CBSE Class 12 English An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum Assignment Set B

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS :

Question. ‘At the back of the dim class …’ Why is the classroom dim ?
Answer: It is dim as it is poorly lit and in a miserable condition.

Question. What is the theme of the poem ?
Answer: The poem focuses on the theme of social injustice and inequalities. The poet presents it by talking of the two different worlds – the rich and the civilized and the world of the poor and the deprived.

Question. What does the poet tries to depict in the poem?
Answer: The poet tries to depict the pathetic and miserable picture of the elementary classroom in a slum. It is poorly lit and needs repair. The children attending it are in a pitiable and miserable condition.

Question. Do these children have dreams ?
Answer: Yes, some of them do have dreams. A sweet young boy is sitting at the back of the dim classroom dreaming of a squirrel’s game.

Question. What has been said about their future ?
Answer: Their future is painted with fog. Their future is not clear.There is no one to guide them.

Question. Why is the map a bad example ?
Answer: The children have never gone out of the slum. Their life is in the slum. Therefore, the map on the wall of the classroom is a bad example since they cannot understand it.

LONG ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS

One Long Answer type question from Prose/Poetry (Flamingo) to be answered in 120-150 words to assess global comprehension and extrapolation beyond the text Questions to provide evaluative and analytical responses using incidents, events, themes as reference points. Any 1 out of 2 questions to be done.

Question. What is the message that Stephen Spender wants to give through the poem. An Elementary School Classroom In a Slum’?
Answer: In ‘An Elementary School Classroom In a Slum’ the poet Stephen Spender deals with the themes of social injustice and class inequalities. There are two different worlds. The world of so called ‘civilized’ men has nothing to do with the children living in slums. Nor have the art, culture and literature any relevance to them. They live in dark, narrow cramped, holes and lanes. Unless the wide gap between the two worlds is abridged there can’t be any real progress or development. The barriers that bind them will have to be made mentally and physically free to lead happy lives.

Question. Write in brief the summary of the poem.
Answer: The poet describes some children sitting in an elementary school in a slum. The children sitting here present a very miserable view. Their hair are like weeds and scattered on their pale face. A tall girl is sitting with her head bent. There is a small and thin looking boy. His eyes are like that of a rat’s eyes. Then there is an another boy who has disease of swollen and twisted bones and joints. He has got his disease from his father.
The poet notices a young and sweet boy sitting at the back of the class. He is perhaps dreaming about the squirrel’s game in a tree-room for him¬self also. The poet says that the walls of the classroom are cream. They smell like sour cream. There is a bust of Shakespeare in the classroom. There are pictures of big church and the Tyrolese valley having bell-shaped flowers. There is an open-handed map, which shows all the places of the world. But ironically for the children living in the slum their world is not that map but only the scene that can be seen outside the window of their classroom.

Question. Who has written the poem Elementary School Classroom in a Slum?
(a) Kipling
(b) Wordsworth
(c) Kamlanath
(d) Stephen Spender
Answer: d

Question. What theme did the poet concentrate on in the poem?
(a) themes of social injustice and class inequalities.
(b) theme of children and their happiness
(c) theme of insecurities
(d) none
Answer: a

Question. What does the poet portray in the poem?
(a) young minds
(b) playfulness of the children
(c) questions of children
(d) the plight of young children in the slums
Answer: d

Question. What does the poet compare in the poem?
(a) the young and old
(b) generation gaps
(c) old age and childhood
(d) rich (haves) and poor children (have nots)
Answer: d

Question. What kind of life do the children living in slums have?
(a) full of love
(b) full of care and warmth
(c) Hopeless and full of struggle
(d) all of these
Answer: c

Question. What does the poet compare the colour of walls with?
(a) rotten fruits
(b) stale chapatis
(c) rotten vegetables
(d) sour cream
Answer: d

Question. What are the poetic devices used in the poem?
(a) alliteration and simile
(b) metaphor and imagery
(c) synecdoche, and irony
(d) All of these
Answer: d

