[This Is Going to Hurt Just a Little Bit — Easy Extract Questions and Answers
Ogden Nash | XII English
🔹 1. Read the lines and answer the questions.
One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair
with my mouth wide open.
a. What does the speaker dislike?
He dislikes sitting in the dentist’s chair with his mouth wide open. It makes him feel uncomfortable and afraid.
b. How does he feel about dental treatment?
He feels nervous about it. He worries about the discomfort he may experience.
c. What is the tone of these lines?
The tone is humorous and conversational. He speaks as though he is telling a friend about his experience.
🔹 2. Read the lines and answer the questions.
Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.
a. What two kinds of suffering are mentioned?
Physical suffering and mental suffering. One affects the body, while the other affects the mind.
b. Why does the speaker say dental treatment causes both?
He feels discomfort in his body and fear in his mind. His worries make the experience seem worse.
c. Find the rhyming words.
“Mental” and “dental”.
d. How does the poet make these lines funny?
He calls dental treatment “torture”. This exaggeration makes the speaker’s fear sound dramatic and funny.
🔹 3. Read the lines and answer the questions.
It is hard to be self-possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest.
a. What does “self-possessed” mean?
It means calm and in control of one’s feelings.
b. Why can the speaker not remain calm?
He feels afraid and uncomfortable. Sitting with his mouth open and jaw lowered makes him feel helpless.
c. Is his jaw really digging into his chest?
No. He exaggerates his awkward position to make the description funny.
d. Find the rhyming words.
“Self-possessed” and “chest”.
🔹 4. Read the lines and answer the questions.
So hard to retain your calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your life
line or love line or some other important line in your palm;
a. What does the speaker do because he is nervous?
He presses his fingernails tightly into his palms. This shows how tense he feels.
b. What does “alterations” mean?
It means changes.
c. What does he say happens to the lines on his palms?
He jokingly says that his fingernails change them. He imagines pressing his hands that tightly.
d. How does this create humour?
His fear makes him describe a small action in a very dramatic way. This exaggeration makes readers smile.
🔹 5. Read the lines and answer the questions.
So hard to give your usual effect of cheery benignity
When you know your position is one of the two or three in life most
lacking in dignity.
a. What does “cheery benignity” mean here?
It means a cheerful and friendly manner.
b. Why can he not look cheerful?
He feels worried and uncomfortable during treatment. He cannot keep his usual pleasant expression.
c. Why does he feel that he lacks dignity?
He has to sit with his mouth wide open. This position makes him feel awkward and helpless.
d. Find the rhyming words.
“Benignity” and “dignity”.
🔹 6. Read the lines and answer the questions.
And your mouth is like a section of road
that is being worked on.
a. What does the speaker compare his mouth to?
He compares it to a road being repaired.
b. Why does he make this comparison?
The tools working inside his mouth remind him of machines repairing a road.
c. Name the poetic device.
Simile. A simile compares two things using “like” or “as”.
d. What makes this comparison funny?
He imagines a busy road-repair scene inside his mouth. This makes ordinary dental work seem much bigger and noisier.
🔹 7. Read the lines and answer the questions.
And it is all cluttered up with stone
crushers and concrete mixers and drills
and steam rollers
a. What does “it” refer to?
“It” refers to the speaker’s mouth.
b. What does “cluttered up” mean?
It means crowded or filled in an untidy way.
c. What do the machines stand for?
They stand for the dental tools. In his imagination, the small tools become large, powerful machines.
d. Name the main poetic device.
Hyperbole, or exaggeration. The speaker makes the treatment sound much more frightening than it is.
🔹 8. Read the lines and answer the questions.
And your teeth are supposed to be being polished,
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.
a. What is the dentist doing?
The dentist is polishing the speaker’s teeth to clean and care for them.
b. What does the speaker imagine?
He imagines that his teeth are being destroyed. His fear makes the treatment feel too rough.
c. What does “demolished” mean?
It means destroyed.
d. How do these lines create humour?
The dentist is improving his teeth, but he imagines the opposite. The rhyme between “polished” and “demolished” adds to the humour.
🔹 9. Read the lines and answer the questions.
And the circumstance that adds most to your terror
Is that it's all done with a mirror,
a. What increases the speaker’s fear?
The dentist’s use of a mirror increases his fear.
b. What mistake does he worry about?
He worries that the dentist might confuse left and right while looking in the mirror.
c. What everyday activity does he compare this to?
He compares it to tying a bow tie while looking in a mirror. He knows that this can be confusing.
d. Find the rhyming words.
“Terror” and “mirror”.
🔹 10. Read the lines and answer the questions.
And then at last he says That will be all; but it isn't because he then
coats your mouth from cellar to roof
a. Who is “he”?
“He” is the dentist.
b. Why does the speaker first feel relieved?
The dentist says that the treatment is over. The speaker thinks he can finally leave.
c. What does the dentist do next?
He applies a substance inside the speaker’s mouth. So the speaker’s relief does not last long.
d. What does “from cellar to roof” suggest?
It suggests the whole inside of the mouth, from bottom to top. The mouth is described as a building.
🔹 11. Read the lines and answer the questions.
With something that I suspect is generally used to put a shine on a
horse's hoof.
a. What is the speaker talking about?
He is talking about the substance the dentist puts inside his mouth.
b. What does he imagine it is used for?
He imagines that it is used to polish a horse’s hoof and make it shine.
c. Is horse-hoof polish really used in his mouth?
The poem does not say so. This is only the speaker’s funny suspicion.
d. Why is the comparison humorous?
A dental substance and horse-hoof polish are very different things. Bringing them together creates a surprising and funny picture.
🔹 12. Read the lines and answer the questions.
And you totter to your feet and think. Well it's all over now and after
all it was only this once.
And he says come back in three monce.
a. What does “totter” mean?
It means to stand or walk unsteadily.
b. How does the speaker feel when he gets up?
He feels relieved. He hopes that the unpleasant experience is finally over.
c. Why does he become disappointed?
The dentist asks him to return in three months. He realises that he must face another visit.
d. Why does the poet write “monce”?
“Monce” is a playful spelling of “months”. It rhymes with “once” and makes the lines funny.
🔹 13. Read the lines and answer the questions.
And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou
ever sentest
a. Whom does the speaker address?
He addresses Fate. He speaks as though Fate is responsible for his problem.
b. Name the poetic device in “O Fate”.
Apostrophe. It means speaking directly to an idea or something that cannot answer.
c. What is a “vicious circle”?
It is a situation that keeps repeating and is difficult to escape.
d. What is the speaker’s vicious circle?
He visits the dentist to keep his teeth healthy. But he wants healthy teeth mainly so that he can avoid visiting the dentist! This contradiction makes the ending funny.]
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