CBSE Class 11 English Snapshots Exercise Solutions

The story is built on an irony: the boys' family is famous for its honesty, yet they "borrow" a horse without permission. Mourad's defence is that they didn't intend to steal — they only wanted to ride it and would return it eventually.

The author presents this ambiguously. The boys never sell the horse, never cause it harm, and return it in better condition. Yet they did take it without asking. The story seems to suggest that imagination, love of beauty, and youth's desire for joy can exist alongside essential goodness — even if the act itself is questionable.

Ultimately, their honesty is vindicated when they return the horse, and farmer John Byro chooses to believe it is not his horse — perhaps sensing their good character.

Humour comes from:

• The contrast between the family's legendary honesty and the boys' secret horse-riding.
• Mourad's claim that he has a "way with horses" — and indeed the horse behaves differently with him.
• Uncle Khosrove's repeated outburst: "It is no harm, pay no attention to it!" used for everything from a nose bleed to a barn fire.
• John Byro's refusal to believe the horse is his own because the boys' family is "known for honesty."

The narrator visits Mrs Dorling hoping to reclaim her mother's belongings. But when she sees them crammed into a strange house, out of context, they feel wrong — stripped of their meaning. Her mother's tablecloth is on a strange table; her silver cutlery is being used by strangers. The objects themselves feel dead without her mother.

She realises that things only have meaning because of the people who gave them meaning. Since her mother is gone, the objects are just things. Taking them back would not restore the past — it would only burden her with painful reminders. So she decides to let go of both the objects and the memories they carry.

The first-person narrator is an elderly village man who acts as both observer and matchmaker. He:

• Describes village life with gentle irony.
• Stages a fake "astrologer" consultation to convince Ranga that Ratna is destined for him.
• Engineers their meetings and conversation.

The narrator's role shows how tradition and community (represented by the older generation) continues to shape even those young people who believe they have broken free of tradition. Ranga thinks he chose freely — but was gently guided.

The story also comments humorously on the gap between urban "modern" attitudes (Ranga claiming to want love marriage) and actual practice (he falls in love with a young girl chosen for him).

Einstein was deeply unhappy because:

• The teaching method was based on rote learning — dates, facts, names — without understanding.
• He believed in ideas, not information. When his history teacher demanded facts, Einstein said facts in books were useless — what mattered was understanding why things happened.
• Teachers found him disruptive and insolent.
• He had no friends among the rough students.
• He felt the school was teaching pupils to think like soldiers, not thinkers.

His only escape was playing violin and studying mathematics — areas where imagination and understanding, not memorisation, mattered.

Einstein believed education should develop understanding and thinking, not just memorise facts. He told his teacher he saw no value in learning dates — he could look them up in a book. What he wanted to understand was why events happened and what ideas drove them. He believed that imagination and reasoning — not memory — were the true marks of intelligence.

This is ironic given that Einstein became the greatest scientific thinker of the 20th century — vindicating his approach to learning.

The central theme is the undervaluation of women's domestic labour. Annie (mother) is overworked and unappreciated — she cooks, cleans, serves, and is taken for granted by her husband George and children Cyril and Doris.

Through the comic device of a body-swap, the play shows:

• How invisible household work is until it stops.
• That family members are utterly helpless without the woman's labour.
• That mutual respect is essential in a family.

The play uses humour but makes a serious feminist point — domestic work is real work and deserves recognition and respect.

Before: Andrew was exhausted, emotionally drained, and distracted by a failed romance. He was barely present mentally when called to attend Mrs Morgan's labour.

During: Facing the crisis — a stillborn baby and unconscious mother — Andrew's training instinctively took over. He performed artificial respiration and friction on the baby. When a flicker of life appeared, he persisted even through exhaustion. The baby survived.

The experience was transformative — in saving lives, Andrew rediscovered his sense of purpose and the meaning of his profession. The story is about how professional duty can restore a lost sense of direction.

"Birth" refers to:

• Literally: the miraculous birth of the baby that appeared stillborn.
• Metaphorically: the rebirth of Andrew's commitment to medicine. He had been despairing and emotionally adrift; saving the baby and mother rekindles his sense of purpose.

Thus the story has two parallel "births" — a child and a doctor's renewed sense of vocation.

The poem satirises:

• Blind application of law without common sense: Each official logically passes blame in an absurd chain, and the law is followed "correctly" at every step — but the outcome is absurd.
• Crowd behaviour: The crowd is indifferent to who is king — as long as they are left alone ("We have our own affairs to mind: births, deaths, or buying new possessions"). They accept a melon as king without protest.
• Placid rulers: The king is described as "just and placid" — a good ruler — yet the poem shows how even good rulers can create absurd situations when they follow procedure without wisdom.

The poem is a gentle, humorous critique of bureaucratic mindlessness and public indifference to governance.