Matilda By Roald Dahl Chapter 05

CHAPTER FIVE – ARITHMETIC.

27.

14.

Dahl tells his readers that Matilda was only very small and very young and so always had to do as she was told. However, in spite of this, she did have power over her family. What was this?

Dahl tells his readers that ‘the only power Matilda had over anyone in her family was Brain power’.

28.

15.

One evening Mr Wormwood returned home to his family in an excellent mood boasting that he had sold no fewer than five cars that day, ‘each at a tidy profit’. He tells his family that he had employed a number of tricks to sell the vehicles. In addition to the two ‘tricks of the trade’ which he had already told his son, namely putting sawdust in the oil and using a drill to change the milometer, what third trick does he mention?

The third trick mentioned by Mr Wormwood was to put a ‘splash of paint here and there’ to make the car look newer and better than it was.

29.

15-16

Mr Wormwood is very pleased because he sold so many cars, and asks his son to calculate how much profit he had made. For each car, he reads out the amount of money he had bought it for, and the amount he had sold it for. When Matilda beats her brother to the correct answer, Mr Wormwood becomes very angry. What answer does Matilda give?

Matilda correctly calculates that her father’s total profit was £4303.50 on the five cars.

30.

16

When Matilda successfully beats her brother to the correct answer, her father becomes very angry. What does he accuse Matilda of doing?

Mr Wormwood accuses Matilda of cheating by looking at the answer that he had written on a piece of paper earlier in the day. Matilda points out that she is sitting on the other side of the room and so couldn’t possibly have seen the answer but her father reiterates that Matilda is ‘a cheat and a liar’.