CBSE Class 10 Social Science Print Culture Modern World Worksheet Set B

Objective Type Questions 

Question: Who among the following was popularly known as Periyar?
a) Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
b) Jyotiba Phule
c) C.R. Das
d) E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker
Answer: d

Question: Which religious reformer was responsible for the reformation movement?
a) Martin Luther
b) Martin Luther King
c) The Grimm Brothers
d) George Elliot
Answer: a

Question: By whom was the New Testament first translated?
a) Erasmus
b) Leonardo da Vinci
c) Martin Luther
d) Manocchio
Answer: c

Question: ‘Edo’ was the earlier name of which of the following places?
a) Shanghai
b) Tokyo
c) Seol
d) Hong Kong
Answer: b

Question: Who wrote about the injustices of the caste system in ‘Gulamgiri’?
a) Raja Ram Mohan Roy
b) Jyotiba Phule
c) Bal gangadhar Tilak
d) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Answer: b

Question: From where did Marco Polo bring back the knowledge of woodblock printing to Italy?
a) China
b) Japan
c) Sri Lanka
d) India
Answer: a

Short Answer Type Questions

Question: What was an “Accordion Book”? Describe any two features of hand printing in China.
OR
Explain any three features of Chinese ‘Accordion Book’.
Answer: ‘Accordion Book’ is a traditional Chinese book, folded and stitched at the side.
(i) Chinese Accordion Books were hand printed. They were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of wooden blocks.
(ii) As both sides of the thin, porous sheet would not be printed, the traditional Chinese ‘Accordion Book’ was folded and stitched at the side.
(iii) These Accordion Books could be duplicated by superbly-skilled craftsmen with remarkable accuracy and the beauty of calligraphy.

Question: Explain the different stages of development of printing technology in China.
Answer: The development of printing technology in China:
(i) From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks.
(ii) As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed, the traditional Chinese ‘Accordion Book’ was folded and stitched at the side.
(iii) China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil service examinations. Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state.
(iv) By the 17th century, urban culture developed in China and merchants. Wives of rich men and wives of scholar- officials not only started reading different books like, fictions, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, romantic plays, they also began to write their autobiographies.

Question: Highlight any three innovations which have improved the printing technology from 19th century onwards.
OR
Write any three innovations in printing technology in the 19th century and 20th century Europe.
Answer: (i) By the mid-19th century, Richard M. Hoe of New York had perfected the power driven cylindrical press. This was capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour. This press was particularly useful for printing newspaper.
(ii) In the late 19th century, the offset press was developed which would print up to six colours at a time.
(iii) From the turn of the 20th century, electrically-operated presses accelerated the printing operations.
(iv) Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of the plates became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced.
(v) The dust cover or the book jackets were introduced.

Question: What restrictions were imposed by the Vernacular Press Act on the Indian Press? Explain.
OR
Why was Vernacular Press Act passed? Explain about this Act.
OR
What led the colonial government to pass the Vernacular Press Act in 1878? How did it affect the vernacular newspapers?
OR
Write short notes to show what you know about ‘The Vernacular Press Act’?
Answer: (i) The Vernacular Press act provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the Vernacular Press.
(ii) The government kept regular track of the Vernacular newspapers published in different provinces.
(iii) If any report was judges as seditious, then quickly that newspaper was warned.
(iv) If the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery could be seized.

Question: Why did British Government curb the freedom of the Indian press after the revolt of 1857?
Answer: (i) After the revolt of 1857, the attitude to freedom of the press changed. Enraged Englishmen demanded a clamp down on the ‘native’ press.
(ii) As vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the colonial government began debating measures of stringent control.

Question: ‘With the printing press a new public emerged in Europe’. Justify the statement.
OR
How did a new reading public emerge with the printing press? Explain.
Answer: (i) Wider sections of people started having easy access to books.
(ii) Books were printed in large numbers with greater ease.
(iii) The prices fell and they became affordable for the large public.

Question: How did Johann Gutenberg developed the first printing press?
OR
Write short notes to show what you know about ‘The Gutenberg Press’.
Answer: From his childhood, Gutenberg had seen wine and olive presses. Subsequently, he learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, and also acquired the expertise to create lead moulds used for making trinkets. Drawing on this knowledge, Gutenberg adapted existing technology to design his innovation. The olive press provided the model for the printing press, and moulds were used for casting the metal types for the letters of the alphabet. By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the system.
The first book printed by him was the Bible. About 180 copies were printed and it took three years to produce them. By the standards of time this was fast production 

Question: How did Gutenberg personalise the printed books? Explain.
Answer: (i) Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns.
(ii) Books printed for rich had blank space left for decoration.
(iii) Each buyer could choose the design.
(iv) Verses were highlighted with hand and with colours.