Question. What do the words ―Their future is painted with fog‖ convey?
(a) no love and care
(b) no warmth
(c) no hard work
(d) no hope of improvement
Answer: d

Question. What do the faces of children in the slum areas reflect?
(a) happiness
(b) their aspirations
(c) their energy
(d) sadness and lack of enthusiasm
Answer: d

Question. What is ironical about the wall hangings and donations in the classroom?
(a) set up in very clean environment
(b) completely opposite to the needs of the children in the classroom
(c) set up in happy environment
(d) set up in gloomy set up
Answer: b

Question. What does paper-seeming boy mean?
(a) had a paper in his hand
(b) was as thin as a sheet of paper
(c) was white in colour like a sheet of paper
(d) All of these
Answer: b

Question. What is the Tree Room in the poem?
(a) A tree - shaped room
(b) A room on a tree where squirrels play
(c) A room on a tree where rats play
(d) A room on a tree where pigeons play
Answer: b

Question. What do Catacombs signify?
(a) relevance of the map hanging on the wall of the classroom
(b) confinement to the slums, the maps being irrelevant
(c) importance of the school
(d) death
Answer: b

Question. Why are the pictures and maps meaningless?
(a) they are fake and show a false thing
(b) they are old and have faded away
(c) they show vastness which is opposite to the world and needs of the children in the classroom
(d) All of these
Answer: c

Question. How can powerful people help the poor children?
(a) by fighting with the government
(b) by fighting with the powerful
(c) by bridging gaps of inequalities and injustice
(d) by fighting with the rich
Answer: c

Question. What does the poem describe?
(a) A classroom in a slum area
(b) social setup of India
(c) different mindsets
(d) beauty of the surroundings
Answer: a

Question. What does the poet wish for the children of the slums?
(a) He wishes them to be happy and healthy
(b) He wishes a good change for them
(c) he wants them to enjoy the bounties of nature
(d) All of these
Answer: d

―Far far from gusty waves these children‘s faces. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor‖

Question. what do these words express?
(a) poor state of the classroom
(b) poor plight of children's homes
(c) poor plight of teachers
(d) poor plight of the slum children
Answer: d

Question. Why is the head of the tall girl 'weighed down'?
(a) by the burden of studies
(b) by the burden of work
(c) by the burden of her world
(d) All of these
Answer: c

Question. What is the meaning of 'The paper seeming boy, with rat eyes'?
(a) rich people
(b) rich children
(c) powerful people and their influence
(d) weak and malnutritioned boy
Answer: d

Question. What kind of look do the faces and hair of the children give?
(a) rich and beautiful faces
(b) bright, neat faces
(c) healthy appearances
(d) pale faces, scattered and undone hair
Answer: d

Question. His eyes live in a dream what is the dream?
(a) watching a movie
(b) going abroad
(c) eating ice cream
(d) dream of better times with games and open spaces
Answer: d

Question. Who was sitting at the back of the dim class?
(a) a girl
(b) an old man
(c) a teacher
(d) a young boy
Answer: d

Question. Who is the unlucky heir and what has he inherited?
(a) a fat boy, has inherited obesity from his mother
(b) a short, thin boy, has inherited stunted growth from his family
(c) an intelligent boy, has inherited intelligence
(d) thin boy with rat's eyes, has inherited a deformed body from his father
Answer: d

Question. What is the stunted boy reciting?
(a) a happy song from his seat
(b) a religious song in a group
(c) a sad song from the front of the class
(d) a lesson from his desk
Answer: d

Question. What does the color of the classroom walls point out?
(a) happy and poor state
(b) happy and rich state
(c) poor condition of the slum
(d) none of these
Answer: c

Question. What does the expression 'Open handed map " show?
(a) power of the poor
(b) the poor can not access the world
(c) the poor are powerless
(d) maps are open to all, they reveal everything
Answer: d

Question. ‗Awarding the world its world' what do these words express?
(a) the world is ours
(b) the world is yours
(c) the world belong to the poor
(d) the world belongs to the rich
Answer: d

