Q. 1. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow : [Delhi Set I/II/III, 2017]
Far far from gusty waves these children’s faces.
Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their
pallor;
The tall girl with her weighed-down head.
(a) Who are these children? [Delhi Set I/II/III, 2017, Delhi Set I, 2015]
Ans. Value Points : From deprived and poor sections of society/slums/elementary class room students.
Detailed Answer : These children are from deprived and poor section of the society.
(b) What has possibly weighed-down the tall girl’s head?
OR
Why is the tall girl’s head weighed down? [Delhi Set I/II/III, 2017]
Ans. Value Points : Weighed down by poverty/ responsibility/ burden of life/ miserable condition/ mentally and physically exhausted.
Detailed Answer : The tall girl is probably undernourished as well as unconfident.
(c) Which is the figure of speech used in the first two lines. [Delhi Set I/II/III, 2017]
Ans. Value Points : Simile (like rootless weeds)/ Alliteration (far from) / Metaphor (gusty)
(d) What does the word, ‘pallor‘ mean? [Delhi Set I/II/III, 2017]
Ans. Value Points : pale face/unhealthy pale appearance / dull/sickly
Detailed Answer : The word ‘pallor’ means ‘unhealthy pale faces’.
Q. 2. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
“The stunted, unlucky heir
Of twisted bones, reciting a father’s gnarled disease,
His lesson, from his desk. At back of the dim class
One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,
Of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this.”
(a) Who is the unlucky heir?
Ans. The unlucky heir is the boy with the stunted growth.
(b) What is the stunted boy reciting?
Ans. The stunted boy is reciting his lesson from his desk.
(c) Who is sitting at the back of the dim class?
Ans. Value Points : One unnoted sweet and young dreamer / one who dreams about a squirrel’s game.
Detailed Answer : A boy whose eyes still dream of squirrel’s games, is sitting at the back of the dim class.
(d) What quality of the unlucky heir is depicted in the stanza?
Ans. The unlucky heir is depicted with twisted bones
Q. 3. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow : [Outside Delhi Set-I, II & III, 2017] [Comptt., Delhi Set III, 2015]
At back of the dim class
One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,
Of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this.
(a) Why was the class dim?
Ans. Value Points : Pathetic condition of classroom (in slums) symbolic of dullness/slum drudgery/lack of light/electricity.
(b) How is the young child different from others? [Outside Delhi Set-I, II & III, 2017]
Ans. Value Points : Sweet/loving/lost in his drams/ non visible impact of poverty/hope in his eyes/ escaping the grim reality / positive.
(c) What is a tree room? [Outside Delhi Set-I, II & III, 2017]
Ans. Value Points : Squirrel’s hole/a dwelling place in the tree, a plaything.
Q. 4. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
On sour cream walls, donations, Shakespeare’s head,
Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.
Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open – handed map
Awarding the world its world.
(a) Name the poem.
Ans. An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum.
(b) What are the donations on the wall?
Ans. They are the name of people who has given donations to the donations to the school.
(c) What does the map award the world?
Ans. The map awards the world its own world.
(d) Why does the poet mention ‘Tyrolese Valley’?
Ans. ‘Tyrolese’ is the name of a beautiful flower valley.
OR
(a) What is the condition of the classroom wall?
Ans. Value Points : In a state of neglect/sour cream/ poverty-stricken conditions of the room.
Detailed Answer : The classroom walls of the elementary school are sour and in a state of neglect.
(b) What aspects show a civilized race?
Ans. Detailed Answer : Picture of Tyrolese valley/ Shakespeare’s bust/map/dome of an ancient city building.
Detailed Answer : The picture of Tyrolese valley, Shakespeare’s bust, etc. all are depicting a civilized race.
(c) What is the specialty of the Tyrolese valley?
Ans. Value Points : Full of coloured flowers and resonates with the bells.
Detailed Answer : The Tyrolese valley is full of coloured flowers and resonates with the sound of bells.
(d) What type of map has been referred to here?
Ans. Open - handed map
Q. 5. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare’s
head, cloudless at down, civilised dome riding
all cities. Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. [Foreign, Set-I, II & III, 2017]
(a) How were the walls built?
Ans. Value Points : Donations.
Detailed Answer : The walls were built by the donations given by people.
(b) What do you find in the classroom?
Ans. Value Points : Malnourished children/one unnoted sweet child/ picture of Shakespeare/ of a modern city/ of Tyrolese valley.
Detailed Answer : We find pictures of Tyrolese Valley, Shakespeare’s bust, etc. in the classroom.
(c) What is the significance of Tyrolese valley?
Ans. Value Points : Contrast to the condition of the classroom/ a place of beauty they have never seen or which is unknown to them/can arouse desire to be part of it/a scene of beauty.
Detailed Answer : Tyrolese valley is full of flowers and symbolizes beauty.
(d) What does the word, ‘Belled’ mean?
Ans. Value Points : Bells around the grazing cows in the valley/ shape of the Tyrolese valley.
Detailed Answer : The word, ‘Belled’ mean the bells around the grazing cows in the valley.
Q. 6. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
................... not this map, their world,
Where all their future’s painted with a fog,
A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky
Far far from rivers, capes and stars of words.
(a) Where is the map?
Ans. The map is on the wall of a classroom in an elementary school in a slum.
