NCERT Solutions Curiosity Chapter 1 Finding answers on our own — In-text Questions

Book page 5 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

How can we try to find answers to our questions on our own?

Answer

By following the scientific method — a short, honest routine you can use on any puzzle, big or small.

Observe → Question → Guess → Test → Analyse

Observe carefully. Note exactly what is happening, without deciding the cause yet.
Frame a clear question. “Why does…?” or “How does…?” A vague question gives a vague answer.
Make a guess that could explain it — and make sure it is a guess you can actually check.
Test the guess by an experiment, a measurement, or more observation.
Analyse the result. If the guess is proved right, you have your answer. If it is proved wrong, that is not a failure — make a new guess and test again.

Why this works better than simply believing: anyone can claim anything. A guess that has passed a test is evidence-based, and someone else can repeat the same test and get the same result. That is what makes a scientific answer trustworthy.

Tip: When you cannot test something at home, use the other tools of a scientist — read a reliable book, look it up carefully, ask your teacher, and above all discuss it with friends. The chapter reminds us that science is rarely done alone.

Q2.

Suppose your pen stops writing. What would you do?

Answer

I would not just throw the pen away — I would find out why it stopped, exactly as the book describes.

Step	What I do with the pen
Observe	The pen moves on the paper but no line appears.
Question	“Why did my pen stop writing?”
Guess	“Perhaps the ink is finished.”
Test	Open the pen and look at the ink refill.
Analyse	If the refill is empty, the guess was correct — the ink had finished.

Why this counts as science: notice that at no point did I simply assume the ink was over. I made it a guess and then checked it. Guess + check is the heart of the scientific method, and you have been doing it for years without calling it that.

Q3.

But suppose you found that the ink was not finished. Now what would you do?

Answer

Then the first guess is wrong — and that is perfectly normal in science. I would make a new guess and test that one too.

New guess 1 — the ink has dried up at the tip. Test: dip the nib in a little warm water or scribble hard on rough paper. If it starts writing, the guess was right.
New guess 2 — the ball at the tip is stuck or dirty. Test: clean the tip and roll it on paper. If it works now, this was the reason.
New guess 3 — there is an air bubble in the refill. Test: flick or shake the refill downwards so the ink moves past the bubble.
New guess 4 — the refill is cracked or the nib is bent. Test: put the same refill in another pen body. If it still fails, the refill is at fault; if it writes, the body was the problem.

Why a wrong guess is useful: every test that fails removes one possible cause and brings you closer to the real one. Scientists do exactly this. In fact the chapter says a piece of the jigsaw puzzle sometimes has to be moved — being proved wrong is how science moves forward, not a reason to stop.

Tip: Change only one thing at a time while testing. If you clean the tip and change the refill together and the pen writes, you will never know which of the two was the cause.

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