Welcome dear students! Today we are going to learn about 2. The Dream from Class 7 English_FL. Let us begin our journey into this fascinating short story. Once upon a time, there lived an old woman. She was highly intelligent, and throughout her entire life, she used her intelligence only to do good for others. One night, after a very hard day of work, she fell asleep and experienced a very strange dream. In her dream, she saw herself dying peacefully in her bed. But the dream did not stop there. From where she was standing, she could see two ornamental gates with arches in the distance. These two gates looked exactly alike. Both arches had signs that said welcome. Standing at each gate was a guard, and the two guards also looked identical to each other. Beyond the gates, she could see pathways that also looked exactly the same. Naturally, she wanted to examine them closely. [CHECKPOINT]
As she walked toward the gates, she suddenly heard a voice that seemed to come from nowhere. The voice said, One of them is a liar, and then immediately fell silent. The woman was surprised. She wondered aloud why she was being warned like that. She asked herself why one of them would lie to her, and what she even wanted from these guards. It was at that exact moment that she realized she was thinking about heaven. She was deeply curious to know what heaven was like. She reasoned that one pathway must lead to heaven, and the other must lead to hell. She decided she would talk to the guards to find out. But then she stopped walking. The warning about the liar came back to her mind. She stood still and thought carefully for a while. She wondered how she could possibly ferret out the truth from them. She thought the chances of being told the truth seemed to be fifty fifty. However, she was an intelligent woman. She knew she had to frame her question very carefully, and she did exactly that. [CHECKPOINT]
She approached the first guard she met and asked him this clever question: Sir, please tell me what would that other guard say if I asked him which is heaven's gate? The guard smiled, pointed to his own gate, and replied, Madam, he would show you my gate. At that very moment, the woman knew for certain that his gate was not the gate to heaven. She calmly walked over to the other gate. The guard stationed there greeted her politely and let her pass through. She enjoyed her long walk along the pathway and finally reached heaven. Right at that point, the woman's dream came to an end. She woke up and sat upright in her bed. She chuckled to herself and said, What a dream! She wondered whether the man she had spoken to was the liar or the truthful person. [CHECKPOINT]
She admitted she did not know for sure, but she explained her own brilliant logic. She said that the truthful man would only report to her the exact words of the liar, and the liar would twist the truthful man's words. This meant she could be absolutely certain that the answer she received was not the truth. Then, a strange thought came to her mind. She realized her dream contained a clever puzzle. She asked herself whether she should share this dream with her class seven students. She chuckled once more, lay back down, and went back to sleep. She died that night peacefully in her sleep. Now, let us move on to the exercises at the end of the chapter to test our understanding. The first question asks, why did the woman ask the guard to report the other man's answer? To find the answer, let us look closely at the text. After waking up, the woman herself explains her reasoning. She realized that by asking what the other guard would say, the truthful man would honestly report the liar's false answer, while the liar would twist the truthful man's correct answer. This meant both guards would point to the same wrong gate, allowing her to safely choose the other path. [CHECKPOINT]
The second question asks, what were the woman's last words? Let us look at the final paragraph. After chuckling at her dream and wondering about the puzzle, she asked herself a question. Her final spoken words were, Should I share my dream with my class seven students? Immediately after asking this, she chuckled again, lay down, went back to sleep, and peacefully passed away that night. So, her last words were indeed that thoughtful question about sharing her dream with her students. Now, let us look at the third exercise. It asks us to imagine what would have happened if her question was straightforward. We need to complete three conversations by filling in the blanks. I will read each line with the correct words filled in, so you can check your own answers. Let us begin with Conversation A, where the two guards are talking to each other. Guard one says, Look, the woman is coming. Guard two replies, She will ask you which is the way to heaven. Guard one asks, How will she know who lies to her? Guard two says, She cannot know that. We look very much alike. Guard one concludes, But I think she is clever enough to ferret out the truth from us. [CHECKPOINT]
Next is Conversation B, where the woman walks to the first guard. The woman asks, Sir, are you the liar? The first guard replies, What! Who said so? The woman says, The other. The guard responds, No, I am not. The woman asks, How can I believe you? You may be lying. The guard replies, That is your problem. As you can hear, asking direct questions like these only leads to confusion and denial, which is exactly why the woman avoided them in her dream. Finally, Conversation C, where the woman goes to the second guard. The woman asks, Sir, who is the liar, you or him? The guard replies, What did he say? The woman says, He says he is truthful. The guard responds, He says that to everyone. The woman says, I am so confused. This conversation shows that without her clever indirect question, she would have been completely lost. I hope you enjoyed learning this story and understanding the logic behind the dream. Remember to practice these exercises and think about how clever questioning can solve difficult problems. Thank you for listening! Keep revising and practicing. Goodbye! [CHAPTER_COMPLETE]