(b) Who does the word, ‘their’ refer to?
Ans. ‘Their’ refers to the students who study in the elementary school in a slum.
(c) How is their life different from that of other children?
Ans. The children of the slum are emaciated and poverty-stricken, as against of other children.
(d) What does the poet think of their future?
Ans. The poet feels that the future of the children studying there in the slum is all dark and bleak.
Q. 7. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
And, yet for these children, these windows, not
this map their world,
Where all their future’s painted with a fog.
(a) Who are the ‘children’ referred to here?
Ans. The ‘children’ referred to here are the poor children living in the slum.
(b) Which map is the poet talking about in the above lines?
Ans. Poet is talking about the map of the world displayed on the classroom wall.
(c) To what do the words, “these windows, their world,” refer.
Ans. Value Points : These windows
– windows of the classroom in the slum
– their world
– world of slum (Pathetic living conditions).
Detailed Answer : The pathetic living conditions of the slum that can be seen outside the window of the classroom.
(d) What sort of future do the slum children have?
Ans. The slum children have a dark, bleak and hopeless future which is cheerless and uncertain.
Q. 8. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example,
With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal—
For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes
From fog to endless night.
(a) Why is Shakespeare wicked?
Ans. Shakespeare is wicked because Shakespeare and his works are of no use to the slum children.
(b) Why is the map a bad example?
Ans. The map is a bad example because it does not depict their own world of narrow lanes.
(c) What is the condition of these children as described in these lines?
Ans. They live like rats in their cramped holes where there is no brightness in their lives.
(d) Explain, ‘from fog to endless night’.
Ans. This means that their future is foggy and uncertain.
Q. 9. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
.............. And yet, for these
children, these windows, not this map, their world.
Where all their future’s painted with a fog,
A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky
Far from rivers, capes and stars or words.
(a) Who are the ‘children’ referred to here?
Ans. Value Point : The ‘children’ referred to here are the children of the slum areas who come to the elementary school to study.
(b) Which is their world?
Ans. Value Points : Their world is the world of slum / of deprivation / of poverty / a world far away from rivers, capes and stars of worlds / a narrow street sealed in with a lead sky.
Detailed Answer : Their world is the world of darkness where there is no hope.
(c) How is their life different from that of other children?
Ans. Value Points : Bleak future / without any hope or progress / with unrealistic education / poverty and disease / away from rivers, capes, stars of world.
Detailed Answer : Their world is different from that of other children because these children do not have a bright future like others.
(d) Why is the future of these children ‘painted with a fog’?
Ans. The future of these children is dark and uncertain, meaning that it cannot be seen.
Q. 10. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal .....
for lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes
From fog to endless night.
(a) Who are ‘them’ referred to in the first line?
Ans. ‘Them’ referred to in the first line are the children from slum areas who are poor and deprived.
(b) What tempts them?
Ans. The maps on the wall, the pictures of ships, sun and other natural things on the wall of their classroom.
(c) What does the poet say about ‘their’ lives?
Ans. The poet says that their lives are devoid of hope.
(d) What do you understand by ‘from fog to endless night’?
Ans. ‘From fog to endless night’ means from morning till night.
Q. 11. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
On their slag heap, these children
Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel
With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.
(a) Who are these children?
Ans. Value Points : – The poor / impoverished children of the slums.
Detailed Answer : These children are the children of the slum, very poor and impoverished.
(b) What is their slag heap?
Ans. Value Points : – Slum in which they are living / waste material heap / unwanted.
Detailed Answer : ‘Slag heap” refers to the slum in which they are living.
(c) Why are their bones peeping through their skins?
Ans. Value Points : – Physically weak / malnourished / impoverished.
Detailed Answer : Their bones are peeping through their skins because they are malnourished and very thin.
(d) What does ‘with mended glass’ mean?
Ans. Value Points : – Too poor to afford spectacles / shattering of dreams.
Detailed Answer : ‘With mended glass’, the poet means the glass or spectacles which are broken but have been repaired.
OR
(a) Name the poem and the poet. [Delhi / Outside Delhi 2018]
Ans. An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum; Stephen Spender.
(b) Explain : ‘slag heap.’
Ans. Refers to garbage dump, mound of industrial waste/ slum.
Detailed Answer : ‘Slag heop” referes to the slum in which they are living.
(c) What future awaits these children?
Ans. Dark/bleak/dismal/hopeless/painted with fog/ miserable.
Detailed Answer : The poet thinks that these children have a dark and bleak future.
(d) Name the figure of speech used in the third line.
Ans. Simile/Alliteration.
Q.12. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow : ............
On their slag heap, these children
Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel
With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.
All of their time and space are foggy slum.
So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.
(a) What does ‘slag heap’ refer to?
Ans. Suggested Value Points: ‘Slag heap’ refers to the slums / the heaps of garbage.
(b) What do these children wear on their eyes?
Ans. Suggested Value Points: spectacles of steel / spectacles made of steel and mended glass / broken spectacles / mended spectacles / spectacles discarded by the rich.
Detailed Answer : These children wear mended steel spectacles which are discorded by the rich.
(c) What other example shows their poverty?
Ans. Suggested Value Points: Their thin appearance / their skins peeped through by bones.
(d) Name the figure of speech used in the last line.
Ans. Suggested Value Points: Simile.
