Literature answers and extracts
Class 10 English · Literature · 16 questions with answers
Literature answers are marked on evidence, not on how well the story is remembered. The examiner has read the chapter; what they are looking for is a claim supported by a specific detail from the text. This sheet practises that shape on an original passage, so the technique can be learned separately from any particular chapter.
- Answers a claim with a specific detail from the text
- Handles an extract-based question by reading closely rather than recalling
- Structures a long answer as position, evidence, and what it shows
- Answers a value-based question by naming the value in the first line
Exercise 1 of 3 · 8 questions
Read the extract and answer. EXTRACT: He counted the money twice before putting it back in the tin, and then a third time, though he had not been in doubt on either of the first two occasions. Outside, his son was waiting with the bicycle he had been promised in March and had stopped asking about in June. It was still there in the shop window. It would be there tomorrow as well, the father told himself, and the tin would be that much fuller.
Write the answer · Warm-up
Here’s one done for you
Look at how the third answer works. It does not say 'the father is careful with money' - it identifies a pattern the passage shows twice, and names it. Extract questions are close-reading questions: the answer is always in the words on the page, and the mark is for noticing something specific rather than for a general impression.
- 1)Why does the father count the money three times?
- 2)What does 'had stopped asking about in June' tell us about the son?
- 3)What does the last sentence reveal about the father's habit of mind?
- 4)Give one word that describes the mood of the extract, with your reason.
- 5)What is the father counting, and why does the detail matter?
- 6)What does the extract suggest about the family's circumstances?
- 7)Pick one word from the extract that carries the most weight, and say why.
- 8)What is the effect of the writer describing the action rather than the feeling?
Answers
- 1) Not because he doubts the amount - the passage says he was not in doubt. He counts it a third time out of anxiety or habit, because the money matters to him more than the arithmetic does.
- 2) That he has given up expecting it. He asked in March and had stopped by June, which suggests three months of unanswered hope rather than a change of mind.
- 3) That he postpones. He tells himself the bicycle will still be there tomorrow, which is the same reasoning that has already carried him from March to June - and will presumably carry him further.
- 4) Melancholy, or resigned. The reason is that nothing bad happens in the passage and nothing good does either; the son has stopped asking and the father has an argument ready for waiting longer.
- 5) He is counting money. The counting matters because it shows care and anxiety at the same time - a person with enough would not need to count.
- 6) That money is short and has to be accounted for. Nothing is stated directly; it is shown through the counting and through what has stopped being asked about.
- 7) 'Stopped' - because it marks a change that nobody announced. Something was given up quietly, and that is more telling than a complaint would be.
- 8) It lets the reader arrive at the feeling themselves, which makes it more convincing. Stating that the father was worried would have closed the point; showing him count leaves it in the reader's hands.
Exercise 2 of 3 · 7 questions
For each, write the first sentence of the answer only. Do not write the whole answer.
Write the answer · Guided
Here’s one done for you
The point of writing only the first sentence is that the first sentence decides the answer. Each of these states a position immediately - careful and anxious, silence rather than conflict, yes largely. An answer that opens by retelling the extract has already lost its shape, and the rest of it will wander. Answer in the first line, then support.
- 1)Describe the character of the father in the extract above.
- 2)What does the extract suggest about the effect of poverty on family relationships?
- 3)Do you sympathise with the father? Give reasons.
- 4)What value does the extract bring out most clearly?
- 5)What impression of family life does the extract create?
- 6)How does the writer create sympathy without asking for it?
- 7)Comment on the ending of the extract.
Answers
- 1) The father is careful, anxious and inclined to postpone, and the passage shows all three in a few lines.
- 2) The extract suggests that poverty does not create conflict so much as silence - the son stops asking rather than complaining.
- 3) Yes, largely - he is not indifferent to his son but caught between the promise and the tin, and the passage gives no sign that he has forgotten either.
- 4) Patience, though of a painful kind: the son's patience in not asking again, and the father's in waiting for a day that keeps receding.
- 5) The extract creates an impression of a family held together by quiet effort rather than by open affection.
- 6) The writer creates sympathy by showing rather than telling, so the reader reaches the feeling on their own.
- 7) The ending of the extract is deliberately understated, and that restraint is what gives it its force.
Exercise 3 of 3 · 1 questions
Write a full answer of about 100 words. A model is given.
Write the answer · Practice
Here’s one done for you
The model answer takes a position in the first line, supports it with three specific details from the passage, and then qualifies it. The qualification is what lifts it - 'my reservation is' shows a reader who has weighed the question rather than picked a side. Class 10 value-based and opinion questions reward exactly that, and the opposite position would score just as well if it were argued this way.
- 1)Do you sympathise with the father in the extract? Give reasons for your answer.
Answers
- 1) I sympathise with the father, though not without reservation. He is clearly not indifferent to his son: he knows the bicycle is still in the window, which means he has looked. The promise was made in March and he has not forgotten it. What he has done is postpone, and the passage shows him constructing the argument for postponing once more - the bicycle will still be there tomorrow, and the tin will be fuller. That is the reasoning of a man managing very little money rather than a careless one. My reservation is that the son stopped asking in June, and the father seems not to have noticed what that silence cost.
While your child works
- Ask for the first sentence only, at first. If the answer opens by retelling the story, the shape has already gone.
- Every claim needs a specific detail from the text. 'He was careful' is a memory; 'he counted it a third time though he was not in doubt' is evidence.
- For opinion questions, a qualification lifts the answer. 'Yes, though...' reads as a reader who has weighed it.