NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 4 From the Diary of Anne Frank PDF download are available here. NCERT questions and answers of Class 10 English From the Diary of Anne Frank are prepared by expert teachers. All these solutions are updated as per the latest CBSE syllabus and contain questions related to the story, which will help you to score good marks in the exams.
Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 4 NCERT Questions and Answers
Activity (Page 49)
Question 1. Do you keep a diary? Given below under A are some terms we use to describe a written record of personal experience. Can you match them with their descriptions under ‘B’? (You may look up the terms in a dictionary if you wish.)
| A | B |
| (i) Journal | A book with a separate space or page for each day, in which you write down your thoughts and feelings or what has happened on that day |
| (ii) Diary | A full record of a journey, a period of time or an event, written every day |
| (iii) Log | A record of a person’s own life and experiences (usually, a famous person) |
| (iv) Memoir(s) | A written record of events with times and dates, usually official |
Answer:
| A | B |
| (i) Journal | A full record of a journey, a period of time or an event, written every day |
| (ii) Diary | A book with a separate space or page for each day, in which you write down your thoughts and feelings or what has happened on that day |
| (iii) Log | A written record of events with times and dates, usually official |
| (iv) Memoir(s) | A record of a person’s own life and experiences (usually, a famous person) |
Question 2. Here are some entries from personal records. Use the definitions above to decide which of the entries might be from a diary, a journal, a log or a memoir.
1. I woke up very late today and promptly got a scolding from Mum! I can’t help it — how can I miss the FIFA World Cup matches?
Answer: Diary
2. 10:30 a.m. Went to the office of the Director
01:00 p.m. Had lunch with Chairman
05:45 p.m. Received Rahul at the airport
09:30 p.m. Dinner at home
Answer: Log
3. The ride to Ooty was uneventful. We rested for a while every 50 km or so and used the time to capture the magnificent landscape with my Handycam From Ooty we went on to Bangalore. What a contrast! The noise and pollution of this once-beautiful city really broke my heart.
Answer: Journal
4. This is how Raj Kapoor found me – all wet and ragged outside RK Studios. He was then looking for just someone like this for a small role in ‘Mera Naam Joker and he cast me on the spot. The rest, as they say, is history.
Answer: Memoir
Oral Comprehension Check (Page 51)
Question 1. What makes writing in a diary a strange experience for Anne Frank?
Answer: Writing in a diary was a strange experience for Anne Frank as she never had a diary and it was a gift on her 13th birthday. She considered it her best friend on which she relied the most and with whom she shared all her ups and downs.
Question 2 : Why does Anne want to keep a diary?
Answer: Anne always feels lonely and distressed so to get off all the burden and pain she wants to keep a diary in which she finds a true friend as she has hardly any friends whom she could confide in.
Question 3. Why did Anne think she could confide more in her diary than in people.
Answer: Though Anne would love to confide in her close friends, but she didn’t have one. The friends that she had liked to have fun and enjoy the good times. They were not the kind whom she could confide in. She also believed that paper has more patience than people, so she decided to write and confide in a diary.
Oral Comprehension Check (Page 51)
Question 1. Why does Anne provide a brief sketch of her life?
Answer: By providing the brief sketch of her life, Anne wants to give an overview of her family, relatives and her age. This helps the reader to develop a connection with the author.
Question 2. What tells you that Anne loved her grandmother?
Answer: Anne lived with her grandmother for some time while her parents settled down in Holland. She was very close to her Grandmother. She writes in her diary. “No one knows how often I think of her and still love her”. On her 13th birthday by lightening up one candle for Grandmother she shows her love for her.
Oral Comprehension Check (Page 54)
Question 1: Why was Mr Keesing annoyed with Anne? What did he ask her to do?
Answer: Mr Keesing was annoyed with Anne because she was very talkative. He punished her by giving her extra homework to write essays to keep her silent and the topics always related to her nature.
Question 2. How did Anne justify her being a chatterbox in her essay?
Answer: Anne justified her being a chatterbox in her essay by explaining that it is due to her mother who was also very talkative and nobody could do anything about their inherited traits.
Question 3. Do you think Mr Keesing was a strict teacher?
Answer: Yes, I believe that Mr Keesing was a strict teacher. However, he was not rigid. He expected discipline and silence in his class while he was teaching. He punished Anne by asking her to write an essay on ‘A Chatterbox’. When Anne wrote a convincing essay on it, he received it with good humour. However, when Anne continued with her talking, he again punished her by asking her to write another essay; this time the topic was “An Incorrigible Chatterbox’.
