© copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in LIFE SKILLS SHEET 1 CLASS 8 FAMOUS DETECTIVES NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________ "After a quiz in Mumbai, a little boy came up to me, not for my autograph, but to ask whether or not I like detective stories, apparently, one of the rounds of the quiz named ’Playing Detective’ seemed to have churned his memory and he told me that ‘Derrick’ the detective of a German TV serial resembled my dad. Imagine my surprise when I got home to watch the late night pro- gramme. There he was---the same look, the way of speaking and even his walk seemed to have an exact likeness. In the course of my reading, I discovered that the letter ‘H’ is common to many de- tectives and their creators—Hardy Boys, Holmes, Dashiell Hammett and Hercule Poirot to name Given below are some facts about two world famous detectives, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Separate them under two columns Sherlock and Poirot. Sherlock Poirot 1 He was introduced to the world, in an adventure titled A study in Scarlet ._______ ________ 2. He is Belgians by birth _______ ________ 3. He has a friend named Captain Hastings _______ ________ 4. Its creator describes him as a thin wiry dark man, with a high nosed acute face penetrating grey eyes and angular shoulders.’ _______ ________ 5. He appeared in Agatha Christle’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles _______ ________ 6. The actor who made this detective most popular on television is David Suchet. _______ ________ 7. His London abode at 221B, Baker Street, is tended by his housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson. _______ ________ 8. Dr. John H Watson is his close associate. _______ ________ 9. As his career progressed he moved into Whitehaven Mansions, chosen for its symmetry and hired the terrifyingly efficient Miss Felicity Lemon as his Secretary. _______ ________ 10. ‘ The speckled Band’ , ‘ The Hound of the Baskervilles’ , ‘ The Blue Carbuncle’ are some of the cases solved by him. _______ ________ 11. He has an older brother names Mycroft _______ ________ KNOW WITH … Upon his death, Hercule Poirot became the only fictional character ever to be honoured with an Obituary on the front page of The New York Times . © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 2 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 2 CLASS 8 PSEUDONYMS NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________ "I love reading whodunits and Ellery Queen is one of my favourites. Did you know Ellery queen is actually a non- de- plume of two people Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky? Looking at their names, I could see why they chose Ellery Queen." Match the Pseudonyms with the real name of the writers. Column A Column B 1. Mary Ann Evans a. Lewis Carroll 2. William Sydney Porter b. Mark Twain 3. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson c. Joseph Conrad 4. Eric Arthur Blair d. Oscar Wilde 5. Francoise Marie Arouet e. George Orwell 6. Fingal O’Flahertie Arouet f. Voltaire 7. Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski g. O Henry 8. Samuel Langhorne Clemens h. George Eliot KNOW WITH … The author Hector Hugh Munro took the Pseudonym Saki from the last Stanza of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 3 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 3 CLASS 8 THE INDIAN CONNECTION NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________ "India was the jewel in the crown of the British empire. No wonder, a lot of English and European authors have written on this fascinating land and its people. Learn more about a few of them here." Answer these questions 1. Which is the author of A Passage to India ? 2. Who alongwith Dominique Lapierre has written the book Freedom at Midnight? 3. Which novel by Yann Martel is about Piscine Molitor Patel, an Indian boy from Pondichery? 4. Which English author was born in the tiny town of Motihari in the eastern state of Bihar in 1903? 5. Who wrote the preface to the English translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gi- tanjali? 6. In which city was the famous author William Makepeace Thackeray born? 7. Which is the author of the work Man-eaters of Kumaon ? 8. Which India-born author is the youngest Nobel Prize winner in Literature? 9. Who is the author of the work The City of Joy ? KNOW WITH … The author E M Forster had served as the private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas in 1921. © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 4 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 4 CLASS 8 INDIAN AUTHORS NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________ “India has produced many authors who write in different language. My family and I have al- ways enjoyed reading R K Narayana’s books. Now I am going to collect all his novels, short sto- ries, essays translations of Indian epics and travelogues and store them, much like a squirrel that collects acorns and keeps then safe to pass the winter months. And I know whenever I am feeling down or blue, all I have to do is pick up a R K Narayan story which will transport me to Malgudi and surround me with a breath of fresh air.” Name the language that connects these Indian authors 1. Amrita Pritam, Balwant GArgi, Nanak Singh _________________ 2. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Mahashveta Devi, Asha Purna Devi ______________ 3. G Sankara Kurup, K G Sankara Pillai, M T Vasudevan Nair __________________ 4. Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand, Ruskin Bond __________________ 5. Makhanlal Chaturvedi, Mahadevi Varma, Sumitra Nandan Pant_________________ 6. Kaifi Azmi, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Firaq Gorakhpuri __________________ 7. Subramanya Bharati, Bharathidasan, P V Akilandan __________________ 8. Dr. K V Puttappa, K S Karanth, D R Bendre __________________ Kannada English Tamil Malayalam Bengali Hindi Urdu Punjabi KNOW WITH … A pioneer of modern Hindi and Urdu social fiction, Munshi Premchand’s real name was Dhanpat Rai. He wrote nearly 300 stories and novels. Among his best known nov- els are: Sevasadan, Rangmanch, Gaban, Nirmala and Godan. © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 5 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 5 CLASS 8 INDIAN AUTHORS IN SANSKRIT NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________ “Sanskrit is the mother of many Indian languages, I never studies Sanskrit and looking at the great epics, I have missed a lot.” Fill in the blanks with the names of authors 1. _________________________ is also called Adikavi. He was advised by Narada to write the Ramayana. 2. _________________________ is the grandson of sage Vasistha and son of Rishi Parashar. He is the author of the epic Mahabharata. 3. Kalidasa mentions the name of the poet ____________________________ with respect in the prelude to his first drama, the Malavikagnimitram . 4. ________________________ is the composer of three Sanskrit works: Nagananda, Ratnavali and Priyadarshika. 5. _____________________ is the author of Natyashastra . 6. __________________________ has been regarded as a great sage and referred to as Go- nardiya, Phani, Adhipati and Shesraja 7. _________________________ was a poet in the court of Raja Laxman Sen of Bengal who flourished in 12 th century AD who wrote the famous geeti Kavya- Geeta Govinda . 8. _________________________composed Rajatarangini which portrays the history of Kashmir. 9. _________________________ Panchatantra deals with five secrets of good administration, kingship and worldly wisdom which have been related with the help of the animal fables. 10. ______________________________ wrote Bhashyas or Commentaries on the Brahma Sutras , the Upanishads and the Gita. Bhasa Patanjali Kalidas Valmiki Harshavardhana Ved Vyas Jaidev Kalhan Adi Shankaracharya Panini KNOW WITH … Charles Wili\kins a British Scholar Translated Hitopadesha and the Bhagavadgita in English. His translation of the Bhagavadgita ( London 1785) was first Sanskrit book to be directly translated into a European Language. © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 6 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 6 CLASS 8 HINDU MYTHOLOGY NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________ "I remember the time the television serials Ramayana and Mahabharata were be- ing aired, long before you were born. The streets went empty at 10 am every Sun- day. Everyone would finish work before the programme started." Here are a few questions in Hindu myth. Answer them. 1. Nandi is the Vahana of which god? 2. Who lifted the Govardhana Mountain to save his people from the wrafth of Indra? 3. In Hindu mythology, who is Swaha’s Husband? 4. What is the Vahana of goddess Lakshmi? 5. Apart from Brahma and Vishnu, who is the trinity of Hindu- ism? 6. In Hindu mythology, whose vahana is a buffalo? 7. The Gayatri mantra is devoted to which deity? 8. Whose finger did Dronacharya ask for as gurudakshina? 9. Which was the second of the four yugas in Hindu mythology? 10. According to Hindu mythology, who was the famous husband of Damayanti? KNOW WITH … There is a very interesting story about why Kumbhakarna, Ravana’s brother, slept for six months. when kumbhakarna requested brahma for a boon, Saraswati, at the instance of the lat- ter, lodged herself on the tongue of Kumbhakarna and made him ask for Nidravatva (sleep), something different from what he really desired to get – Nirdevatva ( Absence of Devas). © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 7 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 7 CLASS 8 HOW TO WRITE NAME ______________________________________ DATE _________________ "I have heard many people say ‘I am going to marketing’. All I wanted to ask them what do them to market? In India, we do not differentiate between the words marketing and shopping. So most of my friends were actually going to shop and not market goods." While writing any piece in simple and clear English, you should follow certain rules. Some suggestions to help you are: 1. Planning before writing helps a lot. It allows you to chalk out as to how to begin any piece. You also have time to think about what you are trying to express.