TOPIC 16 OF 19
Going Places – Part 2 Exercises
🎓 Class 12
English
CBSE
Theory
Ch 8 — Going Places
⏱ ~28 min
🌐 Language: [gtranslate]
📖 English Passage Assessment
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This CBSE English Passage Assessment will be based on: Going Places – Part 2 Exercises
Assessment Format:
• 2 Short Answer Questions (2 marks each) = 4 marks
• 2 Fill in the Blanks Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
• 2 Short Answer Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
• 2 Multiple Choice Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
Total: 8 Questions, 10 Marks
📖 English Grammar Assessment
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This CBSE English Grammar Assessment will be based on: Going Places – Part 2 Exercises
Assessment Format:
• 10 Randomized Grammar Questions (1 mark each)
• Question Types: Fill in the Blanks, MCQs, Error Identification, Reported Speech, Sentence Completion
Total: 10 Questions, 10 Marks
📖 English Vocabulary Assessment
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This English Vocabulary assessment will be based on: Going Places – Part 2 Exercises
Targeting Vocabulary & Usage with Intermediate difficulty.
Exercises Overview — Chapter 8: Going Places
This part covers all NCERT comprehension, discussion, grammar (present participles & metaphorical expressions), language work (colloquial words), and the writing task for Chapter 8.
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Key themes for critical analysis: Adolescent fantasy vs. reality; socio-economic constraints on aspiration; the psychology of hero-worship; narrative technique (free indirect discourse, second-person voice); figurative language in characterisation.
Plot Arc — Going Places (Freytag's Pyramid)
Understanding the Text
1. Sophie and Jansie were classmates and friends. What differences between them show up in the story?5 marksL4 Analyse
Sophie is an incorrigible dreamer — she envisions boutiques, acting careers, and fashion design without any practical plan. She is imaginative, romantic, and emotionally volatile, prone to intense fantasy. She speaks her desires aloud and seeks others as witnesses to her inner life. She is also secretive in selective ways — she shares her Danny Casey story only with Geoff, guarding it as something sacred.
Jansie is grounded, practical, and realistic. She has accepted the likely trajectory of their lives — the biscuit factory — and is melancholy but not bitter about it. She becomes the neighbourhood's conduit for gossip, which Sophie resents. Jansie's practicality is not imagination-less; it is a coping mechanism.
The key difference is psychological: Sophie lives in the future (what might be); Jansie lives in the present (what is). The story treats both positions with sympathy, but its emotional weight lies entirely with Sophie.
Jansie is grounded, practical, and realistic. She has accepted the likely trajectory of their lives — the biscuit factory — and is melancholy but not bitter about it. She becomes the neighbourhood's conduit for gossip, which Sophie resents. Jansie's practicality is not imagination-less; it is a coping mechanism.
The key difference is psychological: Sophie lives in the future (what might be); Jansie lives in the present (what is). The story treats both positions with sympathy, but its emotional weight lies entirely with Sophie.
2. How would you describe the character and temperament of Sophie's father?3 marksL4 Analyse
Sophie's father is a working-class man worn down by labour — he comes home grimy and sweat-marked, eats hungrily, watches television, and visits the pub. His temperament is sceptical and dismissive — his first instinct when told Sophie met Casey is disdain. He is not deliberately cruel, but he has no patience for his daughter's fantasies, calling them "wild stories." His reverence for Tom Finney (a footballer from his own youth) reveals that he too had his heroes once — but time, hardship, and responsibility have calcified that romanticism into cynicism. He is the story's emblem of what happens to dreams deferred indefinitely.
3. Why did Sophie like her brother Geoff more than any other person? What did he symbolise from her perspective?5 marksL5 Evaluate
Sophie is drawn to Geoff precisely because he does not fully belong to her familiar world. He travels to the far side of the city each day, keeps his own counsel, and has experiences she can only guess at. His silence is not emptiness but plenitude — it suggests depths that the cramped family home cannot contain. She is jealous of his freedom, of the invisible geography he inhabits. From her perspective, Geoff symbolises possibility and the wider world — the freedom she herself longs for. She imagines riding pillion behind him into unknown territory, a yellow cape flying: a fantasy of escape, agency, and arrival that is as much about herself as about him. He is her door to a life she has not yet been allowed to enter.
4. What socio-economic background did Sophie belong to? What indicators reveal her family's financial status?3 marksL2 Understand
Sophie belongs to a working-class British family of modest means. Key indicators: (a) the home is small, steamy, and cluttered — "the small room was steamy from the stove"; (b) the father works a physically demanding job (comes home grimy); (c) there is dirty washing piled in the corner; (d) both girls are "earmarked for the biscuit factory" — factory work being the expected employment for girls of their background; (e) Jansie specifically warns that "they don't pay well for shop work" — suggesting even shop work would be a stretch; (f) the mother is bent over the sink, endlessly domestic. The story never names the city or the era precisely, but the texture is unmistakably British industrial working class.
