The Syllabus of Class 8

Parts of speech

1. NOUN:

The name of person, place, thing, or idea

Nouns can be common or proper

Common nouns: man, book, city, team

Proper nouns: Justin, Lord of the Flies, New York, New York Giants

Nouns can be concrete (things you can see or touch) or abstract (things you can’t see or

touch)

Concrete nouns: dishes, desks, discs, doorknobs

Abstract nouns: love, justice, guilt, anxiety

Nouns can be subjects or objects:

A subject noun names the person, place, thing or idea that is doing the action or is being

talked about. Our family loved spending afternoons in the park.

An object noun is used as the direct object, indirect object, or object of the preposition.

We would often eat our lunch there.

Our favorite game was football.

2. PRONOUN:

Substitutes for nouns and function as nouns: Jess said the hat was __his own.

Personal pronouns:
Refers to persons like first person, second person and third person: I, you, be, she, it we,

they. I want to go home.

Indefinite pronouns:

It is not used as substitute for specifics, but for general like everybody, someone for

instance, everybody speaks.

Relative pronouns:

It relates groups of words to nouns or other pronouns like who, whoever, which, that.

This is the girl whom I love.

Interrogative pronouns:

It introduces questions like who, whom which, what etc. Who will contribute?

Demonstrative pronouns:

It identifies or points to nouns like this, that, such, these, those, that etc. This is a

problem. Intensive pronouns or Reflexive pronoun:

It deals with a personal pronoun + self/selves forms like himself, ourselves, herself, and

myself etc. He himself asked that question.

3. Verb:

It means an action or state of being for instance Janie __travels__ five miles every day.

There are types of a verb: transitive, intransitive and auxiliary.

Transitive verbs

They pass the action on to a receiver (person, place, or thing)/object. The receiver is the

object such as I threw the pen.

Identification:

If there are questions left (who, where, what), it’s probably a transitive.
Intransitive verbs:

They don’t pass the action on to a receiver unlike transitive verb. For example, he sleeps.

Auxiliary verb:

Linking verbs that link subjects to word(s) that describe the subject. For instance (am, is,

are, were, was, has, have, had, would, should, could, may, might, shall, will, must, ought

to, need to all are the examples of auxiliary verbs etc.)

Example:

The answer is three.

4. ADVERB:

It modifies or describes verbs, adjective, or other adverbs. It answers the questions like

HOW? WHEN? WHERE? or TO WHAT EXTENT? Who ran __fast__ in the relay? I

ran __fast__.

HINT:

-ly ending is a clue that it’s an adverb.

Adverb has three forms: positive, comparative, and superlative.

Positive: Performing fleas train vigorously. (“Vigorously” modifies the verb “train”

without making any comparisons.)

Comparative: Jumping frogs train more vigorously than performing fleas. (“More

vigorously” modifies the verb “train” and compares how “frogs” train to how “fleas”

train.)

Superlative: Fido’s flea is the most vigorously trained insect in the world. (“Most

vigorously” modifies the adjective “trained” and compares one “flea” to all other insects.)

Adverb has three types: adverb of time, adverb of place and adverb of manner.
Adverb of place:

He goes there.

Adverb of time:

He reaches there early in the morning.

Adverb of manner:

He runs fastly.

5. ADJECTIVE:

It modifies or describes a noun or pronoun and answers the questions like WHAT KIND?

HOW MANY? WHICH ONE? Etc. The boy is beautiful.

There are four types of Adjectives: demonstrative, compound, indefinite and predicate.

Demonstrative: points out a particular noun. This kitten is mean, but that cat is meaner.

Compound: made up of more than one word. Scar-faced Bronty is no scaredy-cat guard.

Indefinite: gives an approximate number/quantity. Some cats enjoy having many mice

around.

Predicate: follows a linking verb and describes the subject. A frustrated kitten is

unpleasant and unpredictable.

There are three Forms of Adjectives: Positive, comparative and superlative.

