Children at work question answer: it so happened class 8 chapter 2 question answer
| Textbook | Ncert |
| Class | Class 8 |
| Subject | English it so happened |
| Chapter | Chapter 2 |
| Chapter Name | Children at work ncert solutions |
| Category | Ncert Solutions |
| Medium | English |
Are you looking for Class 8 english supplementary chapter 2 question answer? Now you can download Children at work question answer pdf from here.
Comprehension Check
Question 1: Velu stood on the platform but he felt “as if he was still on a moving train”. Why?
Answer 1: Velu had run away from home. Being a small boy he was naturally tired, hungry and afraid of the ticket examiner. He lay down near the compartment door. He could not get over the feeling that his train journey was over.
Question 2: What made him feel miserable?
Answer 2: Velu was fed up with his drunkard father and hence chose to run away from home. He ran away from home around two days ago and had not eaten anything except some peanuts and a piece of jaggery. He didn’t know anything about the new city which made him anxious.
Question 3: (i) Velu travelled without a ticket. Why?
(ii) How did he escape the ticket collector’s attention?
Answer 3: (i) Velu travelled without a ticket because he had no money to buy a ticket.
(ii) He escaped the ticket collector’s attention because luckily the ticket collector did not come to the unreserved compartment.
Question 4: Why had Velu run away from home?
Answer 4: Velu was from a poor family, and he and his sisters worked hard for a living. But his drunkard father would snatch away all their earnings and spend it on drinking. The little boy ran away from his home as he was very annoyed with his father.
Question 5: Why did he decide to follow the ‘strange’ girl?
Answer 5: Velu was completely new to Chennai. He did not know where to go and what to do. But the ‘stranger’ girl seemed to know everything. She could help him get food too. Therefore Velu decided to follow her.
Comprehension Check
Question 1: Can Velu read Tamil and English? How do you know?
Answer 1: Velu could not read sign boards in English. But he read the Tamil sign on the Central jail.
Question 2: “If you are not careful, you will soon be counting bars there,” the girl said.
(i) What is she referring to?
(ii) What does she mean when she says “If you are not careful…”?
(She says something a little later which means the same. Find that sentence.)
Answer 2: (i) She was referring to the Central Jail.
(ii) When she said to Velu, “If you are not careful…”, she meant that he should never get caught to be put behind bars. Besides, she also meant that they should be extra cautious and not do anything stupid to avoid getting caught by the policemen.
The other sentence that the girl told him was – “You don’t have to do anything. Just don’t get caught, that’s all.”
Question 3: (i) Where did the girl lead Velu to?
(ii) What did they get to eat?
Answer 3: (i) The girl led Velu to a big building Sri Rajarajeshwari Prasanna Kalyana Mandapam where a marriage ceremony was going on.
(ii) They got a banana and a vada to eat.
Question 4: What work did she do? Think of a one-word answer.
Answer 4: Ragpicking.
Comprehension Check
Question 1: (i) What material are the ‘strange’ huts made out of?
(ii) Why does Velu find them strange?
Answer 1: (i) The ‘strange’ huts are made out of tin sheets, bricks, wood and plastic.
(ii) Velu finds those huts strange because in his own village the huts were made of mud and palm leaves.
Question 2: What sort of things did Jaya and children like her collect and what did they do with those things?
Answer 2: Jaya and other children like her collected paper, plastic, glass and other similar things. They sold all these things to Jam Bazaar Jaggu, who further sold them to a nearby factory.
Question 3: Is Velu happy or unhappy to find work? Give a reason for your answer
Answer 3: Velu was unhappy to find work because he had not run away from home to dig through garbage bins. The only work he had ever done was weeding and taking cows out to graze. However, since he did not know Chennai too well, he decided to work as a ragpicker till the time he found a better job.
Exercise Answer the following Questions:
Question 1: Is Velu a smart boy? Which instances in the text show that he is or isn’t?
Answer 1: No, Velu is not a smart boy. He runs away from his home to escape his father’s beatings. He felt miserable at the railway station. He found himself alone and hungry. He accepted rag picking because he wasn’t fit for any other job.
Question 2: Do you think Jaya is a brave and sensitive child with a sense of humour? Find instances of her courage, kind nature and humour in the text.
Answer 2: Yes, Jaya is a brave and sensitive child with a good sense of humour. She works alone and is very quick at her job. She knows that Velu is a helpless child in the crowded city of Chennai. So she helps him find food and job. She is humorous too. She says to Velu, “If you stand around in the middle of the road like that, you’ll be chutney.”She also refers to the dirty trickle of water as the “Buckingham Canal”.
Question 3: What one throws away as waste may be valuable to others. Do you find this sentence meaningful in the context of this story? How?
Answer 3: The story “Children at Work” highlights the harsh reality of slum dwellers, especially children, who are forced to work as ragpickers in big cities to survive. The sentence, “What one throws away as waste may be valuable to others,” is highly relevant in this context. It reflects how discarded items like leftover food, bottles, and paper, which people consider useless, become a source of livelihood for these children.
By collecting and selling such waste to factories, they manage to earn some money to sustain themselves. This situation underscores the stark contrast between those who dispose of waste without a second thought and those for whom this waste is a means of survival. Therefore, the story powerfully illustrates how difficult circumstances turn discarded waste into something valuable for others.