Class 8 English Honeydew Chapter 7 Question Answers - A Visit to Cambridge

Q1: Whose successor was Stephen Hawking supposed to be at the university?
Ans: Stephen Hawking was supposed to be the successor of Issac Newton at the university.

Q2: What was Stephen’s advice to the disabled?
Ans: Stephen’s advice to the disabled was that they should concentrate on what they are good at and things like Olympics for disabled are a waste of time.

Q3: Describe the physical appearance of Stephen Hawking.
Ans: He was very still like a photograph, head twisted sideways, body shrunk, and legs wasted. He could neither speak nor move; he could only tap his fingers. His body was almost irrelevant to his existence.

Q4: What advice do people usually give to the disabled? Was Hawking brave by choice?
Ans: People generally advise the disabled to be brave. Hawking admitted truthfully that he hadn’t been brave. In fact, he had had no choice.

Q5: How did Kanga fix the interview with Hawking?
Ans: Kanga phoned Hawking and requested the scientist’s assistant to arrange the interview. He asked for ten minutes but he got half an hour.

Q6: Why did the writer feel guilty talking to Stephen Hawking?
Ans: The writer felt guilty every time he spoke to Stephen Hawking because by doing this he forced him to respond. There he (Hawking) was, tapping at the little switch in his hand, trying to find the words on his computer with the only bit of movement left to him, his long, pale fingers. His eyes would often shut in frustrated exhaustion. The writer could feel his anguish but he had no option. He had gone to his house to talk to him on certain points.

Q7: With what disease was the author suffering?
Ans: The author was suffering from brittle bones.

Q8: How did Stephen Hawking respond to anybody?
Ans: Stephen Hawking responded by tapping on the switch trying to find the words on the computer.

Q9: ‘I could feel his anguish’. What was the anguish that the writer could feel?
Ans: The writer could feel the anguish of Stephen Hawking when he replied to each of the narrator’s questions by tapping on the switch and finding words on the computer that also would leave him exhausted as that was the only movement he had in his body.

Q10: What makes any disabled person strong?
Ans: Disabled people feel strong when they see somebody like them achieving something huge.

Q11: What advice does the scientist give to the handicapped?
Ans: He advises the disabled people to concentrate on what they are good at. They should not try to copy the normal people.

Q12: What took the author Firdaus to England? Why did he wish to see Hawking?
Ans: Firdaus Kanga visited Britain to write a book about his travels. He himself could move only in a wheelchair. On the advice of his guide, Kanga planned to meet the most brilliant and completely paralyzed astrophysicist (Hawking) in Cambridge.

Q13: Who is Stephen Hawking?
Ans: Stephen Hawking is a great scientist, an astrophysicist. But he is disabled. He has written the book ‘A Brief History of Time’. He can express himself only through a computer.

Q14: Why did Cambridge become something else for the writer?
Ans: Cambridge became something else for the writer because he met Stephen Hawking, a great scientist there.

Q15: Write about Stephen Hawking and Firdaus Kanga.
Ans: Both of them are disabled people. Stephen Hawking is one of the greatest scientists of our time. He suffers from paralysis that confines him to a wheelchair, and allows him to ‘speak’ only by punching buttons on a computer, which speaks for him in a machine-like voice. Firdaus Kanga is a writer and journalist. He lives and works in Mumbai. He was born with ‘brittle bones’ that tended to break easily when he was a child. Like Hawking, Kanga moves around in a wheelchair.