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One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min

🎓 Class 12 English CBSE Theory Ch 5 — Short Stories: One Centimetre ⏱ ~35 min
🌐 Language: [gtranslate]

This CBSE English Passage Assessment will be based on: One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min

Assessment Format:
• 2 Short Answer Questions (2 marks each) = 4 marks
• 2 Fill in the Blanks Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
• 2 Short Answer Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
• 2 Multiple Choice Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
Total: 8 Questions, 10 Marks

This CBSE English Grammar Assessment will be based on: One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min

Assessment Format:
• 10 Randomized Grammar Questions (1 mark each)
• Question Types: Fill in the Blanks, MCQs, Error Identification, Reported Speech, Sentence Completion
Total: 10 Questions, 10 Marks

This English Vocabulary assessment will be based on: One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min
Targeting Vocabulary & Usage with Intermediate difficulty.

Before You Read — One Centimetre

Anticipation Guide: "A person who bends the rules for themselves has no right to demand honesty from others." Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons.

The story deliberately puts this tension at its centre — Tao Ying routinely skips paying bus fares when alone, yet fights passionately for truth in front of her son. The story asks whether the standard we hold for ourselves can legitimately differ from the one we perform for our children, and whether a sincere desire to model integrity can redeem habitual compromise.

Vocabulary Warm-Up: Match each word to its meaning — nonchalantly, flummoxed, astute, fracas, convoluted — before reading. Predict which situations in a mother-and-child outing might call for these responses.

nonchalantly — in a casual, unconcerned manner; flummoxed — bewildered, unable to think clearly; astute — shrewdly perceptive; fracas — a noisy, disorderly disturbance; convoluted — extremely complex or intricate. The story uses all five in moments that involve rules, small injustices, and the performance of respectability.

Prediction: A story is titled "One Centimetre". The measurement presumably refers to a child's height. What conflict might hinge on a single centimetre? Who holds the power to decide the measurement — and what might be at stake beyond money?

The centimetre becomes a measure of moral authority, not merely physical height. It stands for the tiny margin between honesty and convenience, between the mother's actual conduct and the ideal she performs for her child. Bi Shu-min uses this miniature measurement to open up questions of dignity, institutional power, and what a mother owes her child beyond food and safety.
BS

Bi Shu-min

Born 1952 Chinese Fiction Social Realism

Bi Shu-min spent over two decades as a military physician in Tibet before pursuing literature, earning a Master's degree from Beijing Teachers' College. This dual career — doctor and storyteller — shapes her distinctive style: clinical precision in observing human behaviour combined with deep compassion for ordinary lives. Her fiction has been translated into numerous languages and has received major literary awards in both China and Taiwan. "One Centimetre" showcases her gift for finding enormous moral weight in an apparently trivial domestic incident, a hallmark of her mature art.

Bi Shu-min's Social Realism & Unity of Thought

Unlike magical realism or stream of consciousness, Bi Shu-min works in a tradition of social realism — fiction that uses everyday, recognisable situations to expose how institutional power, class anxiety, and gender role expectations shape individual lives. The story achieves what critics call unity of thought: every incident (the bus fare, the melon, the temple gate, the measuring pole, the letter) circles back to a single moral question — can a flawed person be a genuine moral exemplar? The first sentence deliberately signals this ambivalence, inviting the reader to hold Tao Ying's hypocrisy and her sincerity simultaneously.

Part I — The Rule-Bending Commuter

1When astute Tao Ying rides the bus unaccompanied, she frequently skips buying a ticket. Her reasoning is perfectly self-contained: the bus runs its route regardless; the driver and conductor draw the same salary whether she boards or not; the petrol consumption remains identical. If the conductor looks sharp and vigilant she pays promptly, but if he appears careless she withholds the fare — treating his negligence as a private tax and her saving as a small reward for her own shrewdness. Social Realism

2Tao Ying earns her living as a cook in a factory canteen, standing beside an open flame all day, shaping sesame-butter wheat cakes. Today, however, her son Xiao Ye is with her. She follows him onto the bus and, as the doors snap shut, her jacket balloons behind her Simile — billowing like a tent — before she wrenches herself free.

3"Mama, tickets!" Xiao Ye insists. Children, the narrator notes, are often more scrupulous about ritual than adults — without a ticket in hand, a bus ride does not feel like a proper journey. On the peeling door someone has stencilled a pale pointing finger beside the number 1.10 m. Tao Ying studies her son's head: his hair is dry and straw-like despite all the nutritious food she has poured into him, the nourishment stubbornly refusing to travel past his hairline. She smooths it down as though brushing away topsoil to reach firm ground beneath. Simile

4She can feel the soft, rubbery give of his skull — the fontanelle, that gap at the crown where the two hemispheres have not yet fully sealed. Each time her fingers find that aperture, she is overtaken by a wave of responsibility. In the wider world she feels entirely unremarkable — her presence changes nothing. But to this one small person she is the gravitational centre of everything, and she is determined to be as close to flawless as she can manage. Imagery

5She places her fingers — lustrous from constant contact with cooking oil, curved and polished as the back of a seashell — between her son's head and the painted height marker. He is exactly one centimetre short. She says so quietly. Xiao Ye protests loudly, stamping the floor, reminding her of a promise. Twenty cents, Tao Ying reflects, is not trivial — it can buy a cucumber, two tomatoes, or four days' worth of spinach. But her son's face is tilted up toward her Simile like a half-open blossom waiting for sun. She buys two tickets.

Stop and Think

1. What reasoning does Tao Ying use to justify not buying a bus ticket when she travels alone?

She reasons that the bus runs its fixed route and employs the same staff regardless of whether she boards or not, so her fare adds nothing to the system's operation. She also adjusts her decision based on how vigilant the conductor seems — treating his inattentiveness as justification for her saving.

2. Why does she insist on buying tickets for both herself and Xiao Ye on this occasion, despite the conductor telling her the child does not need one?

Her son has demanded a ticket, and his expectation has made the purchase a matter of his self-worth and her promised word. To deny him the ticket would mean breaking a promise in front of him; her role as an ideal mother overrides twenty cents of economy. She also refuses to lose face before her own child — a principle she holds even more firmly than financial prudence.

Part II — The Exhausting Performance of Perfection

6At the front exit a second conductor waits to examine tickets. Tao Ying hands them over with studied indifference. He asks whether she plans to reclaim the stubs — she says no. In fact she could have presented them as travel expenses at her next work outing, but Xiao Ye would certainly ask whether private trips can be claimed on expenses, and she would never lie to him. Social Realism Irony

7Living up to parenting manuals is exhausting, she concedes — it is like carrying a permanent invisible audience wherever you go. But her efforts are saturated with love. She refuses, for instance, to eat a watermelon down to the rind while Xiao Ye watches, even though she privately thinks the green flesh near the skin is perfectly refreshing and even medicinally cooling. One day she catches him gnawing a melon in precisely that manner and scolds him furiously, only to realise — with a jolt — that he learnt the habit entirely by watching her. Children, she understands, are the world's most accurate imitators. From that moment on, her private behaviour must match her public one. This goal is "like shooting down aeroplanes with a small gun" Simile — outlandish, almost impossible — but the clarity it gives her life feels like focus and purpose.

8Today she is taking Xiao Ye to a large city temple to see the Buddha for the first time. The tickets cost five dollars each — even temples are run like businesses now. Her ticket was a free gift from Lao Chiang at the meat counter, a well-connected man who circulates rumour-laden newsletters and speaks with the authority of someone who knows everything. He advised her to take her son since children under 110 cm enter free. So here they are. Social Realism

9A rare patch of city green rises ahead of them. Even before the temple comes into view, something cool and fresh moves in the air Imagery — the scent of a valley or waterfall. Xiao Ye snatches the ticket and runs towards the gilded gates like a small animal rushing to slake its thirst. Simile For a moment Tao Ying feels a pang — can the mere sight of a temple make her son forget her? She dismisses the thought: she brought him here for his happiness.

Part III — The Earthworm on the Wall

10At the gate a young man in a red top and black trousers bars her way. Xiao Ye has already passed through, moving among the crowd like a water droplet in a river current. Simile The guard demands her ticket. She points to her son. He wants her ticket. She is puzzled — she assumed children were exempt. A fracas begins.

11When Tao Ying reads the rules printed on the back of a spare ticket and tries to share them with the crowd, the guard turns sharp. He points to a faded red line on the wall — a mark that looks like "an earthworm inching across the road after a rainstorm" Simile — and insists Xiao Ye is taller than it. Tao Ying remains serene. She is sure her son is under the limit.

12Xiao Ye runs back and proudly stands himself against the mark. The crowd watches. The earthworm comes level with his ear. Tao Ying is horrified. She reaches out and pats his head — meaning to flatten his untidy hair, but the blow lands hard. Xiao Ye stares at her, stunned rather than weeping. The crowd erupts: mothers who hit children on the head are barbaric; she must be hiding her mistake; perhaps she is not even his real mother. Irony

13Even if he were completely bald, she realises, he would still stand taller than the worm. The guard has turned brutal now: he accuses her of using a complimentary ticket to sneak in an extra person, demands an apology and a full-price ticket, and cites the International Standard Ruler in Paris — made of pure platinum, he announces — as though the authority of an international metre-bar could settle a local dispute. Irony Tao Ying, flummoxed, knows only that two metres and eighty centimetres make a dress; she does not know where the world's master metre lives.

14Her son's warm small hand closes around her frozen one. "Mama, what is happening?" She can barely speak. For a moment she almost buys the ticket to end the scene — but something stops her. If she pays now she can never explain herself to Xiao Ye. She seizes his hand and walks away. Xiao Ye does not speak. He has suddenly grown older. Symbolism

Stop and Think

1. Did Tao Ying genuinely intend to cheat at the temple? What evidence supports your view?

No. She believed Xiao Ye was under 110 cm — she had checked on the bus. She had purchased her own ticket legitimately. The mix-up arose because the temple's height marker (the "earthworm") was inaccurately positioned, and because Xiao Ye's hair and posture made him appear taller. Her confidence in her position, and her eventual refusal to buy the extra ticket even to restore peace, confirm she genuinely believed she was in the right.

2. Why does she change her mind about buying the ticket at the last moment?

She realises she cannot buy a ticket for something she did not do wrong — not because of money, but because of her son. If she pays under duress she implicitly admits guilt, and Xiao Ye will understand it as admission. The entire project of being a morally upright mother would be undermined by that single purchase. Dignity in front of her child outweighs social comfort and the pleasure of the outing.

Part IV — The Letter, the Flattering Scales, and Final Vindication

15Near an ice-cream seller, Xiao Ye asks for money, then runs to an old woman with weighing scales to be measured. The old woman announces: one metre eleven. Tao Ying wonders if she has met a ghost, or whether her son is growing like bamboo before her eyes. Then she discovers the truth: the old woman's scales are old and inaccurate, adjusted to make people appear taller and lighter — "fitness scales", she calls them with cheerful cunning — because mothers love to hear that their sons are growing. Irony But Xiao Ye, having heard only the result and not the explanation, now believes everyone accepts him as tall enough except his own mother. He runs from her, tripping and falling and refusing her hand. Tao Ying stops chasing: if she follows, he will only keep falling. Metaphor

16Back home, she measures him properly in his sleep: one metre nine centimetres. Confirmed. She decides to write a letter of complaint to the temple administrators. Writing the letter is its own ordeal — she consults a factory colleague nicknamed "the Writer", a man who has had small pieces published and who covers his nicotine-stained fingers in literary authority. He rewrites her opening paragraph in ornate, sarcastic prose about the Buddha miraculously growing children by two centimetres on the threshold and shrinking them back on the return journey. Tao Ying memorises what she can and sends the letter.

17Then comes the long wait. She scours newspapers for her letter, listens to radio announcers imagining her words read aloud, checks the post office daily. None of the hundred scenarios she rehearses matches what actually happens: two officials in uniform arrive at her door, led there by Xiao Ye himself, who proudly shows them in. Irony The officials have investigated — the guard insisted he was right, but they have checked the earthworm marker and found it was not accurately drawn. They take a proper metal tape measure, draw a bold line from the top of Xiao Ye's head, measure to the floor: exactly one metre ten centimetres. Symbolism

18The officials offer a five-dollar note. Tao Ying refuses — that day's lost happiness cannot be bought back. They offer two temple tickets. She refuses — the place now carries only painful associations. "Which would you prefer?" both men ask together. Tao Ying pushes Xiao Ye forward, prompts him to greet the men as "Grandpa", and makes her request: take back the money and the tickets, do not punish the guard — he was only doing his job. Then she says, simply: "Gentlemen, would you be so kind as to explain to my son exactly what happened on that day. Please tell him that his mother has not done anything wrong." Social Realism

Key Vocabulary

astute
adjective
having an ability to accurately assess situations or people; shrewd
"Tao Ying is astute enough to read the conductor's alertness before deciding whether to pay."
fracas
noun
a noisy, disorderly disturbance or quarrel
"The fracas at the temple gate drew a growing crowd of curious onlookers."
flummoxed
adjective
bewildered; unable to think clearly due to surprise or confusion
"Tao Ying was flummoxed by the guard's reference to the International Standard Ruler in Paris."
nonchalantly
adverb
in a casually calm and relaxed manner, seemingly unconcerned
"She handed over the tickets nonchalantly, as though no dispute had ever occurred."
convoluted
adjective
extremely complex or difficult to follow; intricate
"The old woman's convoluted logic for her 'fitness scales' left Tao Ying thoroughly baffled."
aperture
noun
an opening, gap, or hole in something
"Each time Tao Ying touched the aperture on her son's skull she felt a surge of tender responsibility."
kow-tow
verb (cultural)
to kneel and touch the ground with the forehead as a sign of reverence; by extension, to act in an excessively submissive way
"Tao Ying did not intend to ask Xiao Ye to kow-tow before the Buddha — that, she felt, was superstition."
pei-pa
noun (cultural)
a Chinese stringed instrument (the pipa lute); its tightly strung strings vibrate visibly when agitated
"Her hands were trembling like the strings on a pei-pa — taut with suppressed emotion."

Theme Web — One Centimetre

Maternal Dignity & Ambivalent Ethics Rules vs Justice (temple gate) Private vs Public Self (bus ticket paradox) Institutional Power (guard, officials) Child's Moral Education (legacy of example) The Cost of Dignity (refused compensation) Measurement & Truth (earthworm / tape)

Maternal Dignity & Ambivalent Ethics

The story's deepest layer. Tao Ying is simultaneously morally compromised (she skips fares) and morally serious (she fights for her son's perception of her). Bi Shu-min refuses to resolve this contradiction — she is neither hero nor hypocrite, but a fully human figure whose love and self-interest coexist.

Rules vs Justice

The temple gate incident exposes how arbitrary institutional rules can be — the earthworm marker was inaccurately drawn, yet it carried absolute authority in the moment. The story asks whether rules that are technically enforced but factually wrong still deserve obedience.

Private vs Public Self

The bus ticket is the story's ironic anchor. Tao Ying's private conduct (skipping fares alone) is at odds with her public performance (insisting on buying two tickets with her son watching). The story does not condemn either self — it explores the gap between them as the essential human condition.

Institutional Power

The young guard, the queue of strangers, the officials in uniform — all represent systems of power that press down on an ordinary working-class woman. Tao Ying's victory is not legal but moral: she does not defeat the system, she refuses to be diminished by it.

Child's Moral Education

Everything Tao Ying does — buying the extra bus ticket, refusing the temple ticket, writing the letter, declining the compensation — is ultimately for one audience: her son. The story argues that a mother's most important legacy is not food or safety but a coherent moral example.

The Cost of Dignity

Tao Ying refuses money and free tickets as compensation, because the lost afternoon of joy cannot be purchased back. Her final ask — tell my son I did nothing wrong — reveals that dignity for her is not about pride but about her son's lifelong memory of her.

Measurement & Truth

Three measuring episodes — the bus finger-mark, the temple earthworm, the old woman's flattering scales — each produce different answers. Only the officials' precise metal tape produces the definitive truth. Bi Shu-min uses measurement as a metaphor for the difficulty of establishing any objective truth in a world of competing authorities.

Notice These Expressions

shooting down aeroplanes with a small gun — attempting something almost impossibly difficult with inadequate tools
grieving soldiers always win — a righteous cause, argued with genuine feeling, is more persuasive than logic alone
an apple in a mound of potatoes — something that stands out vividly from a dull, undifferentiated mass
like the strings on a pei-pa — trembling with barely contained emotion; taut and vibrating
flattering scales — any instrument (literal or metaphorical) calibrated to tell people what they want to hear rather than the truth
the ice in her son's eyes — the coldness and distance that has entered a warm relationship; emotional frost between two people who love each other

Extract-Based Questions (CBQ Format)

"She cannot buy this ticket today! If she went ahead, she would never be able to explain herself to her son... In front of the child, she would never lie. It is exhausting to follow rules dictated by parental guide-books all the time, but Tao Ying is determined to be the ideal mother."

L2 Understand What specific moral dilemma is Tao Ying facing at this moment? Why would buying the ticket amount to a lie?

Tao Ying knows her son's height was within the free-entry limit; buying the extra ticket would implicitly confirm the guard's false accusation. In front of Xiao Ye, purchasing the ticket would communicate: "I was wrong, and dishonest." Her commitment to never lying before her son thus extends beyond words — it covers actions that carry the meaning of admission. Buying the ticket would be a performative lie.

L4 Analyse The narrator observes that following parenting rules is "exhausting" and "like carrying an audience wherever you go." What does this suggest about the relationship between idealism and ordinary life in the story?

The narrator captures the cognitive and emotional labour of sustained self-discipline. Tao Ying's idealism is not a natural state but a constant, effortful performance — one that demands she monitor her own behaviour against an imagined standard. Bi Shu-min suggests that moral aspiration in ordinary life is not heroic but grinding, and that this very exhaustion is a sign of its sincerity. The story validates the effort even while acknowledging its cost.

L4 Analyse The guard cites the "International Standard Ruler in Paris, made of pure platinum" as his authority. What is the irony of this reference in context?

The irony is compound. The guard invokes the global standard of measurement to defend a local measurement that is — as the officials later confirm — inaccurate. The platinum metre bar in Paris, the gold standard of precision, is used to legitimise a faded earthworm-shaped mark on a wall that was incorrectly drawn. The gap between the claim of absolute authority and the reality of shoddy implementation is precisely the story's critique of petty institutional power.

L5 Evaluate Tao Ying refuses both the five-dollar compensation and the free temple tickets offered by the officials. Evaluate whether her refusal is reasonable or excessive.

Her refusal is presented as deeply reasonable within the story's moral framework. Money cannot restore the lost afternoon — the first time Xiao Ye would have seen the Buddha, now permanently shadowed by the scene at the gate. Free tickets are equally useless since the temple now holds painful associations for both of them. What Tao Ying wants — her son's restored confidence in her integrity — is the one thing no compensation package can provide. Her final request (tell my son I was right) is not excessive; it is the precise remedy for the precise wound. Bi Shu-min endorses her refusal as the story's emotional and moral climax.

L6 Create The story opens with a sentence deliberately designed to make the reader uncomfortable. Rewrite the opening two paragraphs from Xiao Ye's point of view, ten years later, recalling what he remembers of his mother on the day of the temple.

Sample response: "My mother had a way of tilting her head slightly when she was concentrating — I noticed it first on the bus, the day she smoothed down my hair and told me quietly that I was one centimetre short. She was never loud. Even at the temple gate, when that guard was shouting and the crowd pressed in, she kept her voice level. I remember her hand — warm on mine though her face had gone pale as the ticket in her fist. I did not understand then why she would not buy the ticket. I only understood later, when two uniformed men came to our door and told me, solemnly, that my mother had done nothing wrong. She had written them a letter for that. Just for that." (Creative responses should include sensory detail, emotional distance of retrospect, and recognition of the letter as a gift.)

