Mijbil the Otter · Class 10 English · First Flight: 135 MCQs with answers

That they were as thick there as mosquitoes, and that Arabs often kept them tame

The casualness of the remark is the point: an extraordinary pet is suggested as an ordinary possibility.

To the Consulate-General, to collect and answer their mail from Europe

The otter arrives while he is waiting for that mail, which is why the delay matters to the story.

He found two Arabs in his bedroom with a sack that squirmed, and a note from his friend

The note said simply that here was his otter, and the plainness of the delivery is part of the comedy.

A very small, medievally-conceived dragon

The mole is the comparison for the fur beneath the mud, not for the animal as a whole.

He was aloof and indifferent

Neither hostile nor friendly, he chose to sleep on the floor as far from the bed as possible for the first twenty-four hours.

Absence of interest

He begins to lose it on the second day and takes a keen — 'much too keen' — interest in his surroundings.

He went wild with joy for half an hour, plunging, rolling and shooting up and down underwater

Maxwell says he made enough slosh and splash for a hippo — the first sight of what an otter is really for.

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He escaped to the bathroom and turned the chromium taps himself

In less than a minute he had a trickle, and a moment or two later the full flow.

Because the British airline to London would not fly animals

He flew Basra to Paris on another airline, and from Paris on to London.

Complete silence from the box, with blood trickled and dried at the airholes

He whipped off the lock and tore open the lid to find Mij exhausted and blood-spattered.

That he might prefer to have his pet on his knee

He says he could have kissed her hand in the depth of his gratitude — and then the otter escaped.

Stood up on her seat screaming 'A rat! A rat!'

The shrieking and squawking around her are part of the same comic uproar.

Dreaded the prospect

He had dreaded the journey home to Camusfearna from the beginning.

A four-footed soccer player

His comparisons are human and sporting, which is what makes Mij seem almost like a child.

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On a lead, precisely as if he had been a dog

The phrase 'precisely as if' quietly reminds us that he was not a dog at all.

Habits impossible to control

Maxwell explains them through children's rituals before applying the idea to Mij.

Jumped on to it and galloped the full thirty yards

The wall was about two feet high and ran the length of the school frontage.

Mustellines

The group is shared by the badger, mongoose, weasel, stoat and mink, among others.

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It was with water almost at the doorstep, which an otter would need

Water is the single requirement he mentions, and everything later in the chapter shows why it mattered so much.

The death of his dog Jonnie had left him unwilling to keep another dog

The idea of an otter 'instead of a dog' is the starting point, and he calls the whole undertaking an experiment.

1 and 2 only

He cabled, waited three days, tried to telephone for three more, and the mail came five days after his friend had left.

A state of being under their control, which he says most otter owners share

He places the confession before we have even seen the animal, so the reader knows how completely it will take over.

He was coated from head to tail in symmetrical pointed scales of dried mud

Soft velvet fur was visible between the tips, and it took a month before the last of the mud was removed.

A cloud of dust

The joke measures how thickly the animal was caked, and prepares the month it took to clean him.

It was previously unknown to science, and zoologists named it Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli

The naming was done by zoologists, and it records the person through whom the subspecies came to notice.

On the second night he slept in the bend of Maxwell's knees

The relationship is settled while its owner is asleep, and the next day the otter loses his apathy.

A body-belt, to attach a lead

Later Mij would follow him without a lead, but at this stage he is still an unknown quantity.

Water has to be kept moving and put to some use

Every drop must be extended and spread about the place, and a bowl must be overturned or sat in until it overflows.

1 and 2 only

The race was previously unknown to science, which is exactly why a new name was needed.

A plan, a long delay, an unexpected delivery, and the first days of a new relationship

Recognising the shape helps in any question asking how Maxwell came to own Mijbil.

Thraldom — being under the control of something

Apathy is absence of interest, aloof means keeping a distance, and provoking means causing anger or a reaction.

