CBSE Class 12 English Going Places Worksheet Set D

Long Answer Type Questions

Question. How did Geoff and Sophie’s father react when they came to know that Sophie had met Danny Casey?
Answer: Sophie’s father and her brother Geoff were very much fascinated with Danny Casey, whom they regarded a great player. When Sophie told Geoff that she had met Danny Casey, he did not seem to believe her. That is why he inquired of her what Danny Casey looked like. She told him in detail how she happened to meet Danny Casey in the arcade. She even told him that Danny Casey’s eyes were green and gentle and he was not so tall. Perhaps that is why Geoff told his father that Sophie had met Danny Casey and it was true. But when Geoff told his father about Sophie having met Danny Casey, he gave an expression of contempt. Her father did not believe it to be true. He told Sophie that it was another of her “wild stories”.

Question​​​​​​​. Compare and contrast Sophie and Jansie, highlighting their temperaments and aspirations.
Answer: Sophie and Jansie are classmates. They belong to lower middle class families. Both of them are earmarked for biscuit factory. Jansie’s feet are firmly planted on the ground. But Sophie is totally blind to the harsh realities of life. She dreams of big and beautiful things. She wants to have a boutique. She thinks of becoming an actress as there is a lot of money in this profession. If need be, she can also be a fashion designer. In short, she loves to be grand and sophisticated. All her dreams are beyond her reach and resources. Jansie advises her to be sensible, but she remains a romantic dreamer. Sophie and Jansie differ in thinking and temperament. Sophie is lost in her dream world. She shares her secret with only one person. It is her elder brother, Geoff. Jansie is ‘nosey’. She takes interest in learning new things about others. She can spread the story in the whole neighbourhood; so Sophie does not want to share secrets with her. Sophie is an incurable dreamer and escapist. She adores young Irish footballer Danny Casey. She develops a fascination for him. She becomes sad and helpless but she doesn’t become wiser. She remains a dreamer. Jansie is practical and a realist. She has no such unrealistic dreams.

Question​​​​​​​. Do you think Sophie is overambitious and Jansie is more practical? Discuss.
Answer: Sophie and Jansie are class-fellows and friends. They belong to lower middle class families. Jansie understands her limitations well. She knows that both of them are earmarked for the biscuit factory. But Sophie is totally blind to the harsh realities of life. She dreams of big and beautiful things. She wants to have a boutique. She also entertains the idea of becoming an actress. She loves to be nice, grand and sophisticated. All her dreams are beyond her reach and resources. Though Jansie advises her, Sophie refuses to be sensible. She is nothing more than a romantic dreamer and is in awe of the foot baller Danny Casey loves to live.
Sophie and Jansie are poles apart in their thinking and temperament. Sophie is all lost to herself and her dreamy world. Sophie is an incurable escapist. She adores the young Irish footballer Danny Casey. She remains what she always is —a dreamer.

Question​​​​​​​. Sophie lives in a world full of dreams which she does not know she cannot realise. Comment.
                                                    OR
Attempt a character sketch of Sophie as a woman who lives in her dreams.
Answer: Sophie is a young girl of a lower middle class family. Though she has been earmarked to work in the biscuit factory, she dreams of opening a boutique and also becoming an actress or a fashion designer or a manager. She dreams of coming out of her economic situation. She is an incurable dreamer and an escapist. All her dreams and disappointments are figments of her own imagination. Although she is warned against such dreams by her friend, Jansie and her father but she ignores them. As no one believes her, she shares her dreams only with her brother, Geoff, who is an introvert. She also worships the football player, Danny Casey. She fantasises about meeting Danny at the market place and later near the canal.

Question​​​​​​​. It is not unusual for a lower middle class girl to dream big. How unrealistic were Sophie’s dreams?
Answer: Sophie is a young girl of a lower middle class family. She wants to open a boutique and also become an actress or a fashion designer or a manager. She is an incurable dreamer and an escapist. Although she was warned against such dreams by her friend, Jansie and her father but she ignore them.
Dreams are very important to go ahead in life. If there were no dreams there would not be any progress anywhere. But being a mere dreamer is not enough. One should be realistic and practical as well. If our imagination has only wings, it will not take us anywhere unless and until we are firmly grounded also. Sophie’s dreams were just imagination, a flight of fancy which took her nowhere. She derived momentary delight from her dreams and that was all.

Question​​​​​​​. Do you think the title of the story ‘Going Places’ by A.R. Barton is appropriate. Discuss.
                                                    OR
In the story ‘Going places’, the author A.R. Burton has successfully taken the readers to places. Elaborate.
Answer: The author A.R. Burton has taken the readers to places through his female character Sophie. She was a very sweet and beautiful teenager, who loved fantasising. In the first phase of the journey, she took the readers in search of work. She wanted to have a superb boutique of her own or become a shop manager. She wanted to become an actress to have real money. If not that, she wanted to become a fashion designer though it was a little sophisticated. Her such thinking made her friend Jansie sad as she knew that both of them were earmarked for the biscuit factory.
In the second phase of the journey, she suspected the areas of Geoff ’s life about which she knew nothing. Geoff never spoke much. When Geoff kept silent, she thought him to be away somewhere out there in the world in those places she had never seen; the adjacent areas of the neighbouring country, its people and thus she had developed a great fascination for them. Riding behind Geoff she took us to the world that one can easily praise.
In the final phase, from the Royce’s window to Danny Casey, the United’s first squad player. In her excitement and dreaming, Sophie waited under the elm tree near the canal. She pictured Danny Casey really outside Royce’s arcade again. But here she really could not take an autograph because neither had a pen. Thus throughout the story, the reader goes on from place to place but there is no solid result. So the title ‘Going places’ is appropriate.

