Source based QUestions

Question 1.
Read the below passage and answer the following questions:

According to the Bible, the flood was meant to destroy all life on earth.
However, God chose a man, Noah, to ensure that the life could continue
after the flood. Noah built a huge boat, an ark. He took a pair each of all
known species of animals and birds on boat the Ark, which survived the
flood. There was a strikingly similar story in the Mesopotamian tradition,
where the principal character was called Ziusudra or Utnapishtim.

(a) Who was chosen by God to save Life on earth? [1]

(b) How Noah saved the World? [1]
(c) What is Ziusudra? [2]

Answer:
(a) Noah

(b) He took a pair each of all known species of animals and birds on boat,
the ark, which survived the flood.

(c) Ziusudra is the Sumerian counterpart of Noah.

Question 2.
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

In Benedictine monasteries, there was a manuscript with 73 chapters of rules which

were followed by monks for many centuries. Here are some of the rules they had to
follow:
Chapter 6: Permission to speak should rarely be granted to monks.
Chapter 7: Humility means obedience.
Chapter 33: No monk should own private property.
Chapter 47: Idleness is the enemy of the soul, so friars and sisters should be occupied
at certain times in manual labour, and at fixed hours in sacred reading.
Chapter 48: The monastery should be laid out in such a way that all necessities be
found within its bounds: water, mill, garden, workshops.

(a) Who were monks?

(b) Mention any two differences between the two orders of the religious feudal
category.
(c) What were friars?

Answer:
(a) Monks were men who dedicated their lives to religious service. They lived in
monasteries, which were self-sufficient communities that provided for all of their
needs.

(b) Bishops took taxes; monks do not take any taxes in name of church. Bishops lived
in the city area with luxuries, but monks lived in isolation in monasteries. Women
cannot be bishops, but women can become nuns.

(c) Friar is a term for a member of a mendicant religious order. Mendicant orders are
religious orders that rely on begging for their food and other necessities. They often
preach, teach, and work with the poor and marginalised.
Question 3.
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote about human nature in the fifteenth chapter of his book, The
Prince (1513). ‘So, leaving aside imaginary things, and referring only to those which truly
exist, I say that whenever men are discussed (and especially princes, who are more
exposed to view), they are noted for various qualities which earn them either praise or
condemnation. Some, for example, are held to be generous, and others miserly.

Some are held to be benefactors, others are called grasping, some cruel, some
compassionate; one man faithless, another faithful; one man effeminate and cowardly,
another fierce and courageous; one man courteous, another proud; one man lascivious,
another pure; one guileless, another crafty; one stubborn, another flexible; one grave,
another frivolous; one religious, another skeptical; and so forth.’ Machiavelli believed
that ‘all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature partly because of the
fact that human desires are insatiable’. The most powerful motive Machiavelli saw as
the incentive for every human action is self-interest.

(a) Name the book written by Machiavelli.

(b) Highlight the important aspect which the book depicts.
(c) What did the author believe?

Answer:

(a) The book written by Machiavelli is “The Prince”(1513).

(b) The important aspect which the book depicts is the nature of man. Machiavelli
believed that men are inherently selfish and ambitious and that they will always act in
their own self-interest.
(c) Machiavelli believed that ‘all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious
nature partly because of the fact that human desires are insatiable’. The most
powerful motive Machiavelli saw as the incentive for every human action is self-
interest.

Question 4.
Read the below passage and answer the following questions.

‘Soon afterwards the City Prefect, Lucius Pedanius Secundus, was murdered by one of
his slaves. After the murder, ancient custom required that every slave residing under the
same roof must be executed. But a crowd gathered, eager to save so many innocent
lives; and rioting began. The senate-house was besieged. Inside, there was feeling
against excessive severity, but the majority opposed any change. The senators
favouring execution prevailed. However, great crowds ready with stones and torches
prevented the order from being carried out. Nero rebuked the population by edict, and
lined with troops the whole route along which those condemned were taken for
execution.’
(a) In whose reign did the incident occur? What does the passage reflect about the
treatment of slaves?
(b) Why did the slave labour declined after the first century?
(c) Was Roman society a slave society. Give 2 points in support of your argument?

Answer:
(a) This occurred in the reign of emperor Nero. The slaves were treated as property of
the master, his authority over the slave was absolute. Slaves had no identity of their
own and suffered complete legal deprivation and this denied them any sort of place in
the society.

(b) Slave labour declined after the first century because it was a period of peace,
Usually, it was the war prisoners who were made slaves. AS the wars decreased, so did
the number of war prisoners.

