Hi Everyone!! This article will share Swami and The Sum Questions & Answers.
In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of My Donkey Sally, Dad and Dear March Come In so, you can check these posts as well.
Swami and The Sum Questions & Answers
Question 1: Pick out and briefly explain the sentences in the story that tell you:
(a) Who was Krishna and why Swami felt sorry for him?
Answer: ‘Rama has ten mangoes with which he wants to earn fifteen annas. Krishna wants only four mangoes. How much will Krishna have to pay’ – Krishna was the customer of Rama in the sum that Swami’s father wanted him to solve. ‘Somehow, one couldn’t help feeling that he must have been like Sankar, with his ten mangoes and his iron determination to get fifteen annas. Here Swaminathan felt an unaccountable sympathy for Krishna ’– Swami was certain that Rama, the seller of the mangoes in the sum, was unjustly demanding a higher price for the fruit and was cheating Krishna. The narrator indicates that Swami himself perhaps also had the same experience with Sankar, a local seller of mangoes.
(b) Why Swami felt that the problem was very complicated?
Answer: ‘Swaminathan gazed and gazed at this sum, and every time he read it, it seemed to acquire a new meaning ’– Swami was unable to understand the meaning of the sum. As a result, he could not understand the concept of the simple proportion on which the sum was based.
(c) Where, according to Swami, was his father more likely to find out the correct answer to the problem?
Answer: ‘Anyway, if Father wanted so badly to know, instead of harassing him, let him go to the market and find it out’ – Swami disapproved of the urgency with which his father wanted him to solve the problem. As his father refused to tell him if the mangoes were ripe or unripe, Swami felt that he would be unable to determine the proper price of the mangoes. The market place would be the only place where his father could get to know the price of a mango.
Swami and The Sum Questions & Answers
(d) When Swami’s father threatened to thrash him and if he actually did so?
Answer: ‘Look here, boy. I have half a mind to thrash you’– Swami’s father was angry as Swami could not solve a simple sum. He was trying to make Swami concentrate on the sum by threatening to hit him. ‘His hand took Swaminathan’s ear and gently twisted it’–Swami’s father boxed his ears instead of hitting him.
(e) If Swami was finally able to solve the sum and why he burst into tears at the end?
Answer: ‘It was plain sailing after that. Swaminathan announced at the end of half an hour’s agony, “Krishna must pay six annas”’– Swami was able to solve the sum. He was crying with relief as he was finally able to solve the sum after a long harrowing experience.
(f) Why Swami was blinking continuously?
Answer: “I am not going to leave you till you tell me how much a single mango costs at fifteen annas for ten”– Swami could not understand how to solve the sum. As his father had twisted his ears earlier, he was also frightened.
Question 2: Read the lines and answer the questions:
(a) Why did Father say this? What did Swami do immediately?
Answer: Father said this when Swami said that he would not be able to solve the sum as they were not taught Simple Proportion at school. Swami firmly believed that the sum could not be solved. When his father said that the sum could be solved, he began to wait to see how his father made the impossible happen.
Swami and The Sum Questions & Answers
(b) How did he try to explain the problem to Swami?
Answer: Swami’s father tried to break the sum down in parts to explain it to him. He had told Swami previously that the sum was on Simple Proportion. When Swami still failed to understand, he asked Swami to calculate how much four mangoes would cost. Swami still could not understand how to solve the sum. At this point, he lost his temper and twisted Swami’s ears.
(c) How did Father succeed in making Swami understand how to solve the sum?
Answer: Father ultimately had to tell Swami the cost of a single mango. He then told Swami to simplify the expression.
Question 3: Read the line and answer the questions:
(a) How did Swami’s father respond to this question?
Answer: Swami’s father was amused by this question. Suppressing a smile, he told Swami that he would answer this question later.
(b) Was Swami satisfied with his father’s answer? How do you know?
Answer: No, Swami was not satisfied with his father’s answer. The lines – ‘If only Father would tell him whether Rama was trying to sell ripe fruits or unripe ones! Of what use would it be to tell him afterwards?’ – prove this.
Swami and The Sum Questions & Answers
(c) Which sentences in the story point out why it is important for Swami to know if the mangoes were ripe or not? What do they tell you about Swami’s nature?
Answer: ‘He felt strongly that the answer to this question contained the key to the whole problem. It would be scandalous to expect fifteen annas for ten unripe mangoes.’ These lines indicate that Swami was a good-natured, simple boy who was more concerned with the justness of prices of fruits in real life than solving arithmetic problems. He also seems to be inattentive.
Question 4: Read the lines and answer the questions:
(a) Why was Swami disgusted?
Answer: Swami was disgusted because he was fed up with his father’s insistence that he solve the problem.
(b) How long did he take to work out the solution to the problem after this?
Answer: He took forty-five minutes to solve the problem after this.
(c) What was the answer to the problem? Was the answer correct?
Answer: The solution that Swami worked out to the problem was that Krishna would have to pay six annas to Krishna for four mangoes. The answer was correct.
So, these were Swami and The Sum Questions & Answers.