Question​​​​​​​. “Sophie’s dream world clashes with the world of her family and friends”. Bring out the stark difference between the two worlds.
Answer: Sophie belonged to a mediocre or rather poor socio-economic background. But she aspired to have a boutique, though she had no means or money to fulfil her dreams. After school she was likely to work in a biscuit factory.
When she told her father that she wishes to buy a boutique if she ever has money, he asks her to be practical and to rather build a decent house to live in with that money. This showed that their house was in a shabby condition. Her friend Jansie was very much aware about their financial conditions and family background. She knew that both were earmarked for the biscuit and tries to make Sophie understand the same. However Sophie refused to understand and remained an impractical day-dreamer.

Question​​​​​​​. Teachers always advise their students to dream big. Yet, the same teachers in your classrooms find fault with Sophie when she dreams. What is wrong with Sophie’s dreams?
Answer: It is good to dream but one needs to be practical too. Sophie belonged to a mediocre family she aspired to own a boutique, though she had no means or money to fulfil her dreams. After school she was likely to work in a biscuit factory. Her dreams are unrealistic. She loves to indulge herself without even thinking of how to achieve it. In her heart of hearts, she knows that her dreams have little possibility of coming true and are only a product of adult fantasizing. She also dream dates Danny Casey, an Irish football player. She gets so pulled into her date story told to her brother Geoff that she was supposed to meet Danny. Irrespective of all this Sophie fantasizes about her hero, unperturbed. Dreaming within limits is good. Unless one is impossibly ambitious, hardworking, and have loads of patience and perseverance, such dreams are best kept under lock and key unless one likes to be disappointed.

Question​​​​​​​. Every teenager has a hero/heroine to admire. So many times they become role models for them. What is wrong if Sophie fantasises about Danny Casey and isambitious in life?
Answer: ​​​​​​​Teenager is the phase of life which constitutes major changes in the life of an individual. During this phase a person learns many things, sets his career goals, and deals with poor pressure and the repremands, demands and expectations of the adults. Hence it is natural for the teenagers to fantasise and love in a world of dreams. It would be wrong to ridicule dreaming and fantasising, it is based on realistic goals and the world around provides them the means of opportunities to achieve these aspirations and dreams. Desiring to move ahead in life and working towards this instills confidence, positivity and optimism. However, if there is a disparity between the goal, dream and one’s capabilities the effect could be harmful and painful. Failure could lead to disappointment, depression and a complete drop in confidence.
In short, dreaming or fantasising is not wrong, and therefore Sophie was perfectly entitled to fantasise about her future or about her favourite footballer Danny Casey. The only problem or worry is that one should be realistic, sensible and prepared to face consequences whether good or bad with elegance.

               Very Short Answer

Q.1)        Does her father believe her story?

Q.2)        Did Sophie really meet Danny Casey?

Q.3)        Which country did Danny Casey play for?

Q.4)        Why did Sophie go into her brother’s room? What was he doing then?

Q.5)        What did Geoff tell his father about Sophie’s meeting with Danny Casey? What was his reaction?

               Short Answer

Q.6)        What is the difference between Geoff and Sophie?

Q.7)        Who is Danny Casey? What does Sophie feel about him?

Q.8)        What does Sophie’s father think about Danny Casey?

Q.9)        What happened on one Saturday?

Q.10)      Why did Sophie like her brother Geoff more than any other person? From her perspective what did he symbolize?

               Long Answer

Q.11)      What social-economic background did Sophie belong to? What are the indicators of her family’s financial status?

Q.12)   The unrealistic dreams determine negativity and failure. Childhood dreams sometimes dishearten and disappoint the people. Write an article on the topic, “Horrors of Unrealistic Dreams” taking ideas from the following lines:

“For some while, waiting, she imagined his coming. She watched along the canal, seeing him come out of the shadows, imagining her own consequent excitement.”

Q.13)      Sophie’s dreams and disappointments are all in her mind. Discuss.

Q.14)   The world we are living in is replete with hypocrites and ditchers. It becomes difficult for us to confide our secrets to someone. But it is important to have someone you can confide in. Discuss the topic taking ideas from the following expressions:

“Sophie glared at the ground. Damn that Geoff, this was a Geoff thing not a Jansie thing. It was meant to be something special just between them. Something secret. It wasn’t a Jansie kind of thing at all.”

Q.15)      How did Sophie describe her meeting with Danny Casey? How did the members of her family take her account of the meeting?

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