NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 2 (Transcript, Page 100)Verghese Kurien — Let us listen
Book page 93 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
You will listen to the passage about Evelyn Glennie's journey in overcoming her hearing loss through music and turning a physical disability into a success story. (Transcript for teacher on page 100) After listening, match the words given in Column 1 with their meanings given in Column 2. Column 1: 1. percussionist 2. impaired 3. vibrations 4. determination 5. gradual. Column 2: (i) a person who plays drums and similar instruments (ii) the ability to keep going despite difficulties (iii) slow and steady over time (iv) physical sensations caused by sound (v) damaged or weakened
Answer
Word
Meaning
Where it occurs in the passage
1. percussionist
(i) a person who plays drums and similar instruments
“percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her potential”; Evelyn is “the world's most sought-after multi percussionist”
2. impaired
(v) damaged or weakened
“her hearing was severely impaired as a result of gradual nerve damage”
3. vibrations
(iv) physical sensations caused by sound
“I had learnt to open my mind and body to sounds and vibrations.”
4. determination
(ii) the ability to keep going despite difficulties
“The rest was sheer determination and hard work.”
5. gradual
(iii) slow and steady over time
“Evelyn Glennie's loss of hearing had been gradual.”
Why vibrations is the key word of the passage. Sound is vibration; ears are only one way of detecting it. Once Ron Forbes told her, “Don't listen through your ears — try to sense it some other way,” Evelyn began detecting the same vibrations through her skin, her cheekbones and her hair. She did not find a substitute for hearing; she found a different route to the very same thing.
A note on the printed table: option (iv) is printed as “physical sensations caused by sound damaged or weakened”, with the words of option (v) accidentally running on. Read (iv) as “physical sensations caused by sound”, and the five pairs match cleanly.
Q2.
Listen to the passage once again and state whether the statements given below are true or false. 1. Evelyn Glennie became deaf suddenly.
Answer
False.
Why: the passage opens with the opposite — “Evelyn Glennie's loss of hearing had been gradual.” It was so slow that nobody identified it until her school work suffered at the age of eleven. What was sudden was the discovery, not the deafness — which is why she says “Everything suddenly looked black.” The word suddenly in the passage describes her reaction, not her hearing loss.
Listening tip: examiners build false statements out of a real word used in the wrong place. Here the word suddenly is genuinely in the passage — but attached to something else entirely.
Q3.
2. Her headmistress ignored the signs of her hearing loss.
Answer
False.
Why: the headmistress did the opposite of ignoring it — “By the time she was 11 her performance in school had deteriorated and her headmistress urged her parents to take her to a specialist.” Urged is a strong verb: she pressed them to act. It was because of the headmistress that the nerve damage was found at all.
Q4.
3. Ron Forbes was a percussionist who helped Evelyn.
Answer
True.
Why: “Most of the teachers discouraged her but percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her potential.” He then taught her the method that changed everything — tuning two large drums to different notes and telling her, “Don't listen through your ears, try to sense it some other way.”
Worth noticing: he did not encourage her with words. He gave her a technique. That is a more useful kind of help, and it is why the passage names him.
Q5.
4. Evelyn used her skin and bones to sense music.
Answer
True.
Why: she describes it herself — “It pours in through every part of my body. It tingles in the skin, my cheekbones and even in my hair.” Earlier she says she could feel the higher drum “from the waist up and the lower one from the waist down”, which shows that different parts of her body registered different pitches.
Q6.
5. She gave up on music after her diagnosis.
Answer
False.
Why: “But Evelyn was not going to give up. She was determined to lead a normal life and pursue her interest in music.” Everything that follows — the xylophone, Ron Forbes, the drums, the thousand instruments — happened after the diagnosis, not before it. The passage ends with “she got right to the top”.
All five statements together tell the story: gradual loss (1), an alert headmistress (2), a teacher who saw potential (3), a new way of sensing sound (4), and a refusal to quit (5). If you can answer these five, you have understood the passage.
Q7.
Answer the following questions in one or two words. 1. How did Evelyn turn her disability into strength?
Answer
By sensing vibrations — that is, by feeling sound through her body instead of hearing it through her ears.
The fuller answer: Ron Forbes tuned two drums to different notes and told her not to listen through her ears. She discovered she could feel the higher drum from the waist up and the lower one from the waist down, and later that “certain notes” registered in different parts of her body. Because she felt music physically rather than only hearing it, she came to know instruments in a way most musicians never do — which is exactly how a disability became an advantage.
Q8.
2. What role did Ron Forbes play in her life?
Answer
Her mentor (also acceptable: her teacher, her guide).
The fuller answer: he was the one teacher who “spotted her potential” when “most of the teachers discouraged her”, and he gave her the method that unlocked everything — “Don't listen through your ears, try to sense it some other way.” He then repeated the two-drum exercise until she could locate notes in her body. He supplied both the belief and the technique.
Connect it to the letter: Dr. Kurien names Tribhuvandas Patel as “my mentor and supporter here in Anand”. Ron Forbes was Evelyn Glennie's. The unit keeps returning to the fact that almost nobody arrives anywhere alone.
Q9.
3. What lessons can we learn from Evelyn's story about how to treat others who have different abilities or challenges?
Answer
With respect and encouragement — never with pity, and never by deciding in advance what someone cannot do.
The passage supports four specific lessons.
Do not assume the limits. “Most of the teachers discouraged her.” They were all wrong, and their discouragement was based on what they imagined rather than on what she could do.
Look for the different route, not the missing one. Ron Forbes did not try to repair her hearing. He asked her to reach the same music another way.
Notice early, and act. The headmistress made one phone call to a set of parents, and it changed a life.
Judge the work, not the disability. She became “the world's most sought-after multi percussionist with a mastery of some thousand instruments” — a statement about achievement, in which the deafness is not mentioned at all.
The single most useful idea in the passage: we usually treat a disability as a wall. Ron Forbes treated it as a door in a different place. Asking “how else could this be done?” is a far more respectful question than asking “what help does this person need?”