(c) Slaves were found in all sectors of the economy, agriculture, handicrafts
production, mining, etc.
yet it was not a Slave society because:

• Bulk of the labour may have been performed by the slaves in the republican period
in large parts of Italy but it was not true for the empire as a whole.
• There were other kinds of labour also like peasants, small freeholders, labourers,
tenants, share croppers.
Question 5.
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

The Olduvai Gorge was first ‘discovered’ in the early twentieth century by a German
butterfly collector. However, Olduvai has come to be identified with Mary and Louis
Leakey, who worked here for over 40 years. It was Mary Leakey who directed
archaeological excavations at Olduvai and Laet oli and she made some of the most
exciting discoveries. This is what Louis Leakey wrote about one of their most
remarkable finds: ‘That morning I woke with a headache and a slight fever. Reluctantly, I
agreed to spend the day in camp.

With one of us out of commission, it was even more vital for the other to continue the
work, for our precarious seven-week season was running out. So Mary departed for the
diggings with Sally and Toots [two of their dogs] in the land-Rover la jeep-like vehicle],
and I settled back to a restless day off. Sometime later – perhaps I dozed off — I heard
the Land Rover coming up fast to camp. I had a momentary vision of Mary stung by one
of our hundreds of resident scorpions or bitten by a snake that had slipped past the
dogs.

The Land-Rover rattled to a stop, and I heard Mary’s voice calling over and over: “I’ve got
him! I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” Still groggy from the headache, I couldn’t make her out.
“Got what? Are you hurt?” I asked. “Him, the man! Our man,” Mary said. “The one we’ve
been looking for 23 years. Come quick, I’ve found his teeth!”

(a) With whom is the Olduvai Gorge find associated with?

(b) How did the genus derive his name?
(c) Give four differences between the genus and the modern human.
Answer:

(a) The Olduvai gorge find is associated with Mary Leakay and Louis Leakay.

(b) The word Australopithecus is derived from Latin and Greek words. ‘Austrail’ means
southern and pithekos’ means ape. The earliest form of humans still retained many
features of the ape and hence was given this name

.
(c) The differences between the genus and the modem humans are as follows:

• Their brain size is smaller than the humans.

• They had large black teeth.
• Their hand movement was limited.
• As the genus spent a long time on trees which is evident from their long
forelimbs, curved hands and foot bones and mobile joints.

Question 6.
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

These revolutionary ideas attracted attention in many other universities, particularly in

the newly established university in Petrarch’s own hometown of Florence. Till the end of
the thirteenth century, this city had not made a mark as a centre of trade or of learning,
but things changed dramatically in the fifteenth century. A city is known by its great
citizens as much as by its wealth, and Florence had come to be known because of
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a layman who wrote on religious themes, and Giotto (1267-
1337), an artist who painted life-like portraits, very different from the stiff figures done
by earlier artists. From then it developed as the most exciting intellectual city in Italy
and as a centre of artistic creativity. The term ‘Renaissance Man’ is often used to
describe a person with many interests and skills, because many of the individuals who
became well known at this time were people of many parts. They were scholar
diplomat-theologian-artist combined in one.

(a) What is the literal meaning of the term Renaissance? [1]

(b) Who was Petrarch? [1]
(c) Who were referred as ‘Renaissance men’? [2]

Answer:

(a) The literal meaning of the term Renaissance is Rebirth.

(b) He was a great poet and historian of Italy.

(c) The term ‘Renaissance Man’ is often used to describe a person with many
interests and skills, because many of the individuals who became well known at this
time were people of many parts. They were scholar diplomat-theologian artists
combined in one.

Question 7.
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

Apart from the Church, devout Christians had another kind of organisation. Some deeply
religious people chose to live isolated lives, in contrast to clerics who lived amongst
people in towns and villages. They lived in religious communities called abbeys or
monasteries, often in places very far from human habitation. Two of the more well-
known monasteries were those established by St. Benedict in Italy in 529 and of Cluny
in Burgundy in 910. Monks took vows to remain in the abbey for the rest of their lives
and to spend their time in prayer, study and manual labour, like farming. Unlike
priesthood, this life was open to both men and women/men became monks and women
nuns. Except in a few cases, all abbeys were single-sex communities, that is, there were
separate abbeys for men and women. Like priests, monks, and nuns did not marry.
From small communities of 10 or 20 men/women, monasteries grew to communities
often of several hundred, with large buildings and landed estates, with attached schools
or colleges and hospitals. They contributed to the development of the arts. Abbess
Hildegard was a gifted musician and did much to develop the practice of community
singing of prayers in church. From the thirteenth century, some groups of monks called
friars chose not to be based in a monastery but to move from place to place, preaching
to the people and living on charity.

