1. Keep Class 2 Under Your Thumb

2. Understanding the title
The “thumb” is usually regarded as a symbol of power and force. Thus, “to keep someone under one’s thumb” means “to keep someone under control or completely under one’s influence”.

3. About the author
Edward Blishen (29 April December 1996) was an English author. He is perhaps best known for three books: A Cack-Handed War (1972), a story set in the backdrop of the Second World War, The God Beneath the Sea (1970), and "Roaring Boys"(1955),an honest account of teaching in a London secondary modern school in the 1950s and a book still valuable to understand teaching in a "rough" part of a city.

4. … he showed me his own thumb; a huge thing, like a pocket cudgel
… he showed me his own thumb; a huge thing, like a pocket cudgel. I felt very pale.
take up the cudgels (on behalf of somebody/something): formal, to start to fight for an idea that you believe in
Why did I feel pale?

5. Why did I feel pale? I had reason enough to distrust my thumb.
I had good reason not to have confidence in my thumb, that is to say, I did not think I was able to keep the boys under control.

6. … a succession of startled substitutes had stood before them, ducked, winced and fled.
A succession of visitors came to the door.
She won the championship four times in succession.
a number of, one after the other
I still wince at the thought of that terrible evening.
shrink back, cringe
rhetorical device: Parallelism

7. … a number of teachers, one after another, took the place of their own teacher; none of them remained calm in front of them. They drew back in fear, felt frightened, unable to deal with the situation, and finally left in a hurry.

8. No one quite knew where the class had got in any subject
No one quite knew where the class had got in any subject. It was plain the headmaster thought they had got nowhere.
No one quite knew if the class had made any progress in any subject. And it was clear that the headmaster thought they had made no progress / achieved nothing.

9. It was all wrong; my mood was all placatory; I was, inwardly, all white flag.
Everything was wrong. I just wanted to please the boy, and I was only thinking of giving in / surrender.

10. … that was the worst of it — that these improprieties couldn’t be nailed down.
… the most unfortunate part of the situation was that I was in such a panic and the classroom was in such a chaos that I couldn’t say clearly or exactly what improper and inexcusable things they were doing.

11. What impression does the sentence give you?
This consisted, I found, of individual desks; doll’s house things that rested on mountainous knees and swayed from side to side.
The top year boys were big and strong like giants and the individual desks were like doll’s house furniture resting on their huge knees and moving side to side.
What impression does the sentence give you?

12. What impression does the sentence give you?
The writer gives us the impression that: first, the teacher was so frightened that he regarded the boys as giants. It was by this way of contrast that the fear, the subtle feeling of the teacher was revealed to the reader; and second, it shows that Room H was very noisy and disorderly instead of being a quiet and orderly classroom.

13. … and I believe one desk was chasing another.
The writer means to tell us that the boys were fighting. They were using their desks as weapons.

14. … an awful pointless indignation mounted in me.
A dreadful unreasonable anger on my part intensified and increased.

15. But in cold blood I could think of no practical substitute for these dramatic punishments.
On second thought / When I began to think seriously, I could not think of any punishment that could take the place of these exciting punishments and that could really be given to the pupils.

16. But what hurt me most was that in the middle of the room sat a very studious-looking boy reading a book.
Why was the teacher greatly upset by the look of the studious-looking boy?
The teacher might think the studious-looking boy would be eager to learn and would behave properly. On the contrary, he openly showed his disrespect for and defiance at the teacher by looking at the teacher with his eyebrows knitted, making a wry face and shrugging his shoulders.

17. There was, for a time, pandemonium, like a big scene in an opera being played backwards on a gramophone.
There was a confusion of sounds for a while. It was like the meaningless, shrill, discordant and screeching sound of a big scene in an opera being played backwards.

18. It struck me that I had in my briefcase a book on Chaucer
It struck me that I had in my briefcase a book on Chaucer. It contained a large number of documents of the period. Accounts of street brawls. It seemed appropriate.
It suddenly occurred to me that I had with me a book on Geoffrey Chaucer, a great English author. There are many records of events of Chaucer’s time in the book, including stories of noisy quarrels in the street. It seemed to be in keeping with what was happening in the classroom.

19. “Cor, the Bible,” said a voice. “Read any good book lately
“Cor, the Bible,” said a voice. “Read any good book lately?” said another. “You hit me with that and I’ll tell my dad.” “He can read!” And in falsetto, “Tell us a fairy story!”
What we may infer from the sentence and passage about the boys is: Though they were top year boys, they remained very ignorant.
On the one hand, they indulged themselves in fighting and took great pleasure in laughing at the teacher.
On the other hand, they mistook the book on Chaucer for the Bible and they would rather listen to a fairy story than have a history lesson. They had absolutely no respect for the teacher or for school discipline.

20. Passage Dictation The Blind Attending University

21. The World Health Organization says almost forty million people around the world are blind. There are about one million blind people in the United States. The largest and most influential organization of blind people in this country is the National Federation of the Blind. Officials say the nation does not have any colleges or universities that serve only blind students. They say the reason for this is that blind people must learn to live among people who can see. American colleges and universities do accept blind and visually impaired students. And they provide services to help these students succeed. For example, colleges find people who write down what the professors say in class. And they provide technology that can help blind students with their work. However, experts say colleges can best help blind students by making it clear that the students should learn to help themselves.