a new idea as students have always been questioned after reading a text where the emphasis is only on recall of content  and not on anticipation or “on making intelligent guesses”.

Why do I make much of this technique ?

Questions  are the prerogative of parents-teachers, doctors, counselors/pastors

and police personnel, lawyers  and judges .But readers too  need to ask: What is the author actually saying which is not just surface content?

Thus, Questioning text opens up new interpretations of thoughts and facts. It allows the reader to assume a new role as authority, a new identity as reader. Of course questioning as a method is not new and we all know of the Socratic method  which is about teaching by asking, instead of sheer telling .

Our graduate students are usually  passive, a kind of tabula rasa, waiting for the teacher to fill their  minds  with information. This is a cultural  trait more common in rural areas where  the teacher as ‘guru’, is a formidable figure whom one must not question. This attitude of respect and fear of the teacher is reflected in the way students avoid eye contact with the teacher. Such students have to be taught how to question a text. The idea is new to them. I now offer  a few of my  practical solutions to this problem.

1)    I cite Kipling’s poem ‘Six Serving Men’ to substantiate the idea of questioning being an important skill.

“I keep six

honest serving men,

They taught me all I knew.

Their names are

What, why and when

How, where and who.”  [Rudyard Kipling ]

I then give out copies of a simple text to read, normally taken from  a magazine.  I encourage them to start with basic questions of Literal comprehension those beginning with the Wh-words: What, Who, Which, When, Where  and also How and Why, though these are deeper questions.

Students wonder how they are to ask questions if they have not read the text and so I help them with obvious  pre-reading questions like, ‘Who wrote this Article ?,’ ‘When was it published ?’, ‘What does the author say of—-? actually activating latent  knowledge.

The fact that they do not have to answer these questions but just frame them is a new idea which they have to accept and practise for their future study.

2) Classroom work: This is followed by practice with skim and scan type reading, asking all the Wh-questions . For the weaker students I re-teach the structure of the question in English as our students often make statements and then add ‘Yes?’  or ‘No?’  or by voice inflection convey their query. I also point out that questions may begin with prepositions as in the following examples, ‘ In what way ..?’   ‘ From where  did ….?’, ‘To which person….?’To practice this skill I ask questions such as:

‘When did Holi/ Id/ Christmas fall last year?’ and ask what question is implied in it.

Answer: On which date did we celebrate  Holi/Id/Christmas?

I allow ten such samples going around the class to ensure that all have understood the power of questions and their structure too. This takes about two hours to teach and home work is given to reinforce learning.

But I do keep the WHY and HOW questions till later as they are deeper questions.

The underlying rationale is that all students have experience of life but they are unaware of what they do know. The teacher helps them to bring out latent knowledge in them and helps them to bring this into play while decoding unfamiliar text. They are forced to be active participants and thus shed their earlier passiveness due to cultural inhibitions and dominating teachers!

3) I now introduce to students sophisticated tools of questioning  based on Barret’s Taxonomy, which is   itself based on or related to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational  Objectives.

These are:

Question types                                            Bloom’s Objectives

1. 1. Qs. Of Literal comprehension                               Knowledge
2. 2. Qs of Personal response                                        Comprehension
3. 3. Qs of Re-interpretation /reorganization                Application
4. 4. Qs of Inference                                                     Analysis
5. 5. Qs of Style                                                             Synthesis
6. 6. Qs of Evaluation                                                    Evaluation

This requires a lot of practice. I allow homework which is not graded but corrected and discussed . Grades are awarded only when they have mastered the technique .

These question types are related to different levels of learning. The first two levels are acceptable for high school or pre-university students but  for PG students  the others are more useful as they foster  good readers and  critical thinkers. Making connections with real-life scenarios by inferencing and predicting  too has to be encouraged in such students.

Asking questions is thus a way of instilling confidence in students who have never been permitted to think for themselves and  be critical. It  turns diffident students into bright  scholars who interact with learning materials with high returns. Both socially and academically, asking questions is a very useful tool and I heartily recommend it to other teachers. ©

Questioning Text (Authority): Strengthening Reader Identity.

by

Iris Devadason.

( only 893 words now)

The first reaction of all professionals whenever I used to mention the importance of Accent Neutralization was one of sarcasm and smirk.

When I interacted with these professionals at length, I found one point in common. They were technically very sound in their function. Moreover they were proven performers. But somewhere down the line, the growth stopped. They probably never realized this or probably did not sit down and introspect where they should have been and where they are right now.

