THE FUN THEY HAD

Very Short Answer Type Questions

Question 1. What is the name of Margie’s mother?
Answer- Her name is Mrs Jones.
Question 2. How old was Margie?
Answer- She was eleven years old.
Question 3. What did the teacher teach Margie when she went to her school?
Answer- When Margie went to school the mechanical teacher taught an arithmetic lesson on the addition of proper
fractions. It taught her how to add the fractions 1/2 and 1/4.
Question 4. What did Margie write in her diary?
Answer- On 17 May 2157 Margie recorded in her diary the discovery of a real book by Tommy. It was a very old paper
book with yellow and crinkly pages.
Question 5. What was wrong with the geography sector of Margie’s mechanical teacher?
Answer- The geography sector of Margie’s mechanical teacher was geared a little too quick.
Question 6. What subjects did Tommy and Margie learn?
Answer- Tommy and Margie learned a lot of subjects like History, Geography, and Mathematics.
Question 7. What was the County Inspector trained to do?
Answer- The County Inspector worked as a technical expert. He was trained to identify and rectify errors in the
functioning of the system installed in the mechanical teachers.
Question 8. What do you mean by a regular teacher?
Answer- It means the mechanical teacher that appears on the television screen at the fixed time.
Question 9. Why did Margie hate slot most?
Answer- Margie hated slot most because she had to put homework and test papers in it.
Question 10. Who was the Country Inspector? What was his work?
Answer- The country Inspector was the man who repaired the mechanical teacher. He adjusted the level of the teacher as
per the child’s requirements and intelligence.
Question 11. What did Tommy find?
Answer- He found a real book.
Question 12. Did Margie have regular days and hours for school? If so, why?
Answer- Yes, Margie had regular days and hours for school because her mother said little girls learned better if they
learned at regular hours.
Question 13. Why did Margie’s mother send for the County Inspector?
Answer- She sent for the County Inspector because Margie had been doing worse and worse in her geography tests.
Question 14. Why did Tom5my pronounce the word ‘centuries ago’ carefully?
Answer- Tommy pronounced the word carefully because he wanted to lay stress on the fact that the school was very old
and it was quite different from theirs.
Question 15. What had the mechanical teacher been giving to Margie?
Answer- The mechanical teacher had been giving test after test to Margie in geography.
Question 16. What had once happened to Tommy’s teacher?
Answer- Once Tommy’s teacher was taken away for about a month because the history sector had blanked out
completely.
Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. Describe the book that Tommy had found in the attic.
Answer- Tommy found a real book in the attic of his house. The pages had turned yellow and crinkly because it was at
least two hundred years old. Moreover, it was all covered with dust as it had been lying in the attic for ages.
Question 2. Where had Tommy found the book? How was it different from the books Margie and Tommy were
used to?
Answer- Tommy found a real book in the attic of his house. The book was at least two hundred years old so pages had
turned yellow and crinkly. It was a different from the books Margie and Tommy were used to because they had telebooks
to read from while the book Tommy found was printed on paper.
Question 3. Did Margie like the printed book? Why/Why not?
Answer- Margie was so excited to know that Tommy had found a ‘real’ book which was unlike the on-screen books the
two were used to reading, that she recorded the discovery in her diary. As she turned the yellow and crinkly pages of the
book with Tommy, she found it awfully funny to read it. While Tommy found it a waste, Margie was fascinated by it and
liked it.
Question 4. Had Margie ever seen a real book before? Did she know about such books?
Answer- No, Margie had never seen a book before till she saw the one Tommy found in the attic of his house. She had
only heard about books from her grandfather who himself had not seen any. He too had heard about a printed book from
his own grandfather.
Question 5. How does Tommy find the telebooks of his own time to be better?
Answer- Tommy felt that his telebooks were better than the printed books of the ancient times because they could be
stored on television and read again and again. They occupied very little space as compared to the printed books and need
not be discarded once they had been read.
Question 6. What kind of teachers did Margie and Tommy have? How were they different from teachers in the
book?
Answer- Margie and Tommy had mechanical teachers, which were large and black and ugly, with a big screen on which
all the lessons were shown and the questions were asked. There was a slot where they had to put homework and test
papers and the mechanical teacher calculated the marks in no time. Margie and Tommy’s teachers were different from the
teachers in the book as the teachers in the book were men and not mechanical teachers.