Positive: describes noun/pronoun without comparing it to anything. Frozen yogurt is a

light dessert.

Comparative: compares 2 nouns/pronouns. Frozen yogurt is a lighter dessert than ice

cream.

Superlative: compares 3 or more nouns/pronouns. Frozen yogurt is the lightest dessert of

the five on this menu.

It shows position or direction of something. Kate tossed a penny into her pocket.

7. CONJUNCTIONS:

It connects ideas or joins words, phrases, or clauses. Fred finished his math and English

homework. There are two types of conjunction: Subordinate Conjunctions:

AAAWWUBBIS: as, after, although, while, when, until, before, because, if, since etc. o

Coordinate Conjunction: FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so etc.

8. INTERJECTIONS:

It refers to a word or phrase used to express strong emotion or surprise. Hurrah! I have

won the match. It shows intense emotion o and exists in single word or VERY short

phrase.

1.5 Activities: From below listed sentences, point out the parts of speech.

a) Laborers are working hard.

b) August Comte is prominent sociologist.

c) Ouch! This machine is so hard.

d) Marriage is held between two different genders.

e) They are living in an Industrial are.

Tenses

Tense (noun): a form of a verb used to indicate the time, and sometimes the continuation

or completeness, of an action in relation to the time of speaking. (From Latin tempus =

time).

There are three basic types of tense in English language.

a) Present indefinite b) Past indefinite c) Future indefinite

Present simple tense is used to state an action which occurs on the regular basis in

present. This tense includes habitual or repeated actions.

This tense follows the following structure.

S + 1st form of verb + O

For negative:

S + does not/ do not/ + 1st form of verb + O

For interrogative:

Does/ do + S + 1st form of verb + O

Examples:

a) He works for an NGO.

b) He doesn’t work for an NGO.

c) Does he work for an NGO?

(ii) Past Indefinite:

The past indefinite tense is to talk about a completed action in a time before now

or present time. The time of action can be in the recent past or distant past, but action

duration is not restricted.

The structure of the past indefinite tense is following.

S + 2nd form of the verb + O

For negative:

S + didn’t + 1st form of the verb + O

For interrogative:

Did + S + 1st form of the verb + O

a) They preferred agriculture over industry.

b) They did not prefer agriculture over industry.

c) Did they prefer agriculture over industry?

(iii) Future indefinite:

Future indefinite tense is used to express an action that will occur or happen in the

future. It is used to describe an action which will happen in near or far future after being

said about it by speaker.

This tense follows the following structure.

S + will + 1st form of verb + O

For negative:

S + will not + 1st form of verb + O

For interrogative:

Will + S + 1st form of verb + O

Examples:

a) He will learn English language.

b) He will not learn English language.

c) Will he learn English language?

2.7 Activities:

a) Rewrite each sentence as a negative, interrogative or a negative vs interrogative

according to the above given instruction.

b) Bourgeois class will exploit proletariat class.

d) Marxists admire communism as an economical system.

e) He studies ecology

Word Meanings from the text book

The Newcomer

1. Answer the following questions:

a. How do the animals feel about newcomer?

The animals feel suspicious and strange about new comer.

b. What do you think is the main emotion of the poem?

The main emotion of the poem is fear.

c. There are a lot of negatives in the poem. What is the significance of the word ‘No’

in the poem?

Negative expression provides the dark picture of human beings. It tells that no other

animal is willing to accept newcomer

d. What is meant by ‘not even the ghost of the wing’?

It means human being is not like ghost and it has no wing.

e. What do the humans do in the river and warren?

In the river, human beings ignore the impassable dam and in the warren they dig it deeper

than rabbits.

f. What does it tell about human qualities?

It tells that humans are more powerful than other animals.

g. Do you think? This poem is fair to human beings?

2. Reference to the context|:

‘There’s something new in the whiteness,’

a. Who says this and to whom?

The snow-white polar bear says this to the other animals (the fish, thrush, and rabbit).

b. What else does the speaker say?

