Unseen Passage for Class 5 – Life Stories

Reading comprehension lesson 19: Life stories · Set 559 · 12 questions

Reading tip (Follow the person): Find the person and the problem they saw. Follow what they did, in order. Find what changed in the end, and why.

1. 1.Noor Bano learned sewing from her grandmother in Lucknow. After her husband fell ill, she needed to earn money for the family. She started stitching school uniforms on an old sewing machine at home. Her work was neat, and soon many parents came to her. She taught five women from her lane to sew as well. Together, they opened a small shop called Noor Stitches. Now they make uniforms for three schools. Noor Bano says that a skill grows when it is shared.
   
   What did she stitch at first? (a) Wedding dresses (b) Bags (c) School uniforms (d) Curtains
2. 2.Gopal was a potter in a small town in West Bengal. People had started buying plastic pots, and his business was slow. One day, his son suggested making clay water bottles and lamps with painted designs. Gopal was unsure, but he tried. His son showed the new pots at a town fair. Many visitors liked them because clay keeps water cool naturally. Soon orders came from other cities. Now Gopal teaches young people in his town to make pottery.
   
   What was Gopal’s work? (a) Potter (b) Tailor (c) Farmer (d) Painter
3. 3.Tsering Dorje was an electrician in a small village in Ladakh. In winter, the village often lost power for days. Tsering learned how to set up solar panels at a training camp in Leh. He fixed panels on the roof of the village school first. Now the classrooms have lights even on the coldest days. Then he helped every home in the village get a solar lamp. Children can study after dark. The villagers call him the man who brought the sun indoors.
   
   Which of these happened first? (a) Children studied late (b) He fixed school panels (c) He lit every home (d) He went to a camp
4. 4.Every morning, Rupa rows a boat across the wide river in her village in Assam. Before, children had to wait for a ferry that came only twice a day. Many of them missed school. Rupa had grown up rowing with her father, who was a boatman. She decided to take the children across herself. She leaves at seven every morning and comes back for them at three. She asks for no money. Parents say their children have not missed a day since.
   
   At what time does she leave in the morning? (a) Six (b) Eight (c) Three (d) Seven
5. 5.Every evening, Mohan closed his tea stall near the railway station in Kanpur. Then he spread a mat under a street light. Children who could not go to school came there to learn. Mohan had studied only up to Class 10, but he taught them reading and simple maths. He bought chalk and slates with the money he earned from selling tea. Some of his students later joined the government school nearby. One of them, Ravi, is now a teacher himself. Mohan still runs his stall and his evening class.
   
   What did he buy with his money? (a) Chalk and slates (b) Story books (c) A blackboard (d) Uniforms
6. 6.Every evening, Mohan closed his tea stall near the railway station in Kanpur. Then he spread a mat under a street light. Children who could not go to school came there to learn. Mohan had studied only up to Class 10, but he taught them reading and simple maths. He bought chalk and slates with the money he earned from selling tea. Some of his students later joined the government school nearby. One of them, Ravi, is now a teacher himself. Mohan still runs his stall and his evening class.
   
   What did Mohan sell? (a) Fruit (b) Books (c) Toys (d) Tea
7. 7.Joseph Pinto was the postman of a group of hill villages in Goa for thirty years. He walked about fifteen kilometres every day, because there were no roads for vehicles. In the rains, he wrapped the letters in plastic to keep them dry. Many old people could not read, so he read their letters aloud to them. He also wrote replies for them. When he retired, the villagers held a party under the big mango tree. They gave him a walking stick carved with all their names.
   
   How did he keep letters dry? (a) Wrapped them in plastic (b) Put them in a tin (c) Used an umbrella (d) Kept them at home
8. 8.As a child in Kochi, Sherin loved watching the big blue buses go by. Her uncle was a bus driver, and he sometimes let her sit in the front seat. People laughed when she said she would drive a bus one day. Sherin learned to drive a scooter, then a car, and then a heavy vehicle. She practised for months and passed a difficult driving test. At twenty-four, she became the first woman bus driver in her depot. She says, “Never let anyone laugh away your dream.”
   
   Where did Sherin grow up? (a) Chennai (b) Kochi (c) Mysuru (d) Mumbai
9. 9.Thangam lived in a village in the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu. Her family grew vegetables, but the plants gave few beans. A visitor from the farm college told her that bees help plants make fruit and seeds. Thangam learned to keep bees in wooden boxes. She placed the boxes at the edge of the fields. That season, the plants gave many more beans. She also sold honey at the weekly market. Now many families in her village keep bees too.
   
   Who told her that bees help plants? (a) A visitor (b) Her teacher (c) Her mother (d) A neighbour
10. 10.Bhimrao was a farmer in a dry village in Maharashtra. For many years, his wells dried up before summer. He watched the rainwater rush away down the hill every monsoon. One year, he dug a small pond at the low end of his field. He also planted trees along the edges to hold the soil. The pond filled with rain and slowly soaked into the ground. The next summer, his well still had water. Soon, ten other farmers in the village dug ponds too.
    
    What was the problem with his wells? (a) They were dirty (b) They were too deep (c) They dried up (d) They overflowed
11. 11.Uncle Shankar has driven the school bus in Mysuru for twenty-two years. He knows the name of every child who rides with him. He keeps a notebook with all their birthdays. On each birthday, he plays a song and gives the child a toffee. He never drives fast, even when the bus is late. Once, he stopped the bus to help an old woman cross the road. Many of his first students now send their own children on his bus. They say he is part of their family.
    
    True or false: Shankar drives fast when the bus is late. (a) False (b) True
12. 12.Lalita Ben lived at the foot of a bare, rocky hill in Gujarat. When she was young, the hill had many trees, but people had cut them for firewood. Lalita Ben decided to plant one sapling every week. She carried water up the hill in two pots every morning. Goats ate many of her young plants, so she built fences of thorny branches. After twenty years, a small forest covered the hill. Birds and rabbits came back to live there. Children now call it “Lalita’s Forest”.
    
    What were the fences made of? (a) Iron wire (b) Thorny branches (c) Bricks (d) Bamboo

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