As we are all aware, the English Language has become the lingua franca linking businesses across the globe. So it becomes all the more imperative to be fluent in our speech. Fluency is a combination of many factors put together.

Fluency includes your pronunciation, intonation, and use of the right words, flow of language and the rate of speech.

Drawing from my experience of working with multinational organizations,

I have without exception, seen professionals at all levels, having a very limited vocabulary. Moreover the use of colloquial expressions and slang is on the higher side, which makes them look totally unprofessional.

Effective Communication is very simple to define. The target listener should understand the message, in the way you want him to comprehend. If there is a mismatch here, the very purpose of communication gets lost.

Professionals, who rise up the hierarchy very fast, are without exception excellent communicators.

Indians have a very strong regional influence while speaking. In professional parlance it is called as the Mother Tongue Influence (MTI)

When people speak with a very heavy regional accent, people get distracted because the pronunciation is not clear and the class aspect is lost. The net result is your image gets spoilt. I have seen umpteen cases, where professionals have a good vocabulary, but unfortunately their heavily accented English coupled with the rate of speech creates a huge barrier in the communication process, and their reputation also taking a beating.

Neutral Accent is nothing but globally understandable and comprehensible English Language. This means that a person from any part of the world should be able to understand what you are speaking without having to strain him or interrupt you.

People have this wrong notion that they need to imitate a certain accent, as in, American Accent or British Accent. There is absolutely no need to imitate any accent. Your English should be devoid of regional influence.

When professionals speak, using the right word, with excellent pronunciation, intonation and the ideal rate of speech, people perceive you as a classy person and you command lot of respect. Likewise, a very heavy accented pronunciation, puts off the listener, and thereby the very purpose of communication is lost.

Business today is very fast paced, and in order to survive and excel in this cutthroat competition, it is of utmost importance to articulate in diction, and, be globally understood.

Comprehensibility is therefore the ultimate focus.

Now I come to the most critical part. All MBA programs talk about lot of skill sets being developed over a period of two years, but no one talks about the importance of Neutral Accent. Moreover during the selection process, Neutral Accent becomes a very critical skill which is assessed, irrespective of the industry. Lot of people have the misconception that Neutral Accent is confined only to the BPO industry, which is totally wrong. Neutral Accent is not industry specific. It is an essential requirement across all industries and more importantly one of the most critical skills if you want to move up the hierarchy.

Your voice is the means by which you convey your inner thoughts and feelings to the outside world.  It is the outward expression of your inner self.

The English language, its structure and the accent or dialect changes from country to country.  Hence, it is very critical to speak in a globally comprehensible English dialect.

In the second part of this article, I shall cover the problems faced by Indians and the steps to be taken to come to a Neutral Accent.

• Develop personal skills like confidence, communication, assertiveness, creative thought.
• Develop professional skills like computer literacy, foreign languages, managerial/technical course depending on your chosen line of profession.
• The university or institute you choose should have some value in the market.
• Your “add on” qualification must relate to your career objective.
• There are evening courses, correspondence courses, distant learning programmes, IGNOU, short capsule courses to choose from
• Attend relevant seminars, lectures, workshops to broad base your perspective.
• Meet and observe successful people.
• Try to match your aptitude with your career.

The programming languages e.g. Basic, C, C++ are either compiler based or interpreter based.

Interpreter:

An Interpreter is a program which converts the higher level language in lower level language or assembly language or binary language i.e. the language of 0’s and 1’s. It reads one line of code at a time, converts it into binary language and then runs the code on the machine. So the initial start up time to run the program is almost negligible. If there is any error on the middle of the program then the program is interrupted in between. After removing the error the programs needs to run again from the beginning. Languages like BASIC is interpreter based languages. So in this interpreter converts one line of code at a time, and then runs it.

Compiler:

A compiler is also a program which convert the higher level language in lower level language. In case of compiler, it reads a whole block of code at a time, converts it into executable code, and runs the code. The initial start up time to run program is more as compared to Interpreter. Once the code is compiled, then the initial start up time to run the program is negligible. Languages like C, C++ are compiler based languages.

Hello All,

First of all let me appreciate the opportunity of being a part of this team. This is my first article to this project.

Before I start the concept of last two digits lets have a quick look at the concept behind unit’s digit. I know most of you might be aware of this concept called cyclicity. All you need to do, is just catch the last digit of the base and apply the rule of cyclicity. You can follow the cyclicity table give below for your convenience.

e.g   Last digit or unit digit of  127 to the power 127 .

