Try each question on your own first. Use the Show Answer button only after you have selected your option, then read the explanation and revise the related concept from your chapter notes.
Explanation: 'Keeping Quiet' is a poem by the Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda.
2. What does the poet primarily ask people to do in the poem?
A. Stop breathing forever
B. Pause all activity for a moment of stillness, silence, and introspection
C. Start a revolution
D. Travel around the world
Answer: B. Pause all activity for a moment of stillness, silence, and introspection
Explanation: Neruda invites people to momentarily stop all their usual activity and busyness, urging a shared, universal stillness for reflection, without moving their arms or speaking any language.
3. What is the poet's stance regarding the purpose of this proposed stillness?
A. It is meant to bring about death or complete inactivity forever
B. It is meant as an introspective pause for self-reflection and unity, not as death or total inaction
C. It celebrates war
D. It promotes laziness as a permanent lifestyle
Answer: B. It is meant as an introspective pause for self-reflection and unity, not as death or total inaction
Explanation: The poet clarifies that his call for stillness is not about death or giving up on life, but rather a temporary, healing pause allowing humanity to reflect and reconnect with itself and nature.
4. Which specific groups of working people does the poet mention as pausing in his imagined moment of stillness?
A. Only politicians
B. Fishermen who would stop harming whales, and men gathering salt
C. Only school children
D. Soldiers preparing for war
Answer: B. Fishermen who would stop harming whales, and men gathering salt
Explanation: The poet specifically imagines fishermen halting their harm to whales, and a man gathering salt pausing to look at his hurt hands, using these images to depict a broader, universal cessation of harmful human activity.
5. What broader message about human civilization does the poem convey?
A. Humanity must always remain busy to progress
B. Excessive activity, especially destructive pursuits like wars, could be replaced by moments of unity, introspection, and peace
C. War is essential for human progress
D. Silence should be permanent
Answer: B. Excessive activity, especially destructive pursuits like wars, could be replaced by moments of unity, introspection, and peace
Explanation: Through the extended metaphor of counting to twelve and keeping still, Neruda critiques humanity's obsession with restless activity, particularly destructive endeavors like war, advocating instead for periodic introspection and peace.
This page contains a chapter-wise objective practice set. Try the questions without checking the answer first, then use the explanation to understand the point you missed. The current page contains 5 questions, so you can practise in smaller sets when you are revising.
Quick revision tip
After the practice set, write down the question numbers you missed and revise only those concepts once more. This makes MCQ practice more useful than repeatedly attempting the same questions without reviewing mistakes.
