English is the study of the English language. The goal is to improve communication skills by practicing listening, speaking, reading, writing, and understanding language rules like pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dust green trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute blue bottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun. The nights are clear but suffused with sloth and sullen expectations.
But by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn mossgreen. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spilt across the flooded roads. Boats ply in the bazaars. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways. It was raining when Rahel came
back to Ayemenem.
Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, ploughing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives.In the undergrowth, a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf-strewn driveway. The house itself looked empty. The doors and windows were locked. The front verandah bare. Unfurnished.
But the sky blue Plymouth with chrome tail fins was still parked outside, and inside, Baby Kochamma was still alive. She was Rahel's baby grand aunt, her grandfather's younger sister. Her name was really Navomi, Navomi Ipe, but everybody called her Baby. She became Baby Kochamma when she was old enough to be an aunt. Rahel hadn't come to see her, though.
Neither niece nor baby grandaunt laboured under any illusions on that account. Rahel had come to see her brother, Estha. They were two-egg twins. "Dizygotic' doctors called them. Born from separate but simultaneously fertilized eggs. Estha Esthappen-was the older by 18 minutes.
What was Baby's real name?
Options:Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined word(s).
Hers was a specious argument about the government of the day.
Options:Choose the most appropriate option opposite in meaning to the underlined words.
His father is a shrewd businessman?
Options:Choose the option that best completes the gap(S). We won't leave until it _____. raining?
Options:His many years of success in legal practise.... didn't come out without challenges
Options:In the question below, choose the expression or word which best completes each sentence:
Two ministers found it very difficult to get _____
Options:In the question below choose the option opposite in meaning to the word underlined:
The judge came down heavily on the accused person in his judgement
Options:Fill each gap with the most appropriate option from the list following the gap.
_____ been no official reaction to your request yet?
Options:Fill the gap with the most appropriate option from the list following the gap.
There are _____ on spelling and pronunciation at the end of the book?
Options: