Unseen Passage for Class 4: The Boy Who Counted Birds

  • 181 words
  • 5 questions
  • Ages 9–10
  • With answers

Leo reads the passage out loud and highlights each word, then asks whether your child would like to try the questions. Free, no sign-up.

Read the passage

When Imran was eight, his uncle gave him a thin notebook and told him to write down every bird he saw from his window. Imran thought it was a strange present, but he started that same evening with two crows and a pigeon.

He kept it up. Every morning before school he wrote the date, the weather, and the names of the birds. When he did not know a name he drew the bird instead, badly at first and then much better.

Four years later the notebook was full. Flipping through it, Imran noticed something he had not seen while writing it. Sparrows appeared on nearly every page of the first year. In the last year they appeared only a handful of times.

He showed the notebook to his science teacher, who was quiet for a long moment. She explained that sparrows were disappearing from cities across the country, and that very few people had written anything down as it happened.

That notebook is now kept in a glass case in the school library. Imran still cannot draw a pigeon properly.

Questions

  1. What did Imran's uncle give him?

    1. A camera
    2. A thin notebook
    3. A pair of binoculars
    4. A book about birds

  2. What did Imran do when he did not know a bird's name?

    1. He asked his uncle
    2. He left the page blank
    3. He drew the bird instead
    4. He looked it up in a book

  3. What change did Imran notice when he looked back through the notebook?

    1. His handwriting had improved
    2. Sparrows appeared far less often in the later years
    3. There were more crows each year
    4. He had missed many days

  4. Why was the science teacher quiet for a long moment?

    1. She was annoyed
    2. She did not believe him
    3. She realised his notebook was a rare and valuable record
    4. She was reading the whole notebook

  5. Why does the writer end with the line about drawing a pigeon?

    1. To show Imran is still an ordinary boy despite what he achieved
    2. To show Imran gave up drawing
    3. To explain that pigeons are hard to draw
    4. To show that the notebook was not very good

Answers

Show the answer key
  1. A thin notebookHis uncle gave him a thin notebook to record the birds he saw.
  2. He drew the bird insteadHe drew the bird instead, "badly at first and then much better".
  3. Sparrows appeared far less often in the later yearsSparrows filled nearly every page of the first year but appeared only a handful of times in the last.
  4. She realised his notebook was a rare and valuable recordShe knew sparrows were vanishing and that very few people had recorded it happening. Imran had, without meaning to.
  5. To show Imran is still an ordinary boy despite what he achievedIt is a light ending that keeps Imran human — his notebook is in a glass case, but he is still just a boy who cannot draw pigeons.

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