Unit 11 — Safety First

Complete Solved Exercises

Textbook: English 9, KP Textbook Board — Unit 11, pp.108–116
Theme: Crisis management / first aid
Form: A dialogue between two friends, Babar and Asim
Grammar: Punctuation — comma, colon, semi-colon, capital letters
Writing: Essay writing, translation (Urdu to English)

WHAT THE DIALOGUE TEACHES — quick revision table

A basic first aid kit may contain: adhesive plasters in a variety of sizes and shapes · small, medium and large sterile gauze dressings · at least two sterile eye dressings · triangular bandages · crêpe rolled bandages · safety pins · disposable sterile gloves · tweezers · scissors · medicines.

COMPREHENSION (p.113)

A. Answer the following questions

1. What is first aid?
As Asim explains in the dialogue, first aid is the help given to a sick or injured person until full medical treatment is available. It is about using your common sense in ways that will keep that person safe without doing harm. If a friend has an accident or someone collapses (perhaps from a heart attack), then the first person there will be the first aider — the person who will help the casualties till help arrives. It is a great idea for older children and adults to do a first aid course so that they know what to do to help others.

2. Discuss a situation in which you provided first aid to someone.
(A personal answer. Model:)

Last month my younger brother was playing cricket in our street when he fell and cut his knee badly on a sharp stone. It began to bleed a great deal and he started crying, and for a moment I felt like panicking. Then I remembered what we had read in our lesson. I first took a deep breath to calm myself. I washed my hands, put on a clean cloth over the wound and pressed firmly on it to stop the bleeding, and I raised his leg so that the wound was above the level of his heart. Within a few minutes the bleeding slowed down. I then cleaned the area gently and covered it with a sterile gauze dressing from our first aid kit, and fixed it with an adhesive plaster. My mother took him to the doctor afterwards, and the doctor said that applying pressure and elevating the leg had been exactly the right thing to do. Since that day I have understood why everyone should take a first aid class.

3. What will you do if someone cuts his foot and is bleeding?
I would follow the steps Asim describes:

1. Take a deep breath to calm down a little — panic helps nobody.
2. Call the emergency phone number for help.
3. In the meanwhile, put a clean cloth over the wound.
4. Apply pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding.
5. Elevate the injured foot, that is, raise it above the level of the heart to reduce the flow of blood.
6. Keep the person warm and reassured until medical help arrives.

4. You're having lunch with a friend and he begins to choke on some food. How can you help?
First I would make sure that he is really choking. If he can talk or cough, it means air is getting through, and I should just let him cough, because coughing is the body's own way of clearing the passage.

If he cannot talk or cough, I would perform the abdominal thrust: I would stand behind him, wrap my arms around him and quickly pull in and up with my fist. The air that is forced up from the lungs dislodges the object stuck in the throat.

I would not simply hit him on the back, because, as Asim warns, that might lodge the object in his throat further and make things worse. If the object did not come out, I would call for medical help at once.

5. A passenger travelling in a bus with you is complaining of breathlessness and a tight pain in the chest. You suspect a heart attack. What should you do?

1. Call medical help as soon as possible — this is the first and most important step.
2. In the meanwhile, ease the strain on his heart by making him as comfortable as possible.
3. Rest him in a half-sitting position, with his head and shoulders supported and his knees bent — this is the best position for a heart patient.
4. Loosen any tight clothing around the neck and waist, and keep the crowd away so that he gets plenty of fresh air.
5. Keep him calm and reassured and do not let him walk or exert himself.
6. Do not make him lie down flat, although that is what people normally do, and do not press his chest.

B. Choose the correct answer

⚠ Note on Q1: the question says cold water, but the dialogue itself is careful to say "run cool (not cold) water over the burn area for about 20 minutes." Teach the text, not the question: the water must be cool, never cold, and never ice.
Note on Q4: options (a), (b) and (c) are all things you SHOULD do; only (d) is the thing to be avoided. Read the word avoided carefully.

VOCABULARY (p.114)

A. Look up the meanings and make sentences to bring out the difference

a. Difference between 'look' and 'search'

b. Difference between 'buy' and 'purchase'

c. Difference between 'hide' and 'conceal'

d. Difference between 'learn' and 'educate'

e. Difference between 'reward' and 'award'

B. Write the contextual meaning of the following

WRITING (p.114)

A. Write an essay of about 100–150 words on "Natural Disaster"

Natural Disasters

A natural disaster is a sudden and violent event caused by the forces of nature which brings great destruction to human life and property. Earthquakes, floods, landslides, droughts, cyclones and forest fires are the commonest examples.

Pakistan has suffered greatly from such calamities. The earthquake of 2005 in Azad Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed tens of thousands of people and flattened whole villages, while the floods of 2010 and 2022 washed away farmlands, homes, roads and bridges, leaving millions homeless and hungry.

The causes are partly natural and partly of our own making. Deforestation loosens the soil and worsens floods; badly built houses collapse in an earthquake; and climate change, produced by pollution, has made rainfall and heat more extreme.

The effects are terrible: loss of life, injury, disease, hunger, destruction of crops and the collapse of the economy of a whole region.

Yet much can be done. Governments must plant forests, build dams to harbour excess water, enforce building codes, and create early-warning systems. Ordinary citizens should know first aid, keep a first aid kit at home, at school and at the workplace, and learn what to do in an emergency, because the first person on the spot is always the first aider.

