Ls 1 - The Third Level

1. READ THE GIVEN EXTRACTS AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS GIVEN BELOW:

   1. He said I was unhappy. That made my wife kind of mad, but he explained that he meant the modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it and that I just want to escape. Well, who doesn’t? Everybody I know wants to escape, but they don’t wander down into any third level at Grand Central Station. But that’s the reason, he said, and my friends all agreed. Everything points to it, they claimed. My stamp collecting, for example; that’s a ‘temporary refuge from reality.’ Well, maybe, but my grandfather didn’t need any refuge from reality.

      1. Why didn’t Charley’s grandfather need refuge from reality?

      2. Why did Sam’s verdict make Charley’s wife ‘mad’?

      3. Select the option that signifies the condition of people of the ‘modern world’ mentioned in the extract. (a) afraid (b) anxious (c) unsure (d) All of these

      4. Complete the sentence appropriately. Sam’s explanation to the reaction of Charley’s wife was _____ in nature.

   2. Now, I don’t know why this should have happened to me. I’m just an ordinary guy named Charley, thirty-one years old, and I was wearing a tan gabardine suit and a straw hat with a fancy band; I passed a dozen men who looked just like me. And I wasn’t trying to escape from anything; I just wanted to get home to Louisa, my wife.

      1. Complete the sentence appropriately. This incident took place while he was _____.

      2. What did Charley want? (a) He wanted to lead a stress free life. (b) He wanted to lead a normal life with his wife (c) He wanted to live in the third world. (d) He did not want anything.

      3. Why did Charley not want to escape anything?

      4. What is the writing style of the narrator?

   3. Have you ever been there? It’s a wonderful town still, with big old frame houses, huge lawns, and tremendous trees whose branches meet overhead and roof the streets. And in 1894, summer evenings were twice as long, and people sat out on their lawns, the men smoking cigars and talking quietly, the women waving palm-leaf fans, with the fire-flies all around, in a peaceful world. To be back there with the First World War still twenty years off and World War II over forty years in the future... I wanted two tickets for that.

      1. The author wants two tickets to a place which he refers to in the last two lines of the extract. Which year does he wish to go back to?

      2. At the beginning of the extract, the author addresses the question to _____. (a) Louisa, Charley’s wife (b) Sam Weiner, Charley’s psychiatrist (c) the reader (d) nobody in particular as it’s a rhetoric question

      3. Complete the sentence appropriately. 'Tremendous trees whose branches meet overhead and roof the streets’ is an example of _____.

      4. How has life been described in the given extract?

2. Answer in about 120-150 words:

   1. Both Sam and Charley experienced the presence of the third level at Grand Central Station. Instead of coming out from this illusion, Sam, being a psychiatrist got trap in this illusion. It is a story about time travel. Imagine yourself to be Sam, and express your thoughts whether the third level exists or not.

   2. The modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and stress. We need to overcome them through different ways. Write a paragraph with reference to ‘The Third Level’, and express your thoughts about the ways to overcome it.