Just pick up last digit of the base i.e 7 and divide the given power by 4 & check out the remainder.

The remainder when 127 is divided by 4 is 3. Hence the power of the given expansion is of the type 4K+3. Therefore the unit’s digit will be 3.

How simple is that.

Now lets move on to the concept of last two digits. The fundamental behind the last two gits is just like unit’s digit concept.

Here you just need to catch the last two digits.

e.g  Find the last two digits of the product of 1023 X 2027 X 5096 X 5979.

Just pick up the last two digits of all the numbers.

i.e      23, 27, 96 & 79

Multiply any pair using crisscross method of multiplication and note down the last two digits only.

i.e  23 X 27 gives you 21 as last two digits similarly 96 x 79 gives you 84 as last two digits.

Now again multiply the obtained results to get the answer.

i.e   21 x 84 which gives you 64 as last two digits.

Hope you find it doable comfortably.

Now lets move on to the cyclicity concept of last two digits.

1. If you have 1 as your unit’s digit in any base then whatever be the ten’s place, you just need to write 1 as your unit’s place as simple as that & just multiply the unit digit of index/power to the ten’s place of the base and note down the unit digit of multiplication as your ten’s digit of expansion.

e.g   Last two digits of 21 to the power 144.

You have 1 as unit’s place and 2 as ten’s place in your base in the given example.

You know that unit digit of this expansion has to be 1 always.

Now for ten’s digit of this expansion you pick up the unit digit of the power 144, which is 4 & multiply it to the ten’s digit of the base which is 2.

i.e  4 X 2 which will be 8 & this will be the ten’s place of the expansion.

Hence last two digits come out to be 81.

Similarly 3, 7 & 9 can be converted to such an extent so that you can get unit digit 1 and after that you can easily do the process of 1 as unit’s place.

One more very interesting and very important result is the cyclicity of 24 as last two digits of the base.

Please follow if  , it will always end by 76 as last two digits

& if  , it will always end by 24 as last two digits.

Also 2, 4 & 6 can be broken into factors to get the last two digits.

e.g  Last two digits of 196 to the power 224.

The base 196 can be converted to small factors like  196 =  4 X 49

Now the problem becomes simple

Or (   which gives you 76, 56 & 01 as last two digits respectively.

Multiply step by step as the process discussed earlier and get the last two digits.

The answer will be 56 for this example.

Concept of compliment of the base

e.g  Last two digits of   39 to the power 44.

Compliment of the base will be 61, hence lets take out last two digits of   which results to -41 as last two digits. But this has to be positive and to make it positive just add the complimentary base i.e 100 to the last result -41. Hence the answer comes out to be 59.

And lastly when 5 is your unit’s place in the base. It can be of two forms.

Either ten’s place is odd or ten’s place is even.

i.e  either of the type 15, 35, 55, 75, 95, (Lets say Case-1)

or of the type 25, 45, 65, 85. (Lets say Case-2)

Case-1 last two digits will be 75 for any odd power .

And for any even power last two digits will be 25.

Case-2 Last two digits will be 25 for any power .

Now you can have any example of the types discussed in this article and easily take out the last two digits of the same.

Thats all for now. I believe that you all will be able to understand the concept of last two digits from this article. I will be waiting for your responses and valuable suggestions.

All the best

Rajneesh Tripathi

Let’s check whether we have been good listeners today. Please ask yourself the following questions and answer them honestly!

Did I listen to my family members today?

Did they find fault with me for not having responded as they expected? (because of poor listening skill)

Did I make matters worse because of not listening?

How did my family members listen to me? Are they better listeners?

How was my listening skill among my friends?

Did I bore them by compelling them to listen too much to me?

How attentive was I when I listened to my colleagues/superiors etc.?

Did I put myself in trouble by not listening?

The questions can go on. Your answers to these will help you to assess your listening skill. Then you could go ahead to improve your listening skill as required and enjoy the benefits!

While it is true that it is not possible to be without expectations, it is also very important to know what to expect and what not to.  Expectations have to be arrived at after a proper assessment of the current state of affairs and capabilities, a realistic setting of goals and also being prepared for the worst case scenario.

When you prepare for your examinations, it is important to focus on the subject and the perfection of your performance over the possible outcomes and results. This is because the result is an uncontrollable variable and hence a result which is unexpected provides a fair degree of disappointment. So keep your expectations on the results low and be open for every possible result.

