Look at these examples from the text, and say whether the modifiers (in italics) are nouns, proper nouns, or adjective plus noun.

(i)  An otter fixation           (iv) The London streets
(ii) The iron railings            (v) Soft velvet fur
(iii) The Tigris marshes       (vi) A four-footed soccer player

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
My friend left, and I arranged to meet him in a week’s time. Five days later, my mail arrived.
I carried it to my bedroom to read, and there, squatting on the floor, were two Arabs; beside them lay a sack that squirmed from time to time. They handed me a note from my friend: “Here is your otter...”

1. Whom did he find sitting on the floor?
2. What had they brought?
3. Give the meaning of ‘squatting’.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
With the opening of that sack began a phase of my life that has not yet ended, and may, for all I know, not end before I do. It is, in effect, a thraldom to otters, an otter fixation, that I have since found to be shared by most other people, who have ever owned one.

1. What did the sack contain?
2. What is the common belief about the people who own an otter?
3. What does the phrase ‘may not end before I do’ indicate?

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
I watched, amazed; in less than a minute he had turned the tap far enough to produce a trickle of water, and after a moment or two achieved the full flow. He had been lucky to turn the tap the right way.

1. What surprised the narrator?
2. Who does ‘He’ here refer?
3. Find a word from the passage that means ‘surprised’.

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
When I returned, there was an appalling spectacle. There was complete silence from the box, but from its airholes and chinks around the lid, blood had trickled and dried.

1. What incident does the narrator call as ‘an appalling spectacle’?
2. Why was there complete silence from the box?
3. What does the phrase ‘the appalling spectacle’ mean?

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
She was the very queen of her kind. She suggested that I might prefer to have my pet on my knee, and I could have kissed her hand in the depth of my gratitude. But, not knowing otters, I was quite unprepared for what followed.

1. What was the narrator completely unprepared for?
2. What did she suggest to the narrator?
3. What does the expression ‘the very queen of her kind’, mean?

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
I was craning my neck trying to follow the hunt when suddenly I heard from my feet a distressed chitter of recognition and welcome, and Mij bounded on to my knee and began to nuzzle my face and my neck.

1. What was the narrator doing?
2. What does expression ‘distressed chitter of recognition’ indicate?
3. Find a word from the passage which means ‘surrounded’.

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
On his way home, but never on his way out, Mij would tug me to this wall, jump on to it, and gallop the full length of its thirty yards, to the hopeless distraction both of pupils and of staff within.

1. What would Mij do habitually?
2. What would distract the pupils and the staff?
3. Find a word in the passage that means ‘to move fast’.

How did Maxwell get the otter?

How did ‘the opening of that sack’ change Maxwell’s life?

Why was the otter named as Maxwell’s otter?