Even after this, when she kept talking, he asked her to write on the topic, ‘Quack, Quack, Quack, said Mistress Chatterbox’. He was trying to play a joke on her. However, she came up with a brilliant poem, and he read this poem in the class, acknowledging its content. Therefore, in regard to these events, Mr Keesing cannot be entirely labelled as a strict teacher. He was fun-loving too
Question 4.What made Mr Keesing allow Anne to talk in class?
Answer: Anne was able to justify her talkative nature every time she was punished by Mr Keesing. On three occasions, as punishment, he gave her topics to write essays on. However, on each occasion, he was impressed by the manner in which she presented her arguments. Finally, Mr Keesing accepted the fact that Anne would always be that way. Hence, she was allowed to talk in class.
Thinking about the Text
Question 1. Was Anne right when she Said that the world would not be interested in the musings of a 13 year old girl?
Answer: Yes, Anne was right when she said so because most of the people don’t want to give importance to a child’s perspective toward the world because they are too immature for the world. But Anne Frank has become one of the most discussed of all holocaust victims. Her ‘diary’ has been translated into many languages.
Question 2. There are some examples of diary or journal entries in the ‘Before You Read’ section. Compare these with what Anne writes in her diary. What language was the diary originally written in? In what way is Anne’s diary different?
Answer: Anne’s diary was originally written in Dutch. Her diary is different from other diaries in many respects. She had named her diary ‘Kitty’. She thought of it as her only true friend whom she could confide in. She treated it as another person who was listening to her daily accounts. She wrote all her stories in it. She started by writing ‘Dear Kitty’ and ended the account by writing, ‘Yours Anne’. Her diary was a lot more personal than other diaries
Question 3. Why does Anne need to give a brief sketch about her family? Does she treat ‘Kitty’ as an insider or an outsider?
Answer: Anne gave an introduction to her family in the ‘diary’ because it was hard to make others realise that a 13 years old teenager could write about her loneliness. Kitty was an ‘outsider’ which was gifted by her parents on her 13th birthday but she considered it her best friend and treated it as an insider.
Question 4. How does Anne feel about her father, her grandmother, Mrs Kuperus and Mr Keesing? What do these tell you about her?
Answer: Anne felt that her father was the most adorable man she has ever seen.
Anne remembered her grandmother even after her death. She wrote in her diary that no one knew how often she thought of her grandmother and still loved her.
In the sixth form at the Montessori nursery school, her teacher was Mrs Kuperus, who was also the headmistress. At the end of the year, they were both in tears as they said a heartbreaking farewell.
Mr Keesing was her mathematics teacher. He was annoyed with her because she talked too much. However, Anne was able to justify her talkative nature every time she was punished by Mr Keesing. On each occasion, he was impressed by the manner in which she presented her arguments.
All these incidents show how lovable and smart Anne was. Everybody was attached to her, and even Mr Keesing could not help but laugh at her essays and acknowledge her smart mind.
Question 5. What does Anne write in her first essay?
Answer: Mr Keesing asked her to write an essay on the topic ‘A Chatterbox’ as punishment. In the essay: she accepted the drawbacks of being talkative but argued that it was in her genes as her mother was also very talkative. It was difficult to give up the habit and it was also a student’s trait. Even Mr Keesing laughed at the argument she had given.
Question 6. Anne says teachers are most unpredictable. Is Mr Keesing unpredictable?
Answer: Anne felt that a quarter of her class was dumb, and should be kept back and not promoted to the next level. However, she also felt that the teachers were the most unpredictable creatures on earth. Mr Keesing could be termed as unpredictable. The way Anne always talked while the class was going on, any teacher would lose his temper. However, after several warnings, all Mr Keesing did was to assign her extra homework. She had to write an essay on ‘A Chatterbox’.
In this way, he tried to play a joke on her. Each time he asked her to write such essays, she wrote well. She kept countering her jokes. One could not have predicted that he would take all the jokes in the right spirit. Finally, when she wrote an entire essay in verse, he accepted her talkative nature and actually allowed her to talk in class. He did not even assign her any more extra homework. That is why, it can be said that Mr Keesing was unpredictable.
Question 7. What do these statements tell you about Anne Frank as a person?
(i) We don’t seem to be able to get any closer and that’s the problem. Maybe it’s my fault that we don’t confide in each other.
(ii) I don’t want, to jcft; down the facts in this diary the way most people would, but I want the diary to be my friend.
(iii) Margot went to Holland in December and I followed in February, when I was plunked down on the table as a birthday present for Margot.
(iv) If you ask me, there are so many dummies that about a quarter of the class should be kept back, but teachers are the most unpredictable creatures on Earth.
