NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 1 Understanding coordinates — Let's Explore
Book page 13 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
Using the same terms, write down your move if you play black and respond with the same move.
Answer
White has played the queen's pawn from d2 to d4. Playing black, “the same move” means the mirror image of it — the pawn in front of the black queen, moved two squares forward:
Black plays d7 to d5 (written in chess books simply as …d5)
The two coordinates of a square are its file letter and its rank number. White's pawn has come from d2 to d4 (red); black answers by playing from d7 to d5 (blue).
Why d7 and not something else: black's pieces start on ranks 7 and 8, exactly opposite white's ranks 1 and 2. The black queen stands on d8, so her pawn is on d7. Moving it two squares forward — which a pawn is allowed to do on its first move — brings it to d5, face to face with white's pawn on d4.
The Social Science point: the letter tells you the column (file) and the number tells you the row (rank). Neither alone is enough; together they name one square out of 64. Latitude and longitude do the same job for the Earth — and both systems were invented for the same reason, to record a position so that somebody else can find it again.
Did you know? Chess grew out of the ancient Indian game chaturaṅga, played in India by about the 6th century CE. Its four “limbs” — elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers — became today's bishops, knights, rooks and pawns.