He travelled there first, and the idea of an otter came to him afterwards, prompted by a friend's casual remark

The sequence matters: travel, then the idea, then the suggestion, then a long delay over the post — and then an otter in a sack.

Both show an otter insisting that water be moved and made to do things

Maxwell states the rule immediately after the bathtub, and the tap is the next demonstration of it.

It is a joke about how completely the animal was caked in dried mud

The humour is characteristic: an extraordinary animal is described through an entirely ordinary expectation.

A wish for an otter, a friend's casual advice and a fortnight of postal delay brought a sack to Maxwell's bedroom in Basra

A good opening gathers the three causes — the wish, the advice and the delay — that the section actually gives.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include at least six of: the journey to southern Iraq early in 1956; the wish for an otter instead of a dog, after Jonnie's death; Camusfearna ringed by water; the friend's casual advice about the Tigris marshes; the visit to the Consulate-General at Basra for mail;…

He would follow him without a lead and come when called by name

In the early days a body-belt and lead were needed; now the relationship holds without one.

He dribbled it with all four feet and threw it with a flick of the neck

The belly-rolling was done with marbles, which Maxwell calls the real play of an otter.

Lying on his back and juggling small objects between his paws

Marbles were Mij's favourite for this, rolled up and down his wide flat belly without one ever falling.

1 and 2 only

He rolled two or more marbles up and down his belly without ever dropping one to the floor.

A box not more than eighteen inches square, on the floor at his feet

Every disaster of the journey follows from that single condition.

So that the otter would become accustomed to it

It was a sensible precaution, and it produced the worst moment in the chapter.

Mij had torn the lining of the box to shreds

Maxwell removed the last of the lining so that there were no cutting edges left before using the box again.

There were ten minutes to the flight and the airport was five miles away

He first cleared away every cutting edge, then held the lid down with his hand all the way to the airport.

The driver's course through the streets of Basra

A ricochetting bullet is one that changes direction after hitting a surface, which describes the drive exactly.

Spread newspapers, rang for the hostess, and handed over fish for Mij

He also took the hostess into his what the last half hour had been like.

She met a difficult situation with kindness and imagination throughout

The fish kept cool, the offer of the knee and the calm retrieval of the animal are all her doing.

He dived after Mij's tail under a passenger's legs and missed

The tail had disappeared under the legs of a stout Indian gentleman in a white turban.

Mij returns on his own, chittering, and nuzzles Maxwell's face and neck

Maxwell was craning his neck to follow the hunt when the chitter came from his own feet.

Portly — stout

Fumbling is doing something in a clumsy manner, and the officials at the airport were infuriated, not amused.

Covering the floor around his feet with newspapers

The seat at the front was luck, and the newspapers were his own precaution, as was the parcel of fish.

1 and 2 only

The route was Basra to Paris on one airline, and Paris to London afterwards.

She smiled charmingly and offered to find the animal herself

Her suggestion that he resume his seat while she found the animal is precisely why he admires her.

A clever, playful animal, and a journey that nearly destroyed him

The two halves — the tap and the games, then the box and the flight — are held together by the same creature.

Maxwell dreaded the journey, and the airline's eighteen-inch box turned his fear into an appalling spectacle

A good opening names the dread and the condition, because everything that follows comes out of them.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include at least six of: the dread of the journey; the British airline refusing animals; the Paris routing; the eighteen-inch box on the floor at his feet; putting Mij in an hour early and going for a meal; the silence and dried blood; the shredded lining and the ex…

A terrapin shell brought back from his native marshes

The others were ping-pong balls, marbles and rubber fruit.

It had been damaged on the journey home from Iraq

An accident is what makes the game possible, which is part of what makes Mij's discovery impressive.

Place the ball high, let it run, dash round, ambush, spring, grab, carry back

He hid from a ball he had released himself, which is why the game is both clever and funny.

Touching every seventh upright of the iron railings

The others he gives are feet squarely on the centre of each paving block, and passing outside every second lamp post.

The hopeless distraction of both pupils and staff inside the school

Maxwell reports the disruption with obvious amusement and no apology.