Understanding the Text

1. How did Tao Ying's son influence the way she led her life?

Xiao Ye became the compass by which Tao Ying recalibrated her entire conduct. Before his birth she was pragmatically self-interested — skipping bus fares, eating melon rinds carelessly. Motherhood made her aware that children are perfect imitators: she caught Xiao Ye gnawing a melon exactly as she had, and the recognition shocked her into reform. From that moment she held herself to an idealist standard in all visible behaviour — refusing to claim reimbursement for personal travel, buying extra bus tickets he did not strictly need, declining to apologise for something she had not done wrong. Her life gained focus and direction from his watchful presence. The story argues that the obligation to model integrity is not merely social performance but a genuine restructuring of the self. (≈ 120 words)

2. Pick out instances from the story to show that official rules are often arbitrary.

The story offers several pointed examples of institutional arbitrariness. The height marker at the temple gate is a red smear on the wall — faded, shaped like an earthworm after rain — drawn inaccurately, as the officials later confirm. The young guard enforces it with absolute confidence, citing the International Standard Ruler in Paris to give his imprecise mark the authority of global science. The old woman's weighing scales are deliberately miscalibrated to make customers feel taller and lighter — a commercially motivated "kindness" that produces false data. Tao Ying herself exploits a different arbitrariness: bus conductors' varying levels of attentiveness determine whether she pays her fare — the rule exists but is inconsistently enforced. The story shows that rules are only as reliable as the instruments and agents that apply them. (≈ 130 words)

3. Tao Ying was careful about spending money. What were her reasons for refusing the compensation offered by the temple officials?

Despite being a blue-collar worker who counts every twenty cents, Tao Ying refuses both the five-dollar note and the complimentary tickets. The money cannot purchase back the afternoon that was lost — Xiao Ye's first visit to the Buddha, now permanently shadowed by humiliation. The free tickets are equally worthless since the temple now carries only painful associations for both of them. More crucially, neither form of compensation addresses the actual injury: Xiao Ye's shaken trust in his mother. The only currency she accepts is narrative — the officials' verbal confirmation, in front of her son, that she had done nothing wrong. For a woman who has built her entire maternal project on the credibility of her example, this is the only restitution that matters. (≈ 130 words)

4. Why was her final vindication important to Tao Ying?

Tao Ying's self-worth as a mother rests entirely on her son's belief in her honesty. At the temple gate she had been publicly shamed, accused of cheating, and hit Xiao Ye by accident — all of which left "ice in his eyes," a metaphor for the cold distance that had entered their relationship. She cannot lecture him back to trust; she cannot buy it. But she can secure testimony from an unimpeachable external authority — the very officials who employed the guard. When they stand in her living room and tell her son that his mother was right, the record is set straight not privately but officially. For a woman whose only social capital is her reputation within her own family, this restoration is not vanity but survival. It is the only form of justice the story can offer — and it is, finally, enough. (≈ 145 words)

Talking About the Text — Discussion Prompts

1. "The way a child looks at the world is very different from that of an adult." How does the story illustrate this through Xiao Ye's perspective?

For Xiao Ye, a ticket is a ritual object that validates the reality of a journey. A measurement is an absolute truth, not a contested claim. When the guard says he is tall enough to need a ticket, it is simultaneously a blow to his pride (needing a ticket = being tallied with grown-ups — he had wanted to be exempt) and a confirmation of his growing up. He has no access to the adult world of institutional error, inaccurate markers, and political authority. To him the earthworm on the wall is as definitive as the International Standard Ruler his mother has never heard of. His anger at his mother is pure — he believes she denied his growth to save twenty cents. Adults know that truth is negotiated; children assume it is simply there, waiting to be seen.

2. "There is always a gap between what we really are and what we wish to appear to be to others." Discuss with reference to Tao Ying and the temple guard.

