Class 10 English Chapter 1 Extract Based Question Answers - First Flight

Q1:Read the stanza and answer the questions that follow:

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!

(i) Name the poem and poet.
(ii) What has the boy lost?
(iii) What did he see?
Ans:
(i) This stanza has been taken from the poem 'The Ball Poem’ composed by John Berryman.
(ii) The boy has lost his ball while playing.
(iii) He saw the ball going down the street and went into the water.

Q2: Read the stanza and answer the questions that follow:

No use to say ‘O there are other balls’:
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where His ball went.

(i) What does ‘O there are other balls’ imply?
(ii) Why is the child upset?
(iii) What is he looking at?
Ans: 
(i) It implies that the loss of his ball cannot console the boy even if he gets another ball.
(ii) The child is upset because he has lost his ball.
(iii) He is looking at the place where his ball went.

Q3: Read the stanza and answer the questions that follow:
I would not intrude on him;
A dime, another ball, is worthless.
Now He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions.

(i) What did the poet decide?
(ii) What does the boy understand?
(iii) What does the “World of Possessions’ refer to?
Ans:
(i) The poet decided not to interfere and suggest anything to the boy.
(ii) The boy senses his first responsibility.
(iii) It refers to the world where a man is known by his possessions and is continually led by his decision to possess.

Q4: Read the stanza and answer the questions that follow:

People will take
Balls, balls will be lost always, little boy.
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up.

(i) What does the boy learn?
(ii) What does he think about money?
(iii) Why was the boy upset?
Ans:
(i) The boy is learning the epistemology of loss. He learns how to cope up with the loss.
(ii) Money is external.
(iii) The boy was upset because he had lost his ball.