A stream of questions filled with guesses

They sprayed all the Mustellines but the otter, which is the joke Maxwell is making.

'Is that a walrus, mister?'

The hippo was heard outside a dog show, and the brontosaur is listed among the wilder guesses.

That it must have been one that had changed its spots

The joke plays on the proverb about a leopard being unable to change its spots.

He put down his tool, set his hands on his hips and stared

As Maxwell drew nearer, the man's expression showed surprise and affront.

Shut alone in the box, he panicked and tore the lining to shreds

The other three show playfulness and intelligence; the box shows what solitude did to him.

It must be spread about, kept moving and put to use

Maxwell states the rule after the first bath: static water is wasted and provoking.

1 and 2 only

Mij discovered the sloping lid for himself and built the game around it.

The guesses sprayed all the Mustellines but the otter, and ran on to seals, walruses and a brontosaur

The point of the passage is that everything was guessed except the right answer.

That neither pupils nor teachers could keep their attention on the lesson

Distraction is something that takes your attention away from what you are doing, and Maxwell enjoys reporting it.

His attachment to Maxwell

Recognising a name and answering it is a sign of bond rather than of cleverness alone.

It closes on a stranger's blunt question rather than on any conclusion about Mij

The labourer's demand to know what that is supposed to be is deliberately the last word.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content must cover all four qualities with evidence from the text: intelligence (the tap; the invented ping-pong game); fun-loving (the rubber ball and flick of the neck; marbles on the belly; the school wall); friendly (sleeping in the crook of the knees; following without a lead…

Comic frustration, and the delay that keeps Maxwell in Basra to receive the otter

Nothing dramatic happens, but the accumulated small failures are both funny and necessary to the plot.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

The order of the paragraphs is deliberate: the consequence is announced before the cause is described.

Because water that is not being moved and used serves no purpose for the animal

Maxwell is describing an instinct, not a health risk, and the sentence explains almost all of Mij's later behaviour.

Dryly amused

He reports each failure flatly and in order, which is exactly what makes a string of ordinary frustrations funny.

Both the state the otter arrived in and the patience he would require

The armour of mud is the first of many ways in which this animal turns out to be more work than a dog.

So that the reader meets it as he did, strange and unidentifiable

He describes what he saw rather than what he knew, which is why the mud and the scales come before the fur.

That he was cautious with a stranger after being taken from the marshes

Aloofness is neither hostility nor fear; the animal is simply reserving judgement, and it changes its mind within a day.

He notes exactly how long the bathtub session lasted and what Mij did in it

The half-hour, the plunging and rolling and the underwater length of the bath are an observer's notes, not an owner's.

Its shortness makes the arrival of a wild animal sound like an ordinary delivery

'Here is your otter' beside a squirming sack is the driest joke in the chapter.

That he did not yet know what keeping an otter would involve

By the end of the same page he is describing a thraldom, which measures how far the experiment had already gone.

That its needs are learned by watching it, often after it has already arrived

Maxwell's rule about water is discovered in a bathroom half an hour after he first put a lead on the animal.

That water has to be kept moving and put to some use

Taps, bathtubs, an aircraft and a London flat are all versions of the same instinct stated in that one sentence.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the aloof and indifferent first twenty-four hours and why that is reasonable; the second night in the crook of the knees; the loss of apathy and the keen interest; the body-belt and lead; the observation of the bathroom half-hour; the general rule about wat…

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should identify techniques with evidence: the casual introduction of the idea and the friend's reply; the long passage of administrative delay and its flat tone; the understated delivery, with the sack and the note; the animal described as an object, with the dragon and mu…

Because later he often screwed it tighter and chittered with irritation

The correction keeps the animal an animal: a remarkable act is reported and then trimmed back to the truth.

Because it suggests the animal may already be beyond struggling

Maxwell calls the whole scene an appalling spectacle, and it is the stillness that makes it so.