Question. In what sense are the slum children different?
(a) their IQ
(b) their wisdom
(c) their dresses
(d) because of no access to hope and openness of the world
Answer: d

Question. What kind of future do the slum children have?
(a) very hopeful
(b) bright
(c) clear like water
(d) hopeless and uncertain
Answer: d

Question. What attracts the slum children?
(a) The animals
(b) The movies
(c) icecream
(d) All beautiful things like ship, Sun
Answer: d

Question. What do the words 'From fog to endless night ' mean?
(a) bright light outside
(b) bright future
(c) hopelessness
(d) Dark and uncertain future of slum children from birth to death
Answer: d

Question. Mention any two images used to explain the plight of the slum children.
(a) open handed map
(b) from his desk
(c) belled,flowery
(d) foggy slums and bottle bits on stones
Answer: d

Question. What blots the maps of the slum children?
(a) garbage
(b) blockage
(c) stones in the streets
(d) Dirty slums
Answer: d

Question. What does the poet show through expressions 'so blot their maps with slums as big as doom'?
(a) his clot the street
(b) enjoy the maps
(c) big maps
(d) the slums spell doom for the poor
Answer: d

Question. What do the 'governor', inspector, visitor‘ in the poem depict?
(a) higher officials
(b) Government officials
(c) Political people
(d) Powerful and influential people
Answer: d

Question. What have the windows done to the children's lives in the poem?
(a) shut the doors
(b) blocked the passage
(c) clocked the Sunlight
(d) have shut the children inside and blocked their growth
Answer: d

Question. What other freedom the poet wants the slum children to enjoy?
(a) Freedom of roaming
(b) freedom to spend money
(c) freedom to eat
(d) freedom of knowledge,wisdom and expression
Answer: d

Question. What does the expression 'Break O break open' suggest?
(a) barriers on the road
(b) barriers of garbage heap
(c) barriers of dirty environment must be broken
(d) None
Answer: c

Question. What does the poet want?
(a) to send the children out of the slums
(b) to send the children to America
(c) to send the children to open fields
(d) to send the children to a beach
Answer: a

Question. Identify the literary device in ‗slums as big as doom‘.
(a) simile
(b) metaphor
(c) alliteration
(d) personification
Answer: a

Question. Identify the literary device in ‗whose language is the sun‘.
(a) simile
(b) metaphor
(c) alliteration
(d) personification
Answer: b

Question. ‗Break O break‘. What should they break?
(a) the donations
(b) all bathers
(c) the slums
(d) the schools
Answer: b

Question. The imprisoned minds and lives of the slum children can be released from their bondage if they are given an experience of the outer world.
(a) never
(b) soon
(c) eventually
(d) magically
Answer: d

Question. Identify the literary device in ‗spectacles of steel‘.
(a) simile
(b) metaphor
(c) alliteration
(d) personification
Answer: b

Question. The last stanza is unlike the rest of the poem.
(a) long
(b) short
(c) optimistic
(d) pessimistic
Answer: c

Question. Where do their lives ‗slyly turn‘?
(a) in their cramped holes
(b) towards the sun
(c) towards the school
(d) towards the windows
Answer: a

Question. The map is a bad example as it makes one aware of
(a) the beautiful world
(b) cleaner lanes
(c) the political structure
(d) the civil design
Answer: a

Question. Identify the literary device in ‗future‘s painted with a fog‘.
(a) simile
(b) metaphor
(c) alliteration
(d) personification
Answer: b

Question. Shakespeare is wicked because he the children.
(a) educates
(b) tempts
(c) loves
(d) hates
Answer: b

Question. What does the map represent?
(a) world of the rich and powerful
(b) world of the poor
(c) world of the slum school children
(d) world the poet wants for the slum children
Answer: a

Question. What is the stunted boy reciting?
(a) the lesson from his desk
(b) Shakespeare‘s poetry
(c) leaves of nature
(d) his composition
Answer: a