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Solutions

Overview

Step-by-step NCERT solutions for A Letter to God (Chapter 1, CBSE Class 10 English) — every question and answer worked out in full, not just the final result. You can also read the A Letter to God textbook chapter.

Solved

What these solutions cover

All 26 questions in A Letter to God are solved in the PDF. Here's what's inside, exercise by exercise:

Oral Comprehension Check

  1. What did Lencho hope for?
  2. Why did Lencho say the raindrops were like 'new coins'?
  3. How did the rain change? What happened to Lencho's fields?
  4. What were Lencho's feelings when the hail stopped?
  5. Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do?
  6. Who read the letter?
  7. What did the postmaster do then?
  8. Was Lencho surprised to find a letter for him with money in it?
  9. What made him angry?

Thinking about the Text

  1. Who does Lencho have complete faith in? Which sentences in the story tell you this?
  2. Why does the postmaster send money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter 'God'?
  3. Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?
  4. Who does Lencho think has taken the rest of the money? What is the irony in the situation? (Remember that the irony of a situation is an unexpected aspect of it. An ironic situation is strange or amusing because it is the opposite of what is expected.)
  5. Are there people like Lencho in the real world? What kind of a person would you say he is? You may select appropriate words from the box to answer the question. (greedy, naive, stupid, ungrateful, selfish, comical, unquestioning)
  6. There are two kinds of conflict in the story: between humans and nature, and between humans themselves. How are these conflicts illustrated?

Thinking about Language

  1. I. Match the storm names in the box (gale, whirlwind, cyclone, hurricane, tornado, typhoon) with their descriptions and fill in the blanks.
  2. II. Match the sentences in Column A with the meanings of 'hope' in Column B.
  3. III. Relative Clauses. Join the sentences given below using who, whom, whose, which, as suggested.
  4. IV. Using Negatives for Emphasis. Find sentences in the story with negative words which express the following ideas emphatically. (1) The trees lost all their leaves. (2) The letter was addressed to God himself. (3) The postman saw this address for the first time in his career.
  5. V. Metaphors. Find metaphors from the story to complete the table (Cloud, Raindrops, Hailstones, Locusts, An ox of a man) and say what qualities are being compared.

Thinking about the Poem — Dust of Snow

  1. What is a "dust of snow"? What does the poet say has changed his mood? How has the poet's mood changed?
  2. How does Frost present nature in this poem?
    • (i) What are the birds usually named in poems? Do you think a crow is often mentioned? What images come to mind with a crow?
    • (ii) What is a 'hemlock tree'? Why doesn't the poet write about a more 'beautiful' tree such as a maple, oak or pine?
    • (iii) What do the 'crow' and 'hemlock' represent — joy or sorrow? What does the dust of snow that the crow…
  3. Have there been times when you felt depressed or hopeless? Have you experienced a similar moment that changed your mood that day?

Thinking about the Poem — Fire and Ice

  1. There are many ideas about how the world will 'end'. Do you think the world will end some day? Have you ever thought what would happen if the sun got so hot that it 'burst', or grew colder and colder?
  2. For Frost, what do 'fire' and 'ice' stand for? Here are some ideas: greed, avarice, cruelty, lust, conflict, fury, intolerance, rigidity, insensitivity, coldness, indifference, hatred.
  3. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? How does it help in bringing out the contrasting ideas in the poem?
Sample

Worked examples

3 questions from A Letter to God, solved step by step.

Oral Comprehension Check

What did Lencho hope for?

Lencho's field of ripe corn needed rain to give a good harvest. The text says "The only thing the earth needed was a downpour or at least a shower."

So all through the morning Lencho watched the north-east sky, hoping for rain to fall on his crop.

Answer: Lencho hoped for a good downpour of rain to water his ripe cornfield.

Thinking about the Text

Why does the postmaster send money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter 'God'?

The postmaster is deeply impressed by Lencho's simple, strong faith and does not want to shake it. He says, "What faith! I wish I had the faith of the man who wrote this letter."

To keep that faith alive, he decides to answer the letter himself. He signs it 'God' so that Lencho will believe the money truly came from God, and his faith will remain unbroken.

Answer: He sends money so as not to shake Lencho's faith, and signs it 'God' so Lencho believes God answered him.

Thinking about Language

IV. Using Negatives for Emphasis. Find sentences in the story with negative words which express the following ideas emphatically. (1) The trees lost all their leaves. (2) The letter was addressed to God himself. (3) The postman saw this address for the first time in his career.

1. The trees lost all their leaves: "Not a leaf remained on the trees."

2. The letter was addressed to God himself: "It was nothing less than a letter to God."

3. The postman saw this address for the first time in his career: "Never in his career as a postman had he known that address."

Answer: 1. "Not a leaf remained on the trees." 2. "It was nothing less than a letter to God." 3. "Never in his career as a postman had he known that address."

All 26 questions in A Letter to God are solved step by step in the Solutions PDF above.

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More NCERT Solutions for Class 10

Read the A Letter to God textbook chapter / PDF, or browse all CBSE Class 10 English solutions.

Next →Ch 2: Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

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