CBSE Important Questions

PROSE

The Tribute(Short Questions)

1. Babuli is a victim of escapism of modern life. Discuss.
2. Explain, ‘a lot of cobwebs have settled around me’.
3. Why does Babuli describe his elder brother as his land, ‘from where I could harvest everything in life’?
4. How did Babuli react after hearing about his wife’s plan of spending the money?
5. What changes did Babuli notice when he arrived at the ancestral home?
6. What did Babuli do with his share?
7. Explain: ‘Perhaps a tear trickled down his cheek’/ ‘I shivered with the cold and my own ingratitude’.

Broad Questions

1. Babuli’s diary depicting the day of partition.
2. A reporter of a daily listens to the entire happenings of Babuli’s home. He writes an article on Babuli & his tribute to the elder brother. Write the article.
3. Babuli’s mother as a silent observer of the partition writes a letter to one of her friends.

Cutie Pie(Short Questions)

1.  How did Cutie Pie escape from the jail?
2. ‘To lose his feathers was to lose himself’. Explain.
3. On the 19th day, Cutie Pie woke up from ‘a beautiful dream to an appalling reality’. What was so appalling about the reality?
4. How was the glass prison a scientific tomb?
5. ‘Oh, he is just too cute to live!’ the world said. How does this remark almost come true?
6. ‘Cutie Pie’ were the words they flinched from. Who are ‘they’? Why did they flinch from mentioning these words?

Broad Questions

1. Cutie Pie writes his diary, sitting inside the glass prison, expressing his ailing condition, loneliness etc. Write the diary.
2. After capturing the alien from the planet Quta Pi, a senior scientist writes an article for a local newspaper about it. Write the article.
3. Reaching his own planet, Ch-tsal writes a letter to his friend Christopher. Write the letter.
4. Speech of Ch-tsal before a group of friends and neighbours after his return to home-planet.   

The Letter(Short Questions)

1. Why did Ali go to the post office every morning?
2. Why did waiting for Miriam’s letter become an obsession for Ali?
3. What bewildered and puzzled the postmaster?
4. What made Ali give up hunting?
5. ‘The postmaster was a changed person at the end’. How?
6. How did the post office become a place of pilgrimage for Ali?

Broad Questions

1. Supposing that you are Ali’s daughter, Miriam, write a letter to your father.
2. Waiting for his daughter’s news, the Postmaster writes his diary outlining his feelings about the day’s  events. Write the diary.
3. Lakshmi Das writes a letter to Miriam expressing his concern for Ali, who comes to the post office   almost  daily for a letter, written by her

The Ultimate Safari(Short Questions)

1. How did the narrator of the Ultimate Safari lose her parents?
2. Describe the Kruger Park. How did the narrator describe it?
3. Significance of the title of the story.
4. How did the grandmother maintain the family?
5. Role of the Guide in crossing the park.
6. “It was hard to be like animals”- discuss.  

Broad Questions:

1. Suppose you are the narrator of the story. Suppose the grandfather had arrived after some years. Write a diary entry of the day expressing happiness of your family.
2. Grandmother’s diary after husband’s disappearance.
3. Suppose, the Grandmother has been awarded with ‘The Woman of the Year’ for her Herculean task for her grandchildren. Applauded Granny delivers a speech before the audience. Write the speech.

DRAMA

Julius Caesar(Short Questions)

1. “Over thy wounds now do I prophesy”..... What prophesy does Antony make at this juncture?
2. “But Brutus says he was ambitious”.... How does Antony prove that Caesar was never ambitious?
3. How did the conspirators assassinate Julius Caesar?
4. What are the conditions imposed by the conspirators before alluring Antony to speak at the Funeral of Caesar?
5. What mistakes did Brutus make?
6. What reasons does Brutus give for murdering Caesar?
7. What are the conditions imposed by the conspirators before allowing Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral?
8. What prediction does Antony make regarding the future events in Rome?
9. What are the arguments put forward by Brutus to convince Caesar to go to the capitol?
10. ‘I found it in his closet’. What was it? Why was it so important?

Christmas Carol(Short Questions)

1. Scrooge literally means a miserly & mean minded person—Discuss.
2. Who was Jacob Marley? What message did Jacob Marley’s ghost give to him?
3. What did the First/ Second/Third ghost show & teach Scrooge?
4. What kind of man does Scrooge become after his encounter with the three ghosts?
5. How did Dickens emphasize that Scrooge does not like Christmas, in the beginning of the play?
6. Reason behind the introduction of Belle in Christmas Carol.
7. Purpose behind Tim’s visit to church.
8. Reasons behind Scrooge’s drastic change in the play.

POETRY SECTION

NIGHT OF THE SCORPION

1. Why did the peasants visit the narrator’s home?
2. Why did the peasants utter the name of God repeatedly?
3. The last line brings out the character of the mother.Justify the statement.
4. Explain: ‘I watch the flame feeding on my mother’.
5. What do the villagers pray for the narrator’s mother?
6. ‘May the poison purify your flesh....’ Who is the speaker here? Narrate the atmosphere of this event.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND

1. How is the West Wind a destroyer & a preserver?
2. Explain: “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed”.
3. Why is the west wind both a preserver and a destroyer?
4. Explain, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”/ “The trumpet of a prophecy!”/ ‘Thine azure sister of the spring’.

THE FROG AND THE NIGHTINGALE

(a) Explain the following lines:

1. “I tried to teach her/ But she was a stupid creature”.
2. “Brainless bird, you’re on the stage”
3. “And you’re Mozart in disguise”
4. “I don’t think the song’s divine”
5. Dumbstruck sat the gaping frog.

(b) “In the second song last night/ You got nervous in the mid flight”. Who said this & to whom? What was the result?

MIRROR

1. The woman in the poem searching for something in the depths of the mirror. What is it?
2. How does the mirror spend its time? Why is it called a ‘four cornered God’?
3. Why is the mirror ‘not cruel’ and ‘only truthful’?
4. Explain, “I am important to her”.
5. Why and how does the woman look in the mirror? What does it reflect faithfully?

(f) Explain: ‘Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall’.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

1. What ‘hellish thing’ did the ancient mariner do?
2. Why were the sailors happy to see the Albatross? What did they feel after its arrival?
3. Describe how the dead soul of albatross took the revenge of its death.
4. Describe the situation in brief when the ship was becalmed in the mid-sea.
5. Explain the following lines.

‘Yet he cannot choose but hear’
‘With slopping masts and dipping prow’
‘As if it had been a Christian Soul’
’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay’
‘All in a hot and copper sky’
‘As idle as a painted ship/ upon a painted ocean’.