Question 7. What idea do you form of the County Inspector as a person?
Answer- The County Inspector was certainly a kind-hearted man. Instead of finding fault with Margie, he gave her an
apple and told her mother that if Margie was not performing well, it was not her fault, but the fault of the mechanical
teacher. He aligned the speed of the geography sector keeping in mind the level of the girl. Before leaving, he patted
Margie on the head and expressed satisfaction at her performance.
Question 8. Why had Margie started hating her school?
Answer- Margie never liked school. But lately she had come to hate it more than ever because of her poor performance in
geography. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in the subject and she had been doing worse and
worse.
Question 9. How did the County Inspector disappoint Margie?
Answer- Margie was disappointed because she hated school and hoped that her mechanical teacher would be taken away
for repairs as Tommy’s teacher was once taken away for a month. But when the County Inspector promptly repaired and
reset it at her home itself, she was unhappy.
Question 10. Margie’s mother was very particular about her studies. Justify with evidence from the story.
Answer- Margie’s mother was very particular about her studies and made sure that Margie attended her tele-school
regularly and at fixed times as she felt little girls learned better if they learned at regular hours. She took a keen interest in
Margie’s performance and when she felt she was not doing too well in a particular subject, she called the County
Inspector to have a look at the mechanical teacher.
Question 11. How does Tommy describe the old kind of teachers?
Answer- Tommy tells Margie that the teachers in olden times were not mechanical but real men. They taught various
things to boys and girls, gave them homework and also asked them questions. The teachers went to a special building
called the school where they taught the children in the classrooms.
Question 12. How will the e-books be different from the old books that existed centuries ago?
Answer- The very concept of ‘the books’ will change in the 22nd century. The e-books will replace old books. The books
will not be printed on papers. The words will move on a TV/computer screen. The television screen may have more than a
million books on it.
Question 13. Why was Margie not doing well in geography? What did the County Inspector do to help her?
Answer- Margie was not doing well in geography. In fact, her performance was getting worse day by day. Her mother
sent for the County Inspector to look into the problem. He told Mrs Jones that the geography sector in Margie’s
mechanical teacher was geared up a little too quickly for her and that he had slowed it up to the level of an average ten-
year-old.
Question 14. Who interrupts Margie and Tommy’s conversation? Why?
Answer
Margie and Tommy were lost in unraveling the exciting mystery of the ‘real’ book that the latter had found in his attic,
when Margie’s mother interrupted them saying “Margie! School!” and she even suggested to Tommy that it was time for
him to attend school, too.
Question 15. What is the ‘slot’? Why does Margie hate it?
Answer- ‘Slot’ was a space in the mechanical teacher where each student is to put his homework and test assignments for
marking. Margie hates it the most because she has to work hard to punch code for answering homework.
Question 16. Why did Margie get disappointed after the geography sector of her teacher was set right?
Answer- Margie’s mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and her mother had asked the
County Inspector to look into it. Margie had hoped that her mechanical teacher would be taken away for some time as
Tommy’s had been when it had malfunctioned. But she was disappointed when the County Inspector set the mechanical
teacher right there and then.
Question 17. What was Tommy’s opinion about the ‘real book’?
Answer- Tommy found the ‘real book’ a waste as once read you, just throw it away. It did not seem interesting and
useful. The words were fixed on it and not any other thing can be printed on it.
Question 18. What was Margie’s reaction when Tommy told her that twentieth-century schools had human
teachers?
Answer- When Margie heard Tommy mention that children were taught by human teachers in the times gone by, she
could not believe the truth of Tommy’s statement. She believed that a human teacher could not match the mechanical
teacher in intelligence and knowledge. This was because she had been taught by a mechanical teacher and had never seen
any human teacher.
Question 19. Why was Margie doing worse in geography? What did the County Inspector do to help her?
Answer- Margie had been doing worse in geography because the mechanical teacher was very fast in displaying the
questionnaire. The County Inspector adjusted its speed up to an average ten-year level. Thus, the mechanical teacher’s
speed was controlled appropriately. The County Inspector assured that the overall pattern of Margie’s progress was quite
satisfactory.