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NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 5 & 206Feathered Friend (story by Arthur C. Clarke) — Let us do these activities before we read

Book page 205 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Work in pairs and discuss the questions given below. Share your answers with your classmates and teacher. 1. Who can a ‘feathered’ friend be?
Answer

A ‘feathered’ friend is a bird — any bird kept, fed or simply befriended by a person. The phrase is an example of synecdoche: one striking feature, the feathers, is used to stand for the whole creature.

It could be a pet budgerigar or canary in a cage, the sparrows and mynas that come to a windowsill for grain, the crow that waits on the terrace wall, or a pigeon a family has raised. In this unit the ‘feathered friend’ is Claribel, a small yellow canary living on a space station.

Tip: the title is doing quiet work before the story even begins. ‘Friend’ tells you the bird will matter to the people, not just amuse them — and by the end she has saved their lives.
Q2.
2. Which ‘feathered’ friend do you like? Why?
Answer

This asks for your own choice, so answer with a bird you have actually watched and give a reason drawn from watching it.

Sample answer: I like the house sparrow best. Two pairs nest in the ventilator of our stairway, and they are the only birds that seem completely unafraid of people. They dust-bathe in the flowerpot, quarrel loudly over one grain of rice, and feed their chicks from morning to dusk without a pause. They have also become rare in cities, so keeping a bowl of water and some millet on the sill feels like doing something useful, not just watching.
What makes this a good answer: a named bird, a place you have seen it, one exact detail (the dust bath, the quarrel over a grain), and a reason. ‘I like peacocks because they are beautiful' answers nothing.
Q3.
3. If you have a choice between a ‘feathered’ and a ‘furry’ friend, who would you choose? Why?
Answer

Either choice is correct if the reason is honest and thought through. Weigh the two before deciding.

PointFeathered friend (bird)Furry friend (cat, dog, rabbit)
Space neededVery little; can share a balconyNeeds room, and a dog needs walks
Company it givesSong, movement, some birds mimic speechTouch, play, strong attachment to a person
CareClean water, grain, an uncaged flight if possibleFeeding, grooming, vaccination, exercise
Sample answer: I would choose a feathered friend — but not a caged one. I would rather put out water and grain and let wild birds come and go freely. A dog gives more affection, but it depends on us completely; a bird that visits by choice reminds me every day that it is a wild creature doing me a favour by staying.
Q4.
4. Do you think a ‘feathered’ or a ‘furry’ friend can accompany astronauts to space? If yes, why? If no, why not?
Answer

Yes — and a small bird is the more practical choice of the two, which is exactly the point the story goes on to prove.

  • Mass: every kilogram sent into orbit costs a fortune in fuel. A canary “weighed practically nothing”; a dog does not.
  • Supplies: her “food requirements were tiny”. A furry animal would need far more food, water and waste handling on a station where every gram is counted.
  • Weightlessness: the canary “was not worried, as most animals would have been, by the absence of gravity” — she already knew how to move through air, so free fall was a small adjustment, not a terror.
The larger reason, though: animals have been flown deliberately — Laika the dog, the Soviet dogs Belka and Strelka, monkeys, fruit flies, and mice on the ISS today — because their bodies react to space before ours do. In the story this becomes a life-saving accident: the bird registers bad air long before a human notices. Against this stands the ethical objection — an animal cannot consent to the risk — which is why serious space biology today uses insects and small rodents under strict rules, not pets.
Q5.
Complete the words given below by inserting vowels. Refer to their meanings given alongside. 1. official rule that controls how something is done: R _ G _ L _ T _ _ N
Answer

REGULATION

The story opens with it: “there's never been a regulation that forbids one to keep pets in a space station.”

Word family: regulate (verb) → regulation (noun) → regulatory (adjective). A regulation is an official rule; a rule may be informal.
Q6.
2. to not allow something: F _ R B _ D
Answer

FORBID

“…a regulation that forbids one to keep pets in a space station.”

Forms: forbid – forbade – forbidden. The doctor forbade him to lift weights.
Q7.
3. join or blend to form a single entity: F _ S _
Answer

FUSE

Sven's job was “fusing the pieces together when they were precisely dovetailed into the intended pattern” — welding the girders so that the join becomes one solid piece of metal.

Careful: the same spelling is also a noun — the safety fuse in an electric circuit, which melts and breaks the circuit.
Q8.
4. suddenly: _ B R _ P T L Y
Answer

ABRUPTLY

The space workers could admire their work “without being abruptly parted from it by gravity” — nothing they let go of fell away suddenly.

Word family: abrupt (adjective) → abruptly (adverb) → abruptness (noun). ‘Abrupt' also describes manner — an abrupt reply is one that is short to the point of rudeness.
Q9.
5. admit one’s mistake: C _ N F _ S S
Answer

CONFESS

Twice in the story: “I must admit” — and “Sven didn't confess to her ownership for several days.”

Shade of meaning: you confess something you were reluctant to reveal — a fault, a secret, an ownership you were hiding. You simply state a neutral fact.
Q10.
6. a person who advises what to eat to keep healthy: D_ _ T _ T _ _ N
Answer

DIETITIAN

Jock Duncan is called “our cook-doctor-dietitian” — one man doing three jobs, which itself tells you how small the station's crew was.

Spelling: dietitian (also written dietician). Note the -ian ending, which regularly names a person by their field: musician, physician, technician, historian.
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