Page 1 - 18. THE HUNDRED DRESSES I LN4 NCERT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

THE HUNDRED DRESSES – I

Oral Comprehension Check Page 65
Question 1.Where in the classroom does Wanda sit and why?
Answer:Wanda Petronski used to sit on the corner most benches in the last row,
lost in her world, where rough boys usually sat. She was a very poor, shy and quiet
girl and did not want to mess with others so she preferred to sit in isolation.

Question 2.Where does Wanda live? What kind of a place do you think it is?
Answer:Wanda lived upon Boggins Heights, where poor people lived. It was not a
developed area and was covered with mud. There were no proper roads or streets
and it was a kind of slum.

Question 3.When and why do Peggy and Maddie notice Wanda’s absence?
Answer:Wanda didn’t come to school on Monday and Tuesday but nobody noticed
her absence as she did not have friends in the class. When Peggy and Maddie
waited for Wanda to make fun of her after the school was off, they noticed that she
was absent, otherwise nobody bothered about her there.

Question 4.What do you think “to have fun with her” means?
Answer:“To have fun with her ” means to laugh at her as it is human tendency to
make fun of others imperfections which are mostly about the appearance. Here in
the story, Wanda is a source of amusement or pleasure because of her shy nature
and her tall claims about hundred dresses.

Page 67
Question 5.In what way was Wanda different from the other children?
Answer:Wanda Petronski was a polish girl whose parents had settled down in
America. She was a source of amusement because of her last name which made
her different from others, because Americans did not have such names and it was
difficult to pronounce. She came to school alone and her feet were covered with
mud. She preferred to sit alone in the last in the class. She had only one blue dress
which was faded but she claimed to have a hundred dresses. Thus, Wanda was
different from other children.

Question 6.Did Wanda have a hundred dresses? Why do you think she said
she did?
Answer:Wanda was teased everyday by her classmates after school hours. They
used to make fun of her dress and her name. One day tired of all the teasing and
taunting, she claimed that she had a hundred dresses and sixty pairs of shoes, but
nobody believed her.
She suffered from an inferiority complex. Thus in order to mask her impoverished
background, she lied about owing a hundred dresses. One can also say that she had
the ability to draw the designs of a hundred dresses and that prompted her to say so.