Extract-Based Questions — CBSE Board Format
Extract — Sophie's Inner Monologue at the Canal
"Here I sit, she said to herself, wishing Danny would come, wishing he would come and sensing the time passing... I wonder what will I do, what can I tell them now if he doesn't come? But we know how it was, Danny and me — that's the main thing. How can you help what people choose to believe?"
Q1. What narrative technique does the author use in this passage, and what effect does it create?L4 Analyse
Barton uses free indirect discourse — Sophie's inner thoughts are rendered in her own voice and idiom, but without quotation marks and blended into third-person narration. The effect is immersive: the reader is placed directly inside Sophie's consciousness. We experience her self-doubt, her bargaining with reality, and her retreat into the comfort of "we know how it was" — all as though thinking alongside her. This technique also subtly maintains the story's central ambiguity: is the meeting real or imagined? Sophie's internal justifications ("that's the main thing") suggest a mind managing disappointment rather than confusion.
Q2. "We know how it was, Danny and me." What does this line reveal about Sophie's relationship with reality?L5 Evaluate
This line is the story's most revealing. Sophie retreats into private knowledge — "we know" — as a bulwark against public disbelief. It is a deeply human response: when the external world refuses to validate our experience, we hold it close as a personal truth. Whether or not the meeting happened, Sophie has chosen to preserve it as real in her inner life. The line also marks the beginning of her resignation — she is not angry but sad. She knows Casey will not come; she knows no one believes her; and she knows she cannot prove them wrong. The fantasy is not abandoned, but it is quietly privatised.
Q3. How does Sophie's self-talk at the canal contrast with her confident declarations at the story's opening?L4 Analyse
At the story's opening, Sophie speaks with absolute certainty about her boutique, her manager's career, her acting ambitions — "I'll find it," "I'll be a natural." The voice is outward-directed, performative, and defiant of doubt. At the canal, the same voice turns inward and hesitant: "I wonder what will I do... if he doesn't come." The shift from declarative to interrogative, from public confidence to private doubt, maps Sophie's journey through the story — from the bright exterior of aspiration to the quiet interior of reckoning. The contrast is the story's emotional spine.
Q4. "Resignation was no sudden thing." In 80 words, explain what this line suggests about the nature of growing up.L6 Create
Growing up rarely announces itself with a single dramatic moment. Resignation — the acceptance that some dreams will not be realised — arrives like dusk: gradually, imperceptibly, until you look up and find the light has gone. Sophie does not break down or cry; she simply begins to measure the changes taking place inside her. This slow, quiet transformation is truer to lived experience than any dramatic epiphany. Barton's line is psychologically precise: the most important changes in our inner life tend to happen without fanfare, in the patient dark, while we are still waiting for something that will not come.
Grammar Workshop — Present Participles (Noticing Form)
The chapter uses present participles (-ing forms) extensively to show two actions happening simultaneously in a single sentence. This is a key stylistic feature of Barton's prose.
Rule — Present Participle for Simultaneity
When we want to show that two actions happen at the same time, we can combine them into one sentence using the present participle. The main verb carries the primary action; the participle describes a concurrent secondary action.
Formula: Subject + [participle phrase] + main verb phrase
OR: Subject + main verb phrase + [participle phrase]
OR: Subject + main verb phrase + [participle phrase]
Five examples from the story — analyse the simultaneity:
Original (one sentence)
"When I leave," Sophie said, coming home from school, "I'm going to have a boutique."
Analysis
Main action: Sophie said something. Simultaneous: she was coming home from school. The participle sets the scene without requiring a separate sentence.
Original
Jansie, linking arms with her along the street, looked doubtful.
Analysis
Main action: Jansie looked doubtful. Simultaneous: she was linking arms with Sophie. Physical closeness between friends even as doubt separates their worldviews.
Original
"I'll find it," Sophie said, staring far down the street.
Analysis
Main action: Sophie said she would find the money. Simultaneous: she was staring into the distance — a visual cue for her forward-focused, visionary temperament.
Original
Jansie, knowing they were both earmarked for the biscuit factory, became melancholy.
Analysis
Main action: Jansie became melancholy. Simultaneous: she was knowing (i.e., aware of) their real prospects. The participle carries the entire weight of contextual irony.
Original
And she turned in through the open street door leaving Jansie standing in the rain.
Analysis
Main action: Sophie turned inside. Simultaneous result: she was leaving Jansie in the rain. The participle here has a slightly causal sense — her exit causes Jansie's abandonment. Characterisation through syntax.