Wretched, but with no alternative in the time available

He calls the animal 'the miserable Mij' and keeps a hand on the lid — the feeling is in those two details.

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Both are true, but how Maxwell came by the otter does not explain his being unprepared.

It turns a comic uproar into a moment of affection

Maxwell arranges most of his comedy this way: the joke closes on the bond between man and animal.

That he acts on his surroundings rather than accepting them

He opens a tap that will not open itself and destroys a lining that confines him: the same instinct in two settings.

A living animal was fitted to a rule designed for luggage

The eighteen-inch box on the floor at his feet is an administrative answer to a living problem.

Deadpan — extraordinary events reported in a level voice

He records the screaming, the curry and his own failure to catch the animal without raising his voice once.

That he planned for the animal's needs even while his own were in chaos

He had just come from a bloodied box and a five-mile dash, yet the first thing he arranges is a cool place for Mij's food.

Because it keeps the portrait truthful rather than flattering

The chittering irritation at the tap's failure to cooperate is as carefully observed as the first full flow.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the hostess's suggestion and Maxwell's gratitude; the warning 'not knowing otters'; the escape in a flash; the squawks and the woman screaming 'A rat! A rat!'; the portly white-turbaned Indian and the missed dive; the face covered in curry; the hostess's ch…

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content must address all three qualities with textual evidence: intelligence (the tap, and the frustration when it will not turn); playfulness (the rubber ball, the flick of the neck, the marbles on his belly); need for love (following without a lead, coming when called, the panic…

That he was intelligent enough to build a routine out of an accident

Nobody taught him any of it, and it could hold his attention for up to half an hour at a time.

Because he did it on the way home but never on the way out

A ritual is a rule the animal has made for itself, and the fixed direction is what proves there is a rule.

Beaver

The beaver appears in the chapter, but as one of the Londoners' wrong guesses about Mij.

Because an ordinary city dweller has no reason to have seen an otter

He is surprised by the variety of the guesses, not by the failure to recognise the animal.

He suspected that someone was playing a joke on him

Maxwell says it was as though the man would have him know that he was not a man to be made a fool of.

Because the man gave up guessing and was simply offended by the animal

It is the perfect end to the guessing game: no guess at all, just a demand for an explanation.

Building a whole game out of a suitcase lid that happened to slope

The tap is a close second; both are problems Mij solved without being shown how.

Close observation, timed and measured, with the humour left to the facts

Half an hour in the bath, a minute at the tap, thirty yards of wall — the precision is what makes the comedy work.

Giving human feelings to an animal, always tied to an observed action

Mij is irritated, distressed or engrossed, but each feeling is attached to something Maxwell watched him do.

We see the otter only through an owner who is fond of him and honest about him

The fondness is obvious, but so is the blood in the box and the frustration at the tap.

A marsh animal ended up in a box, in a city, on a lead far from its habitat

The textbook asks students to weigh this against the affection and care the story also shows.

That the animal playing in a London flat came from the Tigris marshes

Maxwell says plainly that he had brought it back from Mij's native marshes.

A is false, but R is true

He reaches for schoolchildren precisely to make the point, so the assertion is false. The reason explains why the comparison works.

Because the comparison is one every reader recognises from their own life

It is also the clearest instance of the technique that makes Mij seem almost like a small boy.

Maxwell measures everything he loves, and the humour comes out of the accuracy

The half hour, the minute, the thirty yards and the eighteen inches are the proof of that sentence.

It shows the otter fully himself, and the world entirely unable to place him

The invented game, the private rituals and the guessing game all point the same way.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should identify techniques with evidence: precise measurement (half hour, a minute, thirty yards); failures recorded as well as successes (the tap); habits peculiar to Mij (the wall, one direction only); anthropomorphism tied to observed action; human comparisons (soccer p…

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content must present both sides with evidence. Affection: the thraldom; close observation; the body-belt and lead; the parcel of fish; Mij sleeping in the crook of the knees, following without a lead, returning on the aircraft. Cost: removal from the Tigris marshes; the sack; the…