Here we are providing Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth Extra Questions and Answers Class 9 English Literature Reader, Extra Questions for Class 9 English was designed by subject expert teachers.
Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth Extra Questions and Answers Class 9 English Literature
Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth Extra Questions and Answers Short Answer Type
Answer the following questions briefly.
Question 1.
What were the “perils” that the narrator spotted in her teeth? How had they been caused?
Answer:
The “perils” refer to the cavities and tooth decay that she is suffering from. They have been caused by her eating too many sweets as a child.
Question 2.
When did the narrator have “more teeth than fillin’”? What does this tell us about her present condition?
Answer:
As a child, she had more teeth but now she had lost most of her teeth and had to have fillings on her remaining teeth.
Question 3.
What does the narrator mean when she says, “My conscience gets horribly pricked”? Why does she feel like this?
Answer:
It means she is feeling very guilty because she realises that she, herself, is responsible for her tooth decay. She also feels guilty at the thought of the number of sweets she has had in the past.
Question 4.
How do we know that the narrator had been careless about taking care of her teeth?
Answer:
We know the narrator had been careless about taking care of her teeth as she has mentioned that she had bashed her teeth lightly because she had thought brushing teeth was a waste of time.
Question 5.
Why has the narrator described a filling as a “murder”?
Answer:
The narrator has done this to express the pain that she feels every time that she has to undergo a filling.
Question 6.
Why does the narrator have to look up the dentist’s nose?
Answer:
The narrator does this because she has to lie in the dentist’s chair while he works on her teeth.
Question 7.
What are molars? What is the word that the narrator uses in the poem to describe her teeth? What does the dentist do to them?
Answer:
Molars are teeth that are used for grinding food. She has also called them “choppers”. The dentist drills holes in the teeth and reconstructs them.
Question 8.
What is the mood of the poem?
Answer:
The poem is written in a humorous style, making light of a painful experience, that is, a visit to the dentist.
Question 9.
Why does the narrator say “it was a time of reckonin’” for her now? Why is it ironical?
Answer:
The narrator feels that it was time for her to face the consequences of teasing her mother in the past. It is ironical because in the past she had made fun of her mother’s false teeth and now, she would soon have to get them for herself, too.
Question 10.
What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? Is the title appropriate? Justify your answer.
Answer:
The rhyme scheme is aabba. Yes, the title is appropriate because it expresses the feeling of remorse that the narrator experiences when she has to visit a dentist to treat her decaying teeth. It also highlights her guilt at not having taken proper care of them.
Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth Long Answer Type
Question 1.
Read the following statement where “I” refers to “you” “I can’t afford to, after what Jack’s done to his teeth.” What is it, you think you can’t afford and why? Write a diary entry of not less than 125 words.
Answer:
24 August 20xx
Jack, my friend had not come to school today, so I just dropped in to see him after school. He was in bed with the left side of his face all swollen and in pain. He had a toothache. I never thought tooth aches could be so painful!
He had gone to the dentist who had extracted one of his teeth on the lower jaw because it had cavities. He told Jack it was because he ate so many toffees and did not brush his teeth properly. He also told him that he would have to take out two more teeth after the swelling came down!
I am frightened! I love eating sweets as much as Jack does. But I suppose I can’t afford to like them so much anymore, not after seeing the pain that Jack is suffering. I will have to resist the temptation and cut down on the number of chocolates and toffees I eat. Also, I will have to brush my teeth with greater care if I don’t want cavities in my teeth!
Question 2.
In line 35, the poet has misspelled the word “amalgum”. Why do you think she has done that? Discuss.
Answer:
The word has been misspelt deliberately to create a pun with the word “gum”. On one hand, the word “amalgam” refers to the mixture of mercury and filling used by the dentist to make fillings while the word “gum” refers to the tissues in the jaw area in which the teeth lie embedded.
Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth Reference to Context
Read the extracts given below and answer the following questions.
Question 1.
“Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath.
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.”
(a) What does the narrator wish for in the first line?
Answer:
The narrator wishes she had taken more care of her teeth.
(b) What “perils” did the narrator face?
Answer:
The “perils” that the narrator faced was the threat of tooth decay and cavities.
(c) What had given rise to these perils?
Answer:
Eating too many sweets had given rise to these perils.
Question 2.
“I wish I’d been that much more willin’
When I had more tooth there than fillin’
To pass up gobstoppers.
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin”
(a) Explain: “When I had more tooth there than fillin”
Answer:
The narrator talks about a time when the narrator did not have so many cavities in her teeth and did not require so much filling.
(b) What are gobstoppers?
Answer:
Gobstoppers are a type of hard sweet or toffee which is usually round.
(c) Why should she have given up gobstoppers?
Answer:
She should have given up gobstoppers to protect her teeth.
Question 3.
“I wish I’d been that much more willin’
When I had more tooth there than fillin’
To pass up gobstoppers.
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin”
(a) What is a shillin’?
Answer:
A shilling is a coin that was used in United Kingdom earlier.
(b) Explain “To pass up gobstoppers”?
Answer:
To stop buying or eating gobstoppers.
(c) What is the feeling expressed by the narrator in these lines?
Answer:
The feeling expressed by the narrator is the given lines, is that of regret, guilt and remorse.
Question 4.
“When I think of the lollies I licked,
And the liquorice all- sorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.”
(a) What does the line—“My conscience gets horribly pricked” signify?
Answer:
The given line signifies that the narrator is feeling guilty and remorseful.
(b) Why has the narrator listed the sweets she ate?
Answer:
The narrator listed all the sweets she ate to show that she had eaten all kinds of sweets.
(c) What has been the result of the narrator’s fondness for sweets?
Answer:
The result of the narrator’s fondness for sweets is that now she is suffering from tooth decay and cavities and her mouth is full of fillings.
Question 5.
“Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’ And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time—I could bite!”
(a) Explain “Showed them the toothpaste”
Answer:
She bloodshed her teeth.
(b) Explain “pokin’ and fussin”
Answer:
The terms indicate brushing carefully.
Question 6.
“If I’d known, I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin’s Injections and drillin’s,
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away”
(a) What are the narrator’s feelings regarding her visits to the dentist?
Answer:
The narrator finds the visits uncomfortable.
(b) What was it that the narrator did not realise when she ate those sweets?
Answer:
The narrator says she did not know about the damage the sweets would cause her teeth.
(c) Explain ‘paving the way’?
Answer:
Paving the way means making way or in this context it means that all the sweets the narrator was eating was making way for cavities and decay to set in.
Question 7.
“So I lay in the old dentist’s chair, ‘
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine.
‘Two amalgum,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there’.”
(a) Why i.s the narrator lying in the “old dentist’s chair”?
Answer:
The narrator is lying in the “old dentist’s chair” as she is getting treatment for her tooth decay.
(b) Explain “drill it do whine”.
Answer:
The dentist’s drill makes a loud whining sound.
(c) What is the dentist doing to her molars?
Answer:
The dentist is drilling her tooth and filling it with tooth filling, he is extracting a rotten tooth and planting a tooth in its place.
Question 8.
“How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s me they are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.”
(a) How had the narrator behaved when her mother had lost all her teeth?
Answer:
The narrator laughed and made fun of her false teeth.
(b) Explain “As they foamed in the waters beneath”.
Answer:
The narrator’s mother had her false teeth preserved in the water.
(c) “But now comes the reckonin’/It’s me they are beckonin’”. Explain.
Answer:
The narrator feels she will also have to wear false teeth like her mother.