Question: In which three ways did the printed books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts?
Answer: (i) Appearance and layout resembled the written manuscripts.
(ii) Metal letters imitated the ornamented hand written styles.
(iii) Borders were illuminated.
(iv) Space for decoration was kept blank.

Question: “The ‘Print Revolution’ had transformed the lives of people changing their relationship to information and knowledge.” Analyse the statement.
Answer: Transformation due to Print Revolution:
(i) It influenced people’s perception and opened up new ways of looking at things.
(ii) A new reading public emerged.
(iii) Created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas.
(iv) Introduced a new world of debate and discussion.
(v) Stimulated many distinctive individual interpretations of faith.

Question: What is a manuscript? Why were they not used widely?
OR
What is manuscript? Mention any two limitations of it, during the nineteenth century.
Answer: Manuscripts were documents or books written by hand.
They were not used widely because:
a) They could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for books.
b) They were expensive as copying was an expensive, laborious and time-consuming business.
c) Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle and could not be carried around or read easily.
d) Their circulation was limited.

Question: Describe any three methods by which printed books became more accessible to common people.
Answer: Three methods by which printed books became more accessible to common people:
(i) Very cheap books were brought in Madras town and sold on the crossroads, allowing poor people travelling to markets to buy them.
(ii) Mill workers set up libraries, e.g., in Bombay.
(iii) Libraries were located mostly in cities and in prosperous villages.

Question: Why did the Roman Catholic Church begin to keep an Index of prohibited books from the mid 16th century?
Answer: (i) Printed religious literature stimulated a variety of interpretations of faith, even among the little-educated working class in the early 16th century.
(ii) Menocchio, an Italian miller, reinterpreted the Bible in a way that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
(iii) Such instances worried the Church about people reading the various interpretations of the religion and questioning the Church.
Hence, it imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers and began maintaining an index of prohibited books.

Question: Explain the new visual culture in print which developed in the nineteenth century.
Answer: (i) With the setting up of an increasing number of printing presses, visual images could be easily reproduced in multiple copies.
(ii) Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation.
(iii) Cheap prints and calendars were easily available in the bazaar. By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were also being published in journals and newspapers commenting on social and political issues.

Question: Why were women not educated in India in the early part of the nineteenth century? Give any two reasons.
Answer: (i) This was because of the superstitions and myths that prevailed in the society.
(ii) Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.

Question: Why did James Augustus Hickey claim that the Bengal Gazette was ‘a commercial paper open to all but influenced by none’? Explain.
Answer: (i) It was a private English weekly magazine in India, independent from colonial influence.
(ii) Hickey not only published a lot of advertisement including the import and sale of slaves, but also published lots of gossip about the Company’s senior officials in India.
(iii) Governor General Warren Hastings persecuted Hickey and encouraged government sanctioned newspapers.

Long Answer Type Questions

Question: Explain with examples how print culture catered to the requirement of Children.
Answer: (i) Primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became an important category of readers. Production of school textbooks became critical for the publishing industry.
(ii) A children’s press devoted to literature for children alone, was set up in France in 1857.
(iii) This press published new works as well as old fairy tales and folk tales.
(iv) The Grimm brothers in Germany spent years compiling traditional folk tales gathered from peasants. What they collected was edited before the stories were published in a collection in 1812.
(v) Anything that was considered unsuitable for children or would appear vulgar to the elites, was not included in the published version. Rural folk tales thus acquired a new form. In this way, print recorded old tales but also changed them.

Question: How did the printed books of India attract the poor class as readers in the 19th century? Explain.
OR
What efforts were made to spread the benefits of print culture for the poor people in the 19th century India?
Answer: Sources of Attraction:
(i) Very cheap small books were brought to market in the 19th century.
(ii) Public libraries were set up to give an easy access to books.
(iii) Kashibaba of Kanpur published ‘Chhote Aur Bade ka Sawal’ where caste and class exploitation were linked.
(iv) Sacchi Kavitayen, the poems of another Kanpur mill worker who wrote under the pen name of Sudarshan Chakra also attracted the mill workers towards reading printed books, since they could see their lives and sufferings reflected in such books.
(v) Bombay and Bangalore cotton mill-workers set up libraries to educate themselves. These libraries were sponsored by social reformers.

Question: What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in the 19th century India? Describe.
Answer: Effects of Print culture on poor people:
(i) Cheap small books were brought to the markets in Madras and were then sold.
(ii) Public libraries were set up from early 20th century expanding the access to books.
(iii) When issues to caste discrimination were written by Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, it was read by people. ‘Gulamgiri’ of Jyotiba Phule exposed the ill-treatment to the low castes.
(iv) Local protest movements and sects criticised ancient scriptures.
(v) Workers in factories wrote and published to show links between caste and class exploitation.
(vi) Bangalore cotton mill-workers set up libraries to educate themselves.