We cannot stop nature, but with preparation and knowledge we can greatly reduce the harm it does. Safety must always come first.

B. In your opinion, how should schools be equipped to face floods, earthquake and fire?

In my opinion a school is responsible not only for teaching children but for keeping them alive in an emergency, and most of our schools are not prepared at all.

Before the disaster — the building itself. School buildings should be constructed according to earthquake-resistant codes and should not be built in low-lying areas that flood. Every school needs at least two wide exits, clearly marked, and staircases that do not become bottlenecks. Electrical wiring should be checked every year, since faulty wiring is the commonest cause of fire.

Equipment. Every school should have fire extinguishers on each floor and a sand bucket in the laboratory; a fire alarm that everyone recognises; a well-stocked first aid kit in every block containing plasters, sterile gauze dressings, eye dressings, triangular and crêpe bandages, safety pins, disposable gloves, tweezers, scissors and basic medicines; a stretcher; torches; and a stock of clean drinking water.

Training. Equipment is useless if nobody can use it. As Asim says, "just having a first aid kit is not enough. One must know how to use it." Therefore every teacher and every senior student should complete a first aid course, and the school should hold evacuation drills for earthquake and fire at least twice a year, so that children know how to leave the building calmly.

Planning. The school should display emergency phone numbers in every room, keep an updated list of parents' contact numbers, appoint a safety in-charge, and fix an open assembly point where everyone gathers after evacuation.

If these simple steps were taken, a disaster that today would cost many lives could pass with no loss at all.

C. Translate the following sentences from Urdu to English

Teaching point: sentences (i), (ii), (iii), (vi) and (vii) are present perfect (have/has + V3); sentences (iv) and (v) are past perfect (had + V3), because one past action happened before another. Note also the spellings received (i before e after c… but receive is the exception) and deceived.

LISTENING & SPEAKING (p.115)

Task: Work in pairs and express your personal ideas / feelings / emotions on the effects of calamities and how they can be minimised.

Model response:

When I think of calamities, the picture that comes to my mind is the 2005 earthquake. I was not born then, but my father still cannot speak of it without emotion. Whole schools collapsed on the children inside them. That is the cruellest effect of a calamity — it takes away those who had no part in causing it.

The effects are of many kinds. There is the immediate loss of life and injury; then disease, because clean water disappears; then hunger, because crops and stored grain are destroyed; then the loss of homes, schools and hospitals; and finally the deep fear that stays in people's minds for years.

But I firmly believe that most of this harm can be minimised. Firstly, through preparation — earthquake-resistant buildings, dams and embankments, and reforestation of our hills. Secondly, through early warning, so that people can move before a flood arrives. Thirdly, and most important for us as students, through training: if every household kept a first aid kit and knew how to stop bleeding, treat a burn or help a choking person, thousands of lives would be saved in the first hour, before any ambulance could arrive.

Nature will always be stronger than we are. But knowledge, planning and a calm head can turn a catastrophe into a manageable emergency.

GRAMMAR — PUNCTUATION (pp.115–116)

Rules to revise first

1–5. Choose the correct sentence

⚠ Important note for the class: in items 1, 3 and 5 the option with the correct punctuation mark unfortunately begins with a small letter in the textbook. The punctuation is right, but the sentence still needs a capital letter at the beginning. Teach the fully correct forms:

1. This is what I ate for breakfast: an apple and a bowl of cereal.
2. My sister loves mysteries; my brother likes comics.
3. The window was open; I looked out over the empty fields.

Why a colon in 1 and 4? Because what follows explains or lists what came before.
Why a semi-colon in 2, 3 and 5? Because two complete, closely related sentences are being joined without a conjunction. Using a comma there would be a comma splice — a common examination error.

Replace each set of brackets with a comma or a semi-colon — "PASTA"

Pasta[,] a large family of shaped[,] dried wheat pastes[,] is a basic staple in many countries. Its origins are obscure. Rice pastes were known very early in China[;] pastes made of wheat were used in India and Arabia long before they were introduced into Europe in the 11th or 12th century. According to legend[,] Marco Polo brought a pasta recipe with him from Asia in 1295. Pasta quickly became a major element in the Italian diet[,] and its use spread throughout Europe. Pasta is made from durum wheat flour[,] which makes a strong[,] elastic dough. Hard durum wheat has the highest wheat protein value. The flour is mixed with water[,] kneaded to form a thick paste[,] and then forced through perforated plates or dies that shape it into one of more than 100 different forms.

Why each mark is used:

Punctuation marks and capital letters — rewrite the sentences

Note on 4 and 5: a question mark is needed because these are interrogative sentences. Note on 6: an exclamation mark suits a strong command. Note on 8: keep the apostrophe in couldn't.

GLOSSARY (p.112 — as given in the book)

LIKELY EXAM QUESTIONS

1. What is first aid? Who is a first aider?
2. What should a basic first aid kit contain?
3. What will you do if someone cuts his foot and is bleeding badly?
4. How would you help a friend who begins to choke on food?
5. What should you do if you suspect that someone is having a heart attack? What must be avoided?
6. What is the correct treatment of a minor burn? Why should butter and ice never be used?
7. What should be done in case of a nose bleed?
8. Write an essay on "Natural Disaster".
9. How should schools be equipped to face floods, earthquake and fire?
10. Write the rules for using the comma, the colon and the semi-colon, with examples.