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    2 Nelson Mandela Assignment

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    2 Nelson Mandela Assignment

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    2 Nelson Mandela Assignment

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    of 2

    CLASS X ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT

    UNIT-2 NELSON MANDELA

    Read the following extracts carefully and answer the questions that follow.

    Question 1.

    10th May dawned bright and clear. For the past few days 1 had been pleasantly besieged by
    dignitaries and world leaders who were coming to pay their respects before the inauguration. The
    inauguration would be the largest gathering ever of international leaders on South African soil. The
    ceremonies took place in the lovely sandstone amphitheatre formed by the Union Buildings in
    Pretoria. For decades this had been the seat of white supremacy, and now it was the site of a
    rainbow gathering of different colours and nations for the installation of South Africa’s first
    democratic, non-racial government. [CBSE2015]

    (a) Who were coming and for what before the inauguration?
    (b) What happened on the inauguration?
    (c) Find out the word that means the same ‘commencement’ from the passage.
    (d) Find the word from the passage which means ‘an open space surround by sloping land’.
    Question 2.

    We, who were outlaws not so long ago, have today been given the rare privilege to be host to the
    nations of the world on our own soil.

    We thank all of our distinguished international guests for having come to take possession with the
    people of our country of what is after all a common victory for justice, for peace, for human dignity.

    We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation. We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people
    from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.

    (a) What does ‘we’ refer in the first line of the passage?
    (b) What did the people of South Africa achieve at last?
    (c) The word ‘bondage’ means …… in the passage.
    (d) Give a synonym of ’emancipation’
    Question 3.

    A few moments later we all lifted our eyes in awe as a spectacular array of South African jets,
    helicopters and troop carriers roared in perfect formation over the Union Buildings.

    It was not only a display of pinpoint precision and military force, but a demonstration of military’s
    loyalty to democracy, to a new

    government that had been freely and fairly elected. Only moments before, the highest generals of
    South African defence force and police, their chests bedecked with ribbons and medals from days
    gone by, saluted me and pledged their loyalty. I was not unmindful of the fact that not so many
    years before they would not have saluted but arrested me. Finally a chevron of Impala jets left a
    smoke Trail of the black, red, green, blue and gold of the new South African flag.

    (a) What did the highest generals do in the event?


    (b) What did the smoke trail of Impala symbolise?
    (c) Pick out the word from the passage that means the same as adorned.
    (d) is a line or pattern in the shape of ‘V’ signifying victory.
    Question 4.

    On the day of the inauguration, I was overwhelmed with a sense of history. In the first decade of the
    20th century, a few years after the bitter Anglo-Boer war and before my own birth, the white-
    skinned people’s of South Africa patched up their differences and created a system of racial
    domination against the dark-skinned people of their own land. The structure they created formed
    the basis of one of the harshest, most inhumane societies the world has ever known. Now, in the last
    decade of the 20th centuryrand my own eighth decade as a man, that system had been overturned
    for ever and replaced by one that recognised the rights and freedoms of all peoples, regardless of
    the colour of their skin. That day had come about through the unimaginable sacrifices of thousands
    of my people, people whose suffering and courage can never be counted or repaid.

    (a) What happened after Anglo-Boer war?


    (b) On what basis the structure of new government created?
    (c) Pick the word in the passage which has the same meaning as ‘submerged’.
    (d) What is the meaning of the phrase ‘to patch up the differences’?
    Question 5.

    The policy of apartheid created a deep and lasting wound in my country and my people. All of us will
    spend many years, if not generations, recovering from that profound hurt. But the decades of
    oppression and brutality had another, unintended, effect, ‘ and that was that it produced the Oliver
    Tambos, the Walter Sisulus, the Chief Luthulis, the Yusuf Dadoos, the Bram Fischers, the Robert
    Sobukwes of our time-men of such extraordinary courage, wisdom and generosity that their like may
    never be known again. Perhaps it reguires such depths of oppression to create such heights of
    character. My country is rich in the minerals and gems that lie beneath its soil, but I have always
    known that its greatest wealth is its people, finer and truer than the purest diamonds.

    (a) What did the policy of apartheid create?


    (b) According to Mandela, what is the greatest wealth?
    (c) Find out the word in the passage which means ‘large-heartedness.’
    (d) Pick out the word from the passage which means to treat somebody/something cruelly and
    unfairly.
    Question 6.

    In life, every man has twin obligations- obligations to his family, to his parents, to his wife and
    children; and he has an obligation to his people, his community, his country. In a civil and humane
    society, each man is able to fulfil those obligations according to his own inclinations and abilities. But
    in a country like South Africa, it was almost impossible for a man of my birth and colour to fulfil both
    of those obligations. In South Africa, a man of colour who attempted to live as a human being was
    punished and isolated. [CBSE 2014 ]

    (a) What are the obligations that every man has in life?
    (b) Why was it impossible for a coloured man to discharge his obligations?
    (c) Find the word in the passage which has same meaning as ‘duty’.
    (d) A word synonymous with intentions’ is ……… in the passage.
    Short Answer Type Questions [2 Marks each]

    Question 1.What promise does Mandela make in the beginning of opening of his oath-taking
    speech?

    Question 2.What freedom meant to Mandela in childhood? [CBSE 2015]

    Question 3.What do you understand by Apartheid’?

    Question 4.How is courage related to the brave man according to the author of the lesson?

    Question 5.What did Mandela realise about his brothers and sisters? [CBSE 2012]

    Long Answer (Value Based) Type Questions [8 Marks each]

    Question 1.What does Nelson Mandela refer to as “an extraordinary human disaster”?

    Question 2.What does Mandela mean to say that the oppressor and the oppressed alike are robbed
    of their humanity?

    Question 3.Describe the obligations which the author is talking about ?

    Question 4.Describe the value of freedom for the human beings and how it is important for the
    growth of civilisation and humanism as described in the lesson ‘Nelson Mandela : Long Walk to
    Freedom’. [CBSE2014]

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