03_VIRTUALLY TRUE_ class 10

Summary

 

• “Virtually True” is a science fiction story.
• The story is about the world inside psycho-drive computer games which are played by the power of the mind and can be quite dangerous if someone gets trapped inside one of the games.
• The memory of Sebastian Shultz gets trapped inside his laptop when his head bangs against his laptop during an accident.
• He slips into a coma with little hope of survival.
• Another boy, Michael, stumbles upon Sebastian while playing one of the games, called Wildwest.
• Sebastian appears dressed as a sheriff and tries to escape from the game but is shot at by one of the men and the game ends.
• Michael finds himself outside the game and receives a plea of help from Sebastian to help him by playing another game-Dragonquest.
• Michael responds by entering the game and finds that the game entails that he should save a princess called Aurora who is trapped in a tower guarded by a dragon.
• But before he can save the princess he once again meets Sebastian dressed as a knight who calls out to him to help him escape from the game.
• The game ends before he is able to save Sebastian, who is eaten up by the dragon.
• The next day he again receives a message from Sebastian asking for help.
• He now asks him to try and save him through the game, Jailbreak.
• Michael responds by entering the game but once again fails to rescue him.
• Finally Sebastian sends him a message to try for the last time and play the game, Warzone.
• This time Michael is able to rescue Sebastian at the last moment.
• Simultaneously, he gets to read the news of the miraculous recovery of Sebastian in the hospital.
• This leaves Michael wondering how real the virtual world of computer games is.

Questions & Answers

 

Q.1    Why was the narrator attracted to the newspaper headline?

Ans.   The narrator was attracted to the headline because he wanted to know whether Sebastian Shultz mentioned in the article was the same person whom he had met earlier.

 

Q.2    Why did the doctors feel that they needed a miracle?

Ans.   Sebastian had been badly injured in a motorway accident and had gone into coma. His condition was described as critical though stable.

 

Q.3    Why does the narrator say his father is “nutty” about computers?

Ans.   The narrator says so because his father had all the latest computer accessories as well as a computer which could do a variety of things. Also, he couldn’t resist the new gadgets and gizmos that came in the market.

 

Q.4    Describe the game called ‘Wildwest’.

Ans.   It was a game that transported the player to the time of the Wild West in America when saloons existed and Sheriffs were law enforcers.

 

Q.5    Describe the game ‘Dragonquest’. 

Ans.   The game required the player to rescue a princess called Aurora from a wicked dragon and collect its treasure along the way. The princess who had been imprisoned in a tall tower was a young woman with long golden plaits.

 

Q.6    Why was the game ‘Jailbreak’ important to the narrator?

Ans.   It was important because it was a game suggested by Shultz, which the narrator had to play in the hope of rescuing him from the trap he had got into while playing on the computer.

 

Q.7    How did Sebastian find his way into the helicopter?

Ans.   The force caused by the impact of the tank against the jeep threw Sebastian out of the jeep onto the hatch of the helicopter, from where he was pulled in by the narrator.

 

Q.8    What explanation did the narrator find for the weird games he had played with Sebastian?

Ans.   According to the narrator, Sebastian’s memory had somehow got stored in the disk containing the games. These disks had been stolen from Shultz’s house and they had found their way to the Computer Fair from where the narrator’s father had bought them for him.

 

Q.9    What was Michael’s theory about how Sebastian had entered the games?

Ans.   Michael felt that Sebastian’s memory had been saved in the computer when he had banged his head on it during the accident and had entered the games.

 

Q.10  What kind of computers fascinated Michael and his dad? Why?

Ans.   They were fascinated by the Pentium Mhz processor with 256 RAM, a 1.2 GB hard drive and 167 speed CD Rom. It could do anything – play, paint, play music, create displays, etc.

 

Q.11  According to the newspaper, what had happened to Sebastian Shultz?

Ans.   According to the newspaper, Sebastian Shultz had been badly injured in a motorway accident, six weeks ago and was brought to hospital in a critical but stable condition. Despite doctors’ hopes, he did not regain consciousness. They feared that his coma might last forever but quite miraculously the 14-year-old schoolboy from South London had awoken from coma the previous day.

 

Q.12  In what way did the second game seem very real?