Question: “Printing press played a major role in shaping the Indian society of the 19th century.” Support the statement by giving examples.
Answer: The print culture had a significant impact on the growth of nationalism in India.
(i) In spite of passing a Vernacular Press Act, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers.
(ii) They reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities.
(iii) The British Government tried to put down nationalised criticism but there were more protests.
(iv) ‘Punjab revolutionaries were deported,’ Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote in Kesari.
(v) It led to his imprisonment in 1908 provoking terms of protest.

Question: How far is it right to say that the print culture was responsible for the French Revolution.
OR
Why did some historians feel that printing technology created the basis for French Revolution?
Answer: (i) Print popularised the ideas of enlightened thinkers on traditions, superstitions and despotism.
(ii) They advocated reasons.
(iii) People read books of Voltaire and Rousseau. Print created dialogue and debate.
(iv) People started a discussion and evaluated the royalty.
(v) Print literature mocked the royalty.
(vi) This kind of print literature circulated underground and it created awareness among people and formed the basis of the French Revolution.

Question: How did the scientists and philosophers in the 18th century Europe find it easier to reach out to people? Explain.
Answer: (i) Periodicals, journals and newspapers in the early 18th century combined information from various fields.
(ii) That’s how the ideas of scientists and philosophers became more accessible to the common people.
(iii) Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and published, maps and scientific diagrams were printed.
(iv) Scientists such as Isaac Newton could influence a large number of people in the scientific area, by publishing their discoveries.
(v) The works of Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were also widely read.
(vi) Ideas about science reason and rationality found its way into popular literature.

Question: Explain five effects of print revolution.
Answer: Impact of print revolution:
(i) New reading public emerged.
(ii) The hearing people became reading people.
(iii) Religious debates due to fear of prints led to the distinctive interpretation of faith.
(iv) Printing transformed the lives of the people.
(v) It opened new ways of looking at things.
(vi) Print culture also affected the lives of poor people and women in many ways. The print gave birth to a new form of popular literature. Very small books were brought out. They were sold at crossroads. The poor people brought these books and read with great interest. Books were cheap so that the poor people could also afford them.
(vii) Women’s reading increased enormously in middle- class homes. Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their womenfolk at home and sent them to schools. Women schools were also set up.

Question: What difference did printing technology make in the lives of women and children in the 19th century? Explain. 
Answer: Impact on Women:
(i) Women became important readers and writers. Penny magazines, especially meant for women, contained guidelines on proper behaviour and housekeeping.
(ii) Novel began to be written in the 19th century and some of the best novelists were women like Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, George Eliot, etc.
(iii) Their writing created a new image of women with a will, the strength of personality, determination and power to think.
Impact on Children:
(i) Primary education became compulsory from the late 19th century.
(ii) School textbooks, rural folk tales in edited versions, fairy tales and new stories were published for children.
(iii) Grimm brothers of Germany spent years to collect traditional folk tales from peasants and France and set up a children’s press in 1857.

Question: How did print introduce a new world of debate and discussion? What were its implications in sphere of religion? Explain.
OR
How did print create the possibility of wide circulation of ideas and discussion?
Answer: (i) Print created the possibility of the wide circulation of ideas leading to debate and discussion. Those who disagreed with established authorities could now print and circulate their own views.
(ii) Through printed messages, they could persuade people to think differently and move them into action.
(iii) Implications on the sphere of religion. The religious reformer, Martin Luther, wrote Ninety Five Theses criticizing many practices of Roman Catholic Church. A printed copy of this was posted on a church door. This led to a division within the church and market the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. 

Question: What led the colonial government to pass the Vernacular Press Act in 1878? How did it affect the vernacular newspaper?
Answer: (i) Nationalists in India used print media to publish the evil effects of British rule and spread new ideas.
(ii) As vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the colonial government decided to take strong measures.
(iii) In 1878 the Vernacular Press Act was passed which provided the government with intensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
(iv) The government started keeping regular track on vernacular newspapers. If it published some material which was considered to be seditious, the government seized the press and confiscated the printing machines.
(v) Despite repressive measures nationalist newspapers grew in numbers in all parts of India.

Question: “From the late 19th century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written about in many printed tracts and essays.” Support the statement by giving examples.
OR
How did issues of caste discrimination begin to write in many printed tracts and essays from the late nineteenth century? Explain with examples.
Answer: From the late 19th century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written.
(i) Jyotiba Phule, the Maratha pioneer of low caste, started a protest movement. He wrote about the injustice of the caste system in his Gulamgiri.
(ii) B. R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E.V. Rama-swamy in Madras wrote powerfully on caste. Their writings were read by people all over India.
(iii) Local protest movements and sects also created a lot of journals and tracts.
(iv) Kashibaba mill-worker wrote and published ‘Chhote Aur Bade ka Sawal’.
(v) Bangalore cotton mill-workers set up libraries to educate themselves.
(vi) Workers were overburdened and lacked the education to write much.