The polar bear says that he saw the newcomer’s shadow on a glacier, but it left no paw

marks there.

c. What was the something new that the speaker saw?

The ‘something new’ was a human.

d. Who else heard this news?

The whole of the animal kingdom heard this news.

The Silver Lining

1. Answer the following question.

a. Why does author think that it is difficult to access rage and quality of human

emotion?

The author believes it is difficult to assess the range and quality of human emotions

because it is usually not possible to tell what grieves people have by merely looking at

their appearance.

b. In what way Ahad’s house was suitable to stay?

The Ahads’ Guest House was a suitable place to stay because it was near the bus stand,

market, and post office.

c. What makes author to say as he felt to know about family for years?
The Ahads were very kind to their guests and looked after them well.

d. In what manner author tries to make friendship with Maheen and how Maheen

and her parents react?

The author asked Maheen what her name was, smiled at her and beckoned to her. (I)

Maheen reacted by blushing and running out of the room with tears in her eyes. (ii) Her

parents frowned with pained looks on their faces.

e. What phrase tells us about Ahad and his wife’s grief on the investigation about

their daughter?

‘With pained looks on their faces’

2. Reference to context:

a. I vaguely felt I had wronged her and her parents.

Why does the speaker feel like this?

i. The speaker, Mr Nadeem, felt only slightly that he had wronged the family because he

had not really known what he was doing. He had not done anything on purpose. He felt

he had wronged the girl and her parents because he had tried to make friends with her by

speaking to her, but had not realized she was deaf and dumb.

What did he do to make the situation better?

ii. To make the situation better, and to save the child from repeated humiliation, he

suggested that the Ahads provide new guests with a note containing information about

Maheen.

b. At this time he discovered the sealed envelope containing the typed chit lying on

the table, addressed to him by name.

Who discovered the envelope?

What had happened immediately prior to this?

ii. Mr. David was greeted by Mr. Ahad, and made entries about himself in the

guesthouse register.

What was in the envelop and what did it say?

iii. In the envelope was the information the Ahads had provided about Maheen and the

fact that she was deaf and dumb.

What did the person do immediately after this?

iv. Immediately after this Mr. David looked around astonished, saw Maheen sitting

outside in the garden, looked at the Ahads and Mr. Nadeem with a smile, and darted out

towards Maheen.

c. She looked the happiest woman in the world.

Who is this statement about?

i. Mrs. Ahad

Why was the person happy?

ii. Mrs. Ahad was happy because Mr. David had outlined to her and her husband some

plans for the education and betterment of Maheen. He had told her there were schools for

such people and that he himself intended starting one and that Maheen could be his first

pupil.

What did she do to show her happiness?

iii. Mrs Ahad laughed like a carefree girl. She gave the guests an extra helping of jam and

butter and honey.

1. Application for fee concession

The Principal,

Alhamd Group of Institute,

Ma’am,

With utmost esteem and reverence, it is stated that I am student at your institute

respectively. My academic record shows that I am hardworking, intelligent, punctual and

obedient student. I belong to a poor family. My father is a laborer. He is unable to bear

my educational withal. Please give me concession in fee. So, I could proceed my

education properly.

I will be thankful to you for this kind favour.

Yours obediently,

X.Y.Z

2. Application for Leave

To,

The Principal,

Alhamd Group of Institute,

Ma’am,

With utmost esteem and reverence, it is stated that I am student at your institute

respectively. My academic record shows that I am hardworking, intelligent, punctual and

obedient student. It is humbly requested that I have an urgent piece of work at home.

Thus I could not come to school today. Please grant me leave for one day.
I will be thankful to you for this kind favour.

Yours obediently,

X.Y.Z

1. Write a letter to your mother who is worried about your health.

Examination Hall,

City A.B.C

March 02, 2016

My dear mother,

Your letter came to hand. I could not reply soon because I was ill. I did not attend

school for four days. The school doctor gave me medicines. Now I am alright. You need

not worry about me.

Your loving son

X.Y.Z