Practice: Pick five more present-participle sentences from the story and analyse the simultaneous actions they describe.L3 Apply
① "He sat frowning at the oily component he cradled in his hands" — frowning and cradling happen together, conveying Geoff's intense focus.
② "She saw herself riding there behind Geoff, [he] wearing new shining black leathers and she a yellow dress with a kind of cape that flew out behind" — imagining and seeing simultaneously.
③ "Sophie glared at the ground. Damn that Geoff, this was a Geoff thing not a Jansie thing." — internal speech simultaneous with the physical glare.
④ "She climbed the crumbling steps to the street" alongside recollecting the fantasy — physical movement and mental replay run together.
⑤ "Coming through the arcade she pictured him again outside Royce's" — walking and visualising simultaneously; the physical and the imagined overlap perfectly.
② "She saw herself riding there behind Geoff, [he] wearing new shining black leathers and she a yellow dress with a kind of cape that flew out behind" — imagining and seeing simultaneously.
③ "Sophie glared at the ground. Damn that Geoff, this was a Geoff thing not a Jansie thing." — internal speech simultaneous with the physical glare.
④ "She climbed the crumbling steps to the street" alongside recollecting the fantasy — physical movement and mental replay run together.
⑤ "Coming through the arcade she pictured him again outside Royce's" — walking and visualising simultaneously; the physical and the imagined overlap perfectly.
Working with Words — Metaphorical Expressions
The highlighted words in the following expressions are not used in their literal sense. Explain what each means in context.
"Words had to be prized out of him like stones out of the ground."L4 Analyse
The verb "prized" normally refers to levering something loose with physical force. Here it is used metaphorically — Geoff's words are as deeply embedded and resistant as stones in hard ground. Extracting a sentence from him requires the same sustained, effortful persistence as digging. The simile characterises his profound taciturnity and the effort required to make him communicate.
"Sophie felt a tightening in her throat."L4 Analyse
This is a physical description of an emotional response — the constriction that accompanies the onset of tears, grief, or intense feeling. Sophie is overwhelmed by the contrast between her mother's broken body and the delicate bow on her apron — a symbol of beauty in desolation. The "tightening" is not literal but rather how the body expresses what the mind cannot yet articulate in words.
"If he keeps his head on his shoulders."L2 Understand
This idiom means: if he remains sensible, disciplined, and grounded — if he does not let fame or pressure lead him into foolish decisions. The father uses it about Casey, implicitly warning that great talent without good judgement can be wasted. "Head on his shoulders" connotes a stable, reasoned approach to life — the opposite of being swept away by success.
"On Saturday they made their weekly pilgrimage to watch United."L4 Analyse
A "pilgrimage" is a sacred journey to a holy site, typically undertaken for religious purposes. Applied to attending a football match, it elevates the act to the level of worship — which is precisely the point. For Sophie's family, United's ground is their cathedral; Casey is their idol. The metaphor ironically but affectionately captures the near-religious devotion of working-class football culture, and aligns with the story's broader theme of hero worship.
"She saw him ghost past the lumbering defenders."L4 Analyse
"Ghost" is used here as a verb — an unusual and striking choice. Ghosts move silently, invisibly, effortlessly, passing through solid things. Applied to Casey's dribble, it suggests he bypassed the defenders so smoothly as to be almost supernatural — barely registering their presence, leaving them behind without apparent effort. The word elevates his talent to the realm of myth, reinforcing Sophie's sense of him as a legendary, otherworldly figure.
Thinking about Language — Colloquial Words
Three colloquial words appear in the chapter: chuffed (delighted), nosey (inquisitive), gawky (awkward). Identify ten more from everyday speech.
- gobsmacked — utterly astonished
- dodgy — suspicious or unreliable
- bloke — a man (British)
- gutted — deeply disappointed
- knackered — exhausted
- posh — elegant, upper-class
- natter — to chat informally
- cheeky — impudently bold
- blimey — exclamation of surprise
- faffing — wasting time on trivial things
Writing Task — Interview Your Role Model
Think of a person you would like to have as your role model. Write down the key questions you would ask if you were invited to interview that person on a television show. Then write a 200-word profile of that person for a school magazine.
Interview Question Framework
Opening Q: A broad, warm-up question about their journey or background
Turning-point Q: When did you know this was your calling?
Challenge Q: What has been the hardest moment — and how did you overcome it?
Values Q: What principle guides every decision you make?
Advice Q: What would you tell a 17-year-old who wants to follow your path?
Legacy Q: How do you want to be remembered?
Magazine Profile Format
Heading (name + role) · Opening hook (1 striking fact or quote) · Background paragraph · Achievement paragraph · Personal quality / values paragraph · Closing quotation or vision statement · Word limit: 200 words
DANNY CASEY: THE BOY FROM THE WEST
At just nineteen, Danny Casey has already become the most electrifying young talent in British football. Born in the west of Ireland, he arrived in England with little more than his genius and his green eyes — and proceeded to rewrite what was possible on a football pitch.
