Read the following extract from Alphonse Daudet's short story, 'The Last Lesson' and answer the questions that follow: "My children, this is the last lesson I shall give you. The order has come from Berlin to teach only German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. The new master comes tomorrow. This is your last French lesson. I want you to be very attentive." What a thunder-clap these words were to me! Oh the wretches; that was what they had put up at the town-hall!
How does the narrator describe the daily bustle at the start of a typical school day?
Topic: A typical school morning
Answer
Franz recalls that a normal morning was full of noise that could be heard out in the street: desks being opened and shut, lessons repeated aloud in unison with everyone’s hands over their ears to learn them better, and the master’s great ruler rapping on the table as he called for quiet. The whole school was a hubbub of movement and sound.
Reproduce the specific sounds Daudet lists — opening and closing desks, the chanted lessons, the hands over the ears, the ruler rapping — because the marks are for the detail. The purpose of the passage is contrast: this remembered bustle makes the unnatural silence of the last lesson unbearable, and saying so in a closing sentence strengthens the answer.