How do I manage to perform though my expectations are low?

To make sure your performance is high while your expectations are low,  you have to focus on how well you can do a particular test. It is important to prepare but it is equally essential to understand that no matter how one prepares it is those 3 hours or so of the examination time that actually matters. Hence while preparing, always be prepared and expect the unexpected and keep telling yourselves that you will manage whatever comes in your way!

This allows you to keep your mind focussed and free and unaffected by the uncertainty of the results.

What is in your hands is what is in your control. The moment you realise this golden truth you will starting focussing more on the means than the end and this by itself will lead to your success.

To conclude,  expect the unexpected. Stick to performance. Be realistic. You are meant to see success!!

All the best!

Jay

IF THERE WAS A MONOLOGUE BY BLANCHE DuBOIS IN THE LAST SCENE

OF

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

[BY ANUPAM  K.  SINGH]

_____________________________________________________________

The monologue by Blanche occurs in Scene 11, when she is sitting in a chair, wearing a red stain robe, while Stella is packing her things.

Blanche :  (in a low undertone which gradually picks up in decibel level and    hysterical style of delivery) :

“My own kid sister!. She doesn’t believe me! She is infatuated with her husband, that…that……Polack!!”

“I can’t stand foreigners. They are so…so..crude. NO !

No! No!! Me? I never! How can you even suggest….?

I never felt a thing for him. How could I? I am sooo above him and so culturally and racially superior to him and he is ..was….is such an animal! The brute!!

How can Stella claim she loves him? Nobody loves men. Not like those ones.

Okay, except for my late…poor late….husband. He, too, loved men!

(gives a short, hysterical, twittering laugh, then pulls herself together and continues her ramblings in a relatively more composed tone and a bit louder, emphatic voice) :

Ohh!…

(Mumbles a name…..not clear….sounds like William, her first lover)

…now there was a boy!…I mean a Man!….I made a man of him!!

(giggles)

So..uncouth…..sweaty…..look at him, playing cards all day….and Mitch too.

He is a bad influence for Mitch. Now Mitch, I could have made a man out of him. He was promising material….

Ohh!..The job of a teacher is so demanding!!

Those guys at the School Board did not know the first thing about teaching.

You have to be in love! That is the first requirement!!

How can you teach if you don’t love your job? AND your pupils?

I was passionate.

They don’t understand passion.

Least of all Stella…she doesn’t understand Stanley. He can be passionate…but….he is so…yes…..uncivilized is the only word.

I will write it on the blackboard for you….u…n…c…i…v..i..l.e…..never mind…..you vile kids…….you can never appreciate what a good teacher you all had the good fortune to be taught by…you poor, innocent things……let me teach you some manners…polish you up…..!

POLISH Manners

(she is nearly shouting now and over-the-edge)

…Ha..haahhahaa….

DON’T TALK to me about Polish….I don’t wanna (her grammar too is slipping) know another Polish guy as long as I live!

Ohh!

(clutches her head).

..those bells…please stop ringing those bells….those Bells of Bele Reve…they are all against me….and oh my god!…they are bleeding all over me!

Oh! my dress is stained all red…..

(To the Asylum Nurse, who has just come onstage to take her away):

Could you please help me? My dress is stained all red!…how would i EVER get myself cleaned up again….please……

…………..please………………

(too exhausted, her voice fades away….)

In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely settled by people of the frontier–restless souls who no sooner had hewn fairly habitable homes out of the wilderness and attained to that degree of prosperity which today we should call indigence, than, impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature, they abandoned all and pushed farther westward, to encounter new perils and privations in the effort to regain the meager comforts which they had voluntarily renounced. Many of them had already forsaken that region for the remoter settlements, but among those remaining was one who had been of those first arriving. He lived alone in a house of logs surrounded on all sides by the great forest, of whose gloom and silence he seemed a part, for no one had ever known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale or barter of skins of wild animals in the river town, for not a thing did he grow upon the land which, if needful, he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of “improvement”–a few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the ax. Apparently the man’s zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes.

The little log house, with its chimney of sticks, its roof of warping clapboards weighted with traversing poles and its “chinking” of clay, had a single door and, directly opposite, a window. The latter, however, was boarded up–nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant’s dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living today who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as you shall see.

The man’s name was said to be Murlock. He was apparently seventy years old, actually about fifty. Something besides years had had a hand in his aging. His hair and long, full beard were white, his gray, lusterless eyes sunken, his face singularly seamed with wrinkles which appeared to belong to two intersecting systems. In figure he was tall and spare, with a stoop of the shoulders–a burden bearer. I never saw him; these particulars I learned from my grandfather, from whom also I got the man’s story when I was a lad. He had known him when living near by in that early day.

One day Murlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember. I know only that with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. That closes the final chapter of this true story–excepting, indeed, the circumstance that many years afterward, in company with an equally intrepid spirit, I penetrated to the place and ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it, and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy thereabout knew haunted the spot. But there is an earlier chapter–that supplied by my grandfather.

When Murlock built his cabin and began laying sturdily about with his ax to hew out a farm–the rifle, meanwhile, his means of support–he was young, strong and full of hope. In that eastern country whence he came he had married, as was the fashion, a young woman in all ways worthy of his honest devotion, who shared the dangers and privations of his lot with a willing spirit and light heart. There is no known record of her name; of her charms of mind and person tradition is silent and the doubter is at liberty to entertain his doubt; but God forbid that I should share it! Of their affection and happiness there is abundant assurance in every added day of the man’s widowed life; for what but the magnetism of a blessed memory could have chained that venturesome spirit to a lot like that?

One day Murlock returned from gunning in a distant part of the forest to find his wife prostrate with fever, and delirious. There was no physician within miles, no neighbor; nor was she in a condition to be left, to summon help. So he set about the task of nursing her back to health, but at the end of the third day she fell into unconsciousness arid so passed away, apparently, with never a gleam of returning reason.

From what we know of a nature like his we may venture to sketch in some of the details of the outline picture drawn by my grandfather. When convinced that she was dead, Murlock had sense enough to remember that the dead must be prepared for burial. In performance of this sacred duty he blundered now and again, did certain things incorrectly, and others which he did correctly were done over and over. His occasional failures to accomplish some simple and ordinary act filled him with astonishment, like that of a drunken man who wonders at the suspension of familiar natural laws. He was surprised, too, that he did not weep–surprised and a little ashamed; surely it is unkind not to weep for the dead. “Tomorrow,” he said aloud, “I shall have to make the coffin arid dig the grave; and then I shall miss her, when she is no longer in sight; but now–she is dead, of course, but it is all right–it must be all right, somehow. Things cannot be so bad as they seem.”

He stood over the body in the fading light, adjusting the hair and putting the finishing touches to the simple toilet, doing all mechanically, with soulless care. And still through his consciousness ran an undersense of conviction that all was right–that he should have her again as before, and everything explained. He had had no experience in grief; his capacity had not been enlarged by use. His heart could not contain it all, nor his imagination rightly conceive it. He did not know he was so hard struck; that knowledge would come later, and never go. Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some natures it startles; some it stupefies. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. We may conceive Murlock to have been that way affected, for (and here we are upon surer ground than that of conjecture) no sooner had he finished his pious work than, sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay, and noting how white the profile showed in the deepening gloom, he laid his arms upon the table’s edge, and dropped his face into them, tearless yet and unutterably weary. At that moment came in through the open window a long, wailing sound like the cry of a lost child in the far deeps of the darkening woods! But the man did not move. Again, and nearer than before, sounded that unearthly cry upon his failing sense. Perhaps it was a wild beast; perhaps it was a dream. For Murlock was asleep.

Some hours later, as it afterward appeared, this unfaithful watcher awoke and lifting his head from his arms intently listened–he knew not why. There in the black darkness by the side of the dead, recalling all without a shock, he strained his eyes to see–he knew not what. His senses were all alert, his breath was suspended, his blood had stilled its tides as if to assist the silence. Who–what had waked him, and where was it?

Suddenly the table shook beneath his arms, and at the same moment he heard, or fancied that he heard, a light, soft step–another–sounds as of bare feet upon the floor!

He was terrified beyond the power to cry out or move. Perforce he waited–waited there in the darkness through seeming centuries of such dread as one may know, yet live to tell. He tried vainly to speak the dead woman’s name, vainly to stretch forth his hand across the table to learn if she were there. His throat was powerless, his arms and hands were like lead. Then occurred something most frightful. Some heavy body seemed hurled against the table with an impetus that pushed it against his breast so sharply as nearly to overthrow him, and at the same instant he heard and felt the fall of something upon the floor with so violent a thump that the whole house was shaken by the impact. A scuffling ensued, and a confusion of sounds impossible to describe. Murlock had risen to his feet. Fear had by excess forfeited control of his faculties. He flung his hands upon the table. Nothing was there!