Casey's technique is deceptive in its simplicity. He does not bully defenders — he ghosts past them, as though they exist in a slightly different dimension. Last Saturday's goal against United's opponents was a masterclass: the hover, the hesitation, then the clean, unhesitating strike. Fifty thousand people caught their breath as one.
Off the pitch, those who have met him describe a shy, quietly spoken young man — gentle, almost uncertain, far from the brash celebrity his talent might justify. He is, in the truest sense, a prodigy: someone whose gifts seem to exceed what human effort alone could produce.
If he keeps his head on his shoulders — as the older generation quietly prays — Danny Casey may become the greatest player of his generation. He is, quite simply, extraordinary.
At just nineteen, Danny Casey has already become the most electrifying young talent in British football. Born in the west of Ireland, he arrived in England with little more than his genius and his green eyes — and proceeded to rewrite what was possible on a football pitch.
Casey's technique is deceptive in its simplicity. He does not bully defenders — he ghosts past them, as though they exist in a slightly different dimension. Last Saturday's goal against United's opponents was a masterclass: the hover, the hesitation, then the clean, unhesitating strike. Fifty thousand people caught their breath as one.
Off the pitch, those who have met him describe a shy, quietly spoken young man — gentle, almost uncertain, far from the brash celebrity his talent might justify. He is, in the truest sense, a prodigy: someone whose gifts seem to exceed what human effort alone could produce.
If he keeps his head on his shoulders — as the older generation quietly prays — Danny Casey may become the greatest player of his generation. He is, quite simply, extraordinary.
Writing Rubric
| Criterion | Excellent (4–5) | Good (2–3) | Needs Work (0–1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content | Specific, vivid details; clear admiration communicated | General statements; some vivid moments | Vague, no specific detail |
| Structure | Logical flow from hook → background → achievement → vision | Mostly organised; some abrupt transitions | Disorganised, no clear structure |
| Language | Varied vocabulary; figurative language used effectively | Adequate vocabulary; some repetition | Simple, repetitive language |
| Accuracy | No grammatical or spelling errors | Minor errors that don't impede meaning | Frequent errors affecting clarity |
Talking About the Text — Discussion
1. "Sophie's dreams and disappointments are all in her mind." Discuss.L5 Evaluate
This statement is literally true — Sophie's meeting with Casey almost certainly did not happen, and her boutique ambitions are far beyond her means. But "all in her mind" need not be dismissive. The mind is where all meaningful human experience begins. Sophie's fantasies are not pathological: they give her a dignity and interiority that her circumstances deny her. Without them, she would be only what the world sees — a girl earmarked for the biscuit factory. With them, she is a person of unlimited aspiration. The tragedy is not that she dreams, but that her world offers so little to catch those dreams when they fall.
2. Is it natural for teenagers to have unrealistic dreams? What are the benefits and disadvantages of such fantasising?L6 Create
Benefits: Fantasy develops the imagination and keeps aspiration alive; it can be the first stage of genuine ambition; it provides psychological comfort in difficult circumstances; it is part of identity formation — we try on possible selves before choosing one. Disadvantages: Unrealistic fantasy can prevent practical action; it can lead to painful disappointment; it can be used as a substitute for real effort; it can damage relationships when others (like Jansie) must bear the burden of disbelief. Balance: The healthiest development transforms fantasy into vision, then vision into plan. Sophie's tragedy is that she has no mechanism for that transformation — her circumstances offer no bridge from the imagined to the achievable.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Going Places – 2 Exercises about in NCERT English?
Going Places – 2 Exercises is a lesson from the NCERT English textbook that covers important literary and language concepts. The lesson includes vocabulary, literary devices, comprehension exercises, and writing tasks aligned to the CBSE curriculum.
What vocabulary is important in Going Places – 2 Exercises?
Key vocabulary words from Going Places – 2 Exercises are highlighted throughout with contextual meanings, usage examples, and interesting facts. Click any highlighted word to see its full definition and example sentence.
What literary devices are used in Going Places – 2 Exercises?
Going Places – 2 Exercises uses various literary devices including imagery, symbolism, and figurative language. These are identified with coloured tags throughout the text for easy recognition and understanding by students.
What exercises are included for Going Places – 2 Exercises?
Exercises include extract-based comprehension questions in CBSE board exam format, grammar workshops connected to the passage, vocabulary activities, and creative writing tasks with model answers provided.
How does Going Places – 2 Exercises help in board exam preparation?
Going Places – 2 Exercises includes CBSE-format extract-based questions, long answer practice with model responses, and grammar exercises that mirror board exam patterns. All questions follow Bloom's Taxonomy levels L1-L6.
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