English : CBSE Class XII Important Questions English (2008)

(POETRY)
My Mother at Sixty-six

Short Questions:

1. Why has the poetess brought the image of the merry children ‘splitting out of their homes’?

2. What do you think is the pain and the ache that the poetess feels?

3. Explain the statement: “ I saw my mother…. Her face ashen like that of a corpse”.

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

Short Questions:

1. How do the children of the elementary school classroom in a slum look?

2. What does the poet mean in ‘Shakespeare is wicked and the map is a bad example…’?

3. How does the poet draw out metaphorically the present condition of the slum school children indicating bleak and dreary features?

4. How does the poet begin the poem with all the despair and end with hope?

Keeping Quiet

Short Questions:

1. What will counting upto twelve and keeping still help us achieve?

2. Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?

3. What is the sadness that the poet refers to in the poem?

4. Central idea of the poem.

A Thing of Beauty

Short Questions:

1. How is a thing of beauty a joy for ever?

2. List the thing of beauty mentioned in the poem.

3. Why is grandeur associated with the mighty dead?

4. What image does the poet use to describe the beautiful bounty of the earth?

5. Central theme of the poem.

A Roadside Stand

Short Questions:

1. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?

2. What did the farmers sell at their new sheds put up on the edges of the road?

3. What was the plea of the folks who had put up the roadside stand?

4. What ‘hope’ does the poet nurture about himself when he asks that these people should be put ‘at one stroke out of their pain’ ?

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Short Questions:

1. How do ‘denizens’ and ‘chivalric’ add to our understanding of the tiger’s attitude?

2. Interpret the symbols found in the poem.

3. What is the present state of affairs of Aunt Jennifer’s life characterized by ‘ordeals’, ‘mastered by’ and ‘terrified hands’?

4. What character of Aunt Jennifer does emerge from the poem?