Tao Ying wishes to appear as an impeccably honest, principled mother — and works hard to maintain this image before her son — while privately skipping bus fares and eating melon rinds. The guard wishes to appear as a diligent, knowledgeable official enforcing universal standards, while actually enforcing a faded, inaccurate wall mark with theatrical aggression. Neither the mother nor the guard is entirely what they appear. Bi Shu-min does not resolve this irony into condemnation — instead she uses it to argue that aspiration toward a better self, even imperfectly maintained, has value. The gap between ideal and reality is not shameful; it is the space where human effort lives.

Grammar Workshop

Figures of Speech + Pronunciation: Stress Shift in Noun/Verb Pairs

A. Simile and Metaphor — From the Story

A simile makes a comparison explicit using "like" or "as": "her jacket ballooning up like a tent" (jacket ≈ tent). A metaphor replaces one thing with another without a marker: "to melt the ice in her son's eyes" (emotional distance = ice, not compared to ice).

Task: From the list below, identify whether each is a simile or metaphor and state the two elements being compared:
(i) "Xiao Ye's face raised up like a half-open blossom, waiting to receive his promise from the sun."
(ii) "A crowd is beginning to gather, so many fishes swarming towards a bright light."
(iii) "The yellow tape in Tao Ying's hands has turned into a poisonous viper."
(iv) "She wanders back... the days have been like the white flour she works with."

Answers: (i) Simile — face / half-open blossom, (ii) Simile — crowd / fish, (iii) Metaphor — measuring tape / viper, (iv) Simile — days / white flour.

B. Pronunciation — Stress Shift in Dual-Function Words

Several English words can function as either a noun or a verb. When used as a noun, stress typically falls on the first syllable; as a verb, on the second syllable. The vowel quality of the first syllable also changes.

Example from grammar section: object — OB-ject (noun, as in "bob") vs ob-JECT (verb, as in "hub")

Practice set (mark stress and note vowel change):
conduct | protest | permit | progress | desert

CON-duct (n.) vs con-DUCT (v.) | PRO-test (n.) vs pro-TEST (v.) | PER-mit (n.) vs per-MIT (v.) | PRO-gress (n.) vs pro-GRESS (v.) | DES-ert (n., arid land) vs de-SERT (v., to abandon)

Appreciation — Literary Analysis

1. Comment on the significance of the first sentence of the story to its theme.

"When Tao Ying rides on the bus alone, quite often she does not bother to buy a ticket" — the story's opening sentence is a calculated provocation. It introduces the protagonist not as a sympathetic victim but as a mild transgressor, immediately complicating any simple moral identification. This sentence is thematically central because the entire story is an exploration of the distance between Tao Ying's private ethics and her public maternal standards. By confessing her moral compromise in the opening line, Bi Shu-min establishes the "ambivalent ethics" the story examines — she is asking: can a person who cuts corners in private legitimately model integrity for a child? The first sentence plants the question; the rest of the story is the answer. (≈ 110 words)

2. Would you describe the author's portrayal of Tao Ying as sympathetic, critical, or realistic?

Bi Shu-min's portrayal is best described as realistically sympathetic — she neither condemns Tao Ying's hypocrisy nor prettifies it. The narrative acknowledges her small dishonesties (the bus fare, the bus-ticket reimbursement she almost exploits) while fully rendering her tender love, her intellectual limitations, her dignity under pressure, and the genuine moral seriousness of her final act. This is the hallmark of Bi Shu-min's social realism: the refusal to flatten ordinary people into either heroes or moral cautionary tales. By holding both impulses simultaneously — the woman who skips fares and the woman who writes a letter so her son will know she did nothing wrong — the author creates a portrait of real moral life in all its unglamorous difficulty. (≈ 125 words)

3. Identify the episodes that bring out the ambivalent attitude to ethics commonly seen in human life.

Four episodes are particularly revealing. (1) The bus fare: Tao Ying skips payment when alone but insists on buying both tickets when Xiao Ye is watching — the same action becomes either dishonest or principled depending on who is watching. (2) The bus ticket stubs: she could legitimately claim reimbursement for work travel but stops herself because Xiao Ye might question her. The presence of a child converts a permissible act into an impermissible one. (3) The melon-eating episode: she privately eats close to the rind but scolds Xiao Ye for doing the same — until she recognises that he learned it from her. (4) The temple ticket: she will not buy a ticket for a dishonest accusation, even to save the outing, because capitulation would be read as admission. Each episode maps the same ambivalence differently. (≈ 140 words)