(v) Anyone could ramble on and leave big spaces between the words, but the trick was to come up with convincing arguments to prove the necessity of talking.
Answers:
i. These lines show that Anne had no true friend whom she could confide in. She even put the blame on herself that the fault might be hers.
ii. This line shows that Anne really considered her diary as a friend whom she could trust and narrate all her stories to. She did not want just a diary in which she could write down the facts like others did. She considered it as her friend and
named her Kitty.
iii. This statement shows that Anne was a fun-loving person. She was witty and knew how to present things in a funny way. She narrated this incident with a lot of fun. The use of ‘plunked down’ shows her sense of humour.
iv. This statement shows that she had an opinion on everything. She thought that a quarter of her class was full of dummies, signifying that she herself was intelligent enough to make it to the next class. She thought of the teachers as the
most unpredictable creatures on earth because nobody could say which students they would fail and which students would be passed on to the next class.
v. This statement shows that Anne knew a lot about writing. She was given the task of writing an essay as a punishment. She took it on with full vigour. She did not want to write it like others who merrily left big spaces between the words to make the essay look voluminous. She knew that the trick was to come up with a convincing argument to prove the necessity of talking. She was different in her approach from everybody else.
Thinking about Language
(I) Look at the following words
| headmistress | long-awaited | homework |
| notebook | stiff-backed | outbursts |
These words are compound words. They are made up of two or more words. Compound words can be:
- nouns: headmistress, homework, notebook, outbursts
- adjectives: long-awaited, stiff-backed
- verbs: sleep-walk, baby-sit
Match the compound words under A with their meanings under ‘B’. Use each in a sentence.
| A | B |
| Heart-breaking | Obeying and respecting the law |
| Homesick | Think about pleasant things, forgetting about the present |
| Blockhead | Something produced by a person, machine or organisation |
| Law-abiding | Producing great sadness |
| Overdo | An occasion when vehicles/machines stop working |
| Daydream | An informal word which means a very stupid person |
| Breakdown | Missing home and family very much |
| Output | Do something to an excessive degree |
Answers:
| A | B |
| Heart-breaking | Producing great sadness |
| Homesick | Missing home and family very much |
| Blockhead | An informal word which means a very stupid person |
| Law-abiding | Obeying and respecting the law |
| Overdo | Do something to an excessive degree |
| Daydream | Think about pleasant things, forgetting about the present |
| Breakdown | An occasion when vehicles/machines stop working |
| Output | Something produced by a person, machine or organisation |
II. Phrasal Verb
2. Now find the sentences in the lesson that have the phrasal verbs given below. Match them with their meanings. (You have already found out the meanings for some of them.) Are their meanings the same as that of their parts? (Note that two parts of a phrasal verb may occur separated in the text.)
| Plunge in | Speak or write without focus |
| Kept back | Stay indoors |
| Move Up | Make (them) remain quiet |
| Ramble on | Have a good relationship with |
| Get along with | Give an assignment (homework) to a person in authority (the teacher) |
| Calm down | Compensate |
| Stay in | Go straight to the topic |
| Make up for | Go to the next grade |
| Hand in | Not promoted |
Answers:
| Plunge in | Go straight to the topic |
| Kept back | Not promoted |
| Move Up | Go to the next grade |
| Ramble on | Speak or write without focus |
| Get along with | Have a good relationship with |
| Calm down | Make (them) remain quiet |
| Stay in | Stay indoors |
| Make up for | Compensate |
| Hand in | Give an assignment (homework) to a person in authority (the teacher) |
III. Idioms Here are a few sentences from the text which have idiomatic expressions. Can you say what each means? (You might want to consult a dictionary first.)
- Our entire class is quaking in its boots. _____________
- Until then, we keep telling each other not to lose heart. _________
- Mr Keesing annoyed with me for ages because I talked so much. ________
- Mr Keesing was trying to play a joke on me with this ridiculous subject, but I’d make sure the joke was on him. _______
Answers:
- Shaking with fear and nervous.
- Not to think about negative side, but hope for the best.
- For quite a long time.
- Joke would be on him only.
2. Here are a few more idiomatic expressions that occur in the text. Try to use them in sentences of your own.
- Caught my eye
- He’d had enough
- Laugh ourselves silly
- Can’t bring myself to
Answer:
- Caught my eye While I was in the market, a beautiful purse had caught my eye.
- He’d had enough The teacher said that they’d had enough and he wanted all the notebooks by Wednesday.
- Laugh ourselves silly He laughed ourselves silly on his stupid jokes.
- Can’t bring myself I can’t bring myself to terms with this tragedy.