The Sermon at Benares: CBSE Class 10 English practice questions
Practise 50 questions on The Sermon at Benares, free, with an explanation for each answer.
Sample questions
Before he became the Buddha, Gautama lived in northern India as a ___.
- wandering physician
- prince named Siddhartha Gautama
- merchant of Benares
- village schoolteacher
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B. prince named Siddhartha Gautama
The introduction says Gautama Buddha began life as a prince named Siddhartha Gautama. He grew up shielded from the sufferings of the world. He was not a physician, merchant or teacher. The Buddha was the name he earned later, meaning the Awakened or Enlightened one.
Kisa Gotami sat by the side of the road. She watched the city lights as they "flickered up and were extinguished again". What did this make her think about?
- Human lives, too, flicker up and are put out, because death comes to all
- The city was too poor to keep its lamps burning
- The best time to search for medicine is at night
- The Buddha would soon come to find her
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A. Human lives, too, flicker up and are put out, because death comes to all
The text says she "considered the fate of men, that their lives flicker up and are extinguished again". The lights are a metaphor for lives. The other options are not in the text.
Pick the conjunction that best completes the sentence about the story: "Kisa Gotami hoped to find a house without grief, ___ every house had lost a loved one."
- and
- or
- then
- yet
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D. yet
The clauses are in contrast: she hoped for a house without grief, yet every house had known loss. And adds, or offers a choice and then shows time order. The chapter's language work lists and, or, but, yet and then as joining words.
Topics covered
- Reading: who the Buddha was
- Reading: the four sights
- Reading: the Buddha's path to the sermon
- Reading: the Bodhi Tree
- Vocabulary: enlightenment
- Vocabulary: sermon
- Reading: Kisa Gotami's first request
- Reading: who did what
- Reading: the Buddha's request
- Reading: the search for mustard seed
- Grammar: joining clauses with a conjunction
- Reading: the search fails
- Reading: the flickering lights
- Reading: the end of the search
- Reading: 'How selfish am I in my grief!'
- Reading: the Buddha's way of teaching
- Literary device: comparisons in the sermon
- Literary device: simile
- Reading: the wise and grief
- Reading: the effects of grieving
- Reading: the arrow of grief
- Vocabulary: desolation
- Vocabulary: glossary words
- Vocabulary: procure
- Vocabulary: repaired to
- Vocabulary: inscrutable
- Grammar: old-fashioned phrases
- Grammar: joining clauses
- Grammar: the sentence with semicolons
- Reading: Kisa Gotami's story
- Reading: the logic of the sermon
- Reading: feelings of grief
- Reading: 'Good Grief' by Amitai Etzioni
- Reading: 'We are not to ask why, but what'
- Reading: Gibran's 'Joy and Sorrow'
- Reading: Tagore's lines on death
- Writing: planning a three-paragraph page
- Poem: the poet
- Poem: who speaks and about what
- Poem: vocabulary: ramparts
- Poem: imagery: honey-coloured ramparts
- Poem: why young men are 'thrown into despair'
- Poem: the young woman's reply
- Poem: the young woman's plan
- Poem: the young woman's wish
- Poem: the old religious man
- Poem: theme: loved for oneself
- Poem: form: stanzas and refrain
- Poem: voices in the poem