Ans.   In the second game called ‘Dragonquest’, the players assumed the role of a knight and tried to save the fair princess Aurora from the wicked dragon. It seemed very real because, in the first place, the narrator received a message from Sebastian Shultz on the score sheet, “I’m stuck. Please help to retrieve me. Try Dragonquest.” Even princess Aurora squeals, “My hero” on seeing the narrator and urgently says to him, “Rescue me now”. All through the game as Sir Sebastian Shultz and the narrator were running away to escape the Dragon, the narrator could hear and feel and even smell the evil dragon following in close pursuit. All this made the game seem very real.

 

Q.13  What was Michael’s theory about how Sebastian had entered the games?

Ans.   Michael believed that at the time of his accident, Shultz was playing one of the same psycho-drive games on his laptop that even the narrator had. Since Sebastian had been plugged into the computer when he banged his head in the accident, the computer had saved his memory in its own. And the weird version of the games that the narrator had been drawn into, had all been attempts to retrieve Shultz’s memory. Actually, the computer games the narrator and his dad had bought at the computer fair belonged to Shultz and were stolen from the hospital.

 

Q.14  The second attempt to rescue Sebastian Shultz too was disastrous. Give reasons.

Ans.   In the second game ‘Dragonquest’, even as Michael is about to rescue princess Aurora from a dragon, another knight, Sir Sebastian Shultz calls out to him, ‘Never mind her. It’s me who needs rescuing.’ And the two knights leap out of princess Aurora’s chamber and come down with the help of a rope made by her hair. Hotly pursued by the dragon, Sir Sebastian i.e. Shultz          and Sir Michael, with his sword drawn, run through a mazeof spiral staircase and secret passages and take refuge in a dungeon. This turns out be a fatal mistake for the dragon appears at the end of the corridor and swoops on Sir Sebastian.

SirMichael cannot do anything about it.

 

Q.15  Narrate the accident that injured Sebastian Shultz.

Ans.   Sebastian was playing psycho-drive games on his laptop when the motorcar he was riding in met with an accident. His head hit the laptop and he got critically injured. Apparently the motorcar had skidded and spun off the road when the driver suddenly applied brakes. He was brought to the General Hospital critical but stable condition. Despite the doctors’ best efforts he did not regain consciousness and slipped into a coma.

 

Q.16  How was Sebastian Shultz’s memory stored on Michael’s disk? Did Michael discover that?

Ans.   Actually, Shultz’s pack of psycho-drive games was stolen from the hospital he was admitted to and mysteriously ended up at the Computer Fair where Michael and his dad bought it. Now Shultz’s computer had saved his memory into its own since he was plugged into it at the time of his accident. Through the games pack it had now got transferred to Michael’s computer.

Michael discovered this when he read about Shultz’s recovery in a newspaper report. He realized that Shultz in the game and Shultz in the hospital were one and the same boy at two different levels of reality.

 

Q.17  What does the narrator mean when he says, ‘Sebastian Shultz was the     game’?

Ans.   The narrator says that Sebastian Shultz was the game because every time he played a game, he ended up trying to save Shultz. At the end of each game, Shultz would send him a message appealing to him to save him. In the Dragonquest, for example, Sir Sebastian Shultz wanted Sir Michael to save him instead of princess Aurora, while in the Jailbreak Michael had to help Shultz, the prisoner number 02478, to escape from prison. At the end of the third game Michael realized that Shultz was the game and his mission was to save him.

 

WORKSHEET

• Short answer type questions:

 

1. What had happened to Sebastian Shultz? How was he at present?
2. How did the narrator come to know about Sebastian Shultz‘s condition?
3. When did the first video game Wild West become complicated? Who was the second sheriff? How does the narrator describe him?
4. When did the first video game come to an end and with what?
5. What was the second video game Dragonquest about?
6. What did Sebastian Shultz suggest to Michael, the narrator to save him?
7. What happened when the narrator swiped a skeleton‘s e-card?
8. What plan did Sebastian Shultz have for escaping from prison cell? How did it fail?
9. The narrator tried the three video games to rescue Sebastian Shultz, but could not. What did he do and why?
10. How did the narrator rescue Sebastian Shultz after entering the Warzone?
11. How did the narrator happen to crack the video game?
12. II) Long answer type questions:
13. How did the narrator come to know about Sebastian Shultz? What had happened to him? How did the narrator happen to initiate rescuing him?
14. Describe what Michael finds in the video game ―Wild west when he plays it?

Who was the second sheriff?

3. What did Michael do after he got a message ―I‘m struck. Please help to retrieve me. Try Dragonquest. Describe how Sebastian Shultz could not be rescued.
4. How did the narrator finally rescue Sebastian Shultz starting from the second Video Game―Dragonquest?

 

 

notes

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