There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. By the flash which lit up the room with a vivid illumination, he saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman toward the window, its teeth fixed in her throat! Then there were darkness blacker than before, and silence; and when he returned to consciousness the sun was high and the wood vocal with songs of birds.

The body lay near the window, where the beast had left it when frightened away by the flash and report of the rifle. The clothing was deranged, the long hair in disorder, the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, dreadfully lacerated, had issued a pool of blood not yet entirely coagulated. The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal’s ear.

THE END

Answer these questions and submit your work through the assignment.

1. What is the setting for this story?
2. Who are the central characters? What details, or lack of details, does the author provide to develop these characters?
3. From whose point of view is the story told?
4. Briefly summarize the plot.
5. What is the climax of the story?
6. How does the author create suspense in the tale?
7. What is the irony in this story?
8. As a reader, how satisfied are you with the conclusion of this story? Explain your reasoning.

__________________________________________________________________________________

ANSWERS :-

1. The setting of this story is the deep woods, a few miles outside Cincinnati.
2. The central character of the story is the reclusive old man named Murlock. The author provides only a bare sketch of the character and the middle-aged man goes through a traumatic experience upon his wife’s death, when, during the course of a single evening, he is transformed into an apparently paranoid man aged beyond his years. He is depicted as one of the earliest settlers of this remote ‘outpost’ of the westward movement of the 19^th century American pioneers. Unsmiling and laconic, he is a man of few wants (which are met through barter of skins) and an indifferent farmer. His physical appearance is described as tall and thin with a stoop and long white hair and beard. The words stoic, humorless, taciturn and prematurely aged just about complete his characterization.
3. The story is told from form the point of view of an absent third person omniscient, unnamed narrator. The narrator himself heard about the events described in the story from his grandfather.
4. The story begins with a brief description of the temperament which drove the settlers westward. It describes the reclusive and taciturn Murlock living alone in a small log cabin in the woods outside Cincinnati around 1830. Murlock kept to himself, sustaining his Spartan lifestyle bartering animal skins. The most notable feature of the cabin was a window opposite the front door, which was boarded up, No one knew why, except the narrator, who heard the story from his grandfather.

It appears that Murlock’s wife died relatively early in their marriage after she fell ill and, in the absence of any medical help and despite all of young Murlock’s ministrations. Without a coroner around to attend to the corpse, Murlock tried to do the best he could to prepare her for the burial with his limited mortuary skills after laying her upon the table.  When he was done, he sat down with exhaustion beside the table and fell asleep.

He is awakened in the middle of the night by an inexplicable noise. He hears the patter of bare feet upon the floor and something heavy crashes against him and the table in the darkness. Wild and crazed with fear, he grabs his rifle from the wall and fires at the unknown ‘thing’. In the flash of the rifle shot, he sees an enormous panther dragging his wife’s body towards the open window with its teeth sunk in her throat. Murlock fainted and, when he came to in the morning, he found his wife’s body splayed on the floor near the window. The most horrifying fact was that “the ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal’s ear.”

1. The climax of the story is reached when Murlock goes to sleep, exhausted after his inexpert preparations of his wife’s body for burial, by the table upon which his dead wife lay. In the night, he is awakened by strange sounds and a heavy body crashes upon him, upsetting the table and terrorizing the wits out of him. He grabs his rifle and fires aimlessly. The panther, in the act of dragging the corpse to the open window, flees, while Murlock faints.

1. The suspense in the tale is created, firstly by the setting of the story wherein Murlock is all alone in the cabin in the woods with the corpse of his wife. A couple of screams are heard, Murlock is tired and half awake or dreaming. The strange sounds, an unknown thing crashing upon him and the table, the darkness and the presence of the corpse all go towards the building up of the suspense.

1. The irony in this strange horror story lies in the fact that the very last line of the story [ “ Between the (wife’s) teeth was a fragment of the animal’s ear.” ] informs the reader that, maybe, Murlock was mistaken in assuming his wife was dead.

1. As I read the story, I was extremely surprised and shocked upon reading the last line. In so far as the ending really managed to make me feel strangely awake and weird, I think the author has succeeded in his aim of telling an unusual tale. Also in so far as the story was so unlike any I have read, must count as a plus for the author’s literary skills. The element of ambiguity, waking-dream state of Murlock, the mystery of the attacker in the dark all go towards making the ending of this tale extremely intriguing and original.

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END OF ANSWERS

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