4. How effectively does the narrative technique of this story illustrate "unity of thought"?

Unity of thought in fiction refers to the principle that every incident, image, and character detail should illuminate a single governing idea. Bi Shu-min achieves this with remarkable economy. The bus fare (opening) establishes the central paradox of Tao Ying's ethics; the melon episode develops it through domestic metaphor; the temple gate enacts it in public with institutional stakes; the measuring pole fragments produce multiple conflicting authorities on a single physical fact; the letter-writing episode shows Tao Ying negotiating between her plain sincerity and literary conventions she cannot master; and the officials' visit resolves the paradox not by erasing it but by naming it publicly. Even peripheral figures — the cunning old woman with her flattering scales, Lao Chiang with his mysterious "Big Reference" — refract the story's concern with authority, measurement, and the credibility of sources. No scene is decorative; every element carries the theme forward. (≈ 150 words)

Writing Workshop

Task 1 — Analytical Essay (350–400 words)

"One Centimetre explores what it costs an ordinary person to maintain dignity in the face of institutional power." Analyse this statement with close reference to the story.

Essay Structure: Introduction (thesis + context) → P1: Define the "institutional power" as represented — the guard, the height marker, the crowd, the compensation offer → P2: Trace the specific costs Tao Ying bears (lost outing, son's distrust, burnt cakes, the letter-writing ordeal) → P3: Analyse the final act (refusal of money and tickets; the single request) as the measure of her dignity → Conclusion: reflect on what Bi Shu-min's social realism suggests about the dignity of ordinary lives. Word limit: 350–400 words.
Key points to develop: (a) The guard's power is arbitrary but total in the moment — enforced by crowd psychology, not accuracy. (b) Tao Ying's costs are material (lost outing, distracted at work, cakes burnt), emotional (son's estrangement, her frozen hands), and epistemic (she cannot counter the Paris ruler argument). (c) Her dignity does not lie in winning the argument at the gate — she loses that — but in refusing to concede what she knows to be true. (d) The letter is itself a cost: it requires outside help, it is reworked into a voice not her own, and it produces results she cannot control. (e) The refusal of compensation is the story's final proof that dignity cannot be purchased or externally assigned — it must be witnessed by the one person whose gaze matters.

Task 2 — Narrative Writing (250–300 words)

Write the scene from the young guard's perspective — his account of the temple gate incident, told to a friend that evening.

Format: First-person narrative. Include: his initial confidence, the moment of doubt when the crowd saw Xiao Ye's height, his aggressive overcompensation when challenged, the woman's surprising calm, and what he thinks afterwards. Word limit: 250–300 words.
Key craft points: (a) Open with the routine confidence of someone who catches fare-dodgers regularly. (b) Show the psychological shift when the woman reads the ticket rules aloud — his authority feels threatened. (c) The moment the child stands against the mark and the crowd holds its breath — render his private panic as he watches, certain, then less certain. (d) His aggression after the measurement is a defensive reflex, not genuine conviction. (e) The woman's final gesture — prompting the child to call him "Grandpa" before making her one request — should unsettle him: he expected anger, not grace. (f) Close on ambivalence: he was doing his job. Was the earthworm mark really wrong? Why did the officials come themselves?

FAQ

What is One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min about?

One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min is a lesson from the NCERT English textbook covering important literary and language concepts with vocabulary, literary devices, and exercises.

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Key vocabulary words from One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min are highlighted with contextual meanings and usage examples throughout the lesson.

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One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min uses various literary devices including imagery, symbolism, and figurative language identified with coloured tags.

What exercises are in One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min?

Exercises include extract-based comprehension questions, grammar workshops, vocabulary activities, and writing tasks with model answers.

How does One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min help exam prep?

One Centimetre — Bi Shu-min includes CBSE-format questions and model answers following Bloom's Taxonomy levels L1-L6.

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