(a) Who was Abbes Hildegard? [1]

(b) Was he in favour of the Three Orders? [1]
(c) What examples does he give to prove it? [2]

Answer:
(a) Abbess Hildegard was a gifted musician who contributed to the development of
the practice of community singing of prayers in church.

(b) Yes, he was in favour of the three orders.

(c) In support of the division of three orders, Hildegard gives the following examples:

• how a herder never herds his entire cattle in one stable but differentiates
between cows, donkeys, sheep, and goats.
• Though God is the creator of all, yet he does not make all equal. There are
distinctions among his creations.
• God loves all human beings but he does not treat all equally on earth or in
heaven.

Question 8.
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

William Tyndale (1494-1536), an English Lutheran who translated the Bible into English
in 1506, defended Protestantism thus: ‘In this they be all agreed, to drive you from the
knowledge of the scripture, and that ye shall not have the text thereof in the mother
tongue, and to keep the world still in darkness, to the intent they might sit in the
consciences of the people, through vain superstition and false doctrine, to satisfy their
proud ambition, and insatiable covetousness, and to exalt their own honour above king
and emperor, yea, and above God himself… Which thing only moved me to translate the
New Testament. Because I had perceived by experience, how that it was impossible to
establish the lay-people in any truth, except the scripture were plainly laid before their
eyes in their mother-tongue, that they might see the process, order, and meaning of the
text’.

(a) Who was William Tyndale? [1]

(b) What did he seek to achieve by translating the Bible into English? [1]
(c) What were the issues on which the Protestants criticised the Catholic Church? [2]

Answer:
(a) William Tyndale was an English Lutheran who translated the Bible into English in
1506. He was a defender of Protestantism.

(b) By translating the Bible into English, he sought to make the Bible available to the
layman. He also wanted to expose the false practices indulged in by the church in the
name of the sacred text.

(c) The issues criticised were: immoral and luxurious life of the churchmen, sale of
“letters of Indulgence”, their practice of selling offices, Pope’s authority to raise taxes
and fees, and divergence from the religious texts and emphasis on rituals.

Question 9.
Read the below passage and answer the following questions.

In India, early stone seals were stamped. In Mesopotamia until the end of the first
millennium BCE, cylindrical stone seals, pierced down the center, were fitted with a stick
and rolled over wet clay so that a continuous picture was created. They were carved by
very skilled craftsmen, and sometimes carry writing: the name of the owner, his god, his
official position, etc. A seal could be rolled on clay covering the string knot of a cloth
package or the mouth of a pot, keeping the contents safe. When rolled on a letter
written on a clay tablet, it became a mark of authenticity. So the seal was the mark of a
city dweller’s role in public life.

(a) Who carved the seals during Mesopotamian civilisation? [1]

(b) What do you see on each of the seals? [1]
(c) What does the inscribed sign describe? [2]

Answer:
(a) Skilled craftsmen carved the seals in the Mesopotamian civilisation.
(b) The seal depicts a continuous picture which was probably rolled on
clay.
(c) The inscribed sign carries the name of the owner, his God, his official
position, etc. The seal was the mark of a city dweller’s role in public life.

Question 10
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

Following the research of David Ayalon, recent work on the yasa, the code of law that
Genghis Khan was supposed to have promulgated at the quilt of 1206, has elaborated
on the complex ways in which the memory of the Great Khan was fashioned by his
successors. In its earliest formulation, the term was written as yasaq which meant ‘law’,
‘decree’ or ‘order’. Indeed, the few details that we possess about the yasaq concern
administrative regulations: the organisation of the hunt, the army, and the postal
system. By the middle of the thirteenth century, however, the Mongols had started using
the related term yasa in a more general sense to mean the ‘legal code of Genghis Khan’

(a) What was yasa? [1]

(b) What are some of the subjects concerning the yasaq? [1]
(c) Which term was started to be used as the “Legal Code of Genghis Khan” by the
middle of thirteenth century? What term was used for representing Genghis Khan? [2]

Answer:
(a) Yasa was initially written as ‘yasaq’, which meant law, decree or order. Over time,
the term evolved to also represent the ‘Legal Code of Genghis Khan’.

(b) Some of the subjects concerning the yasaq included administrative regulations
related to the organization of the hunt, the army, and the postal system.

(c) The term ‘Yasa’ was started to be used as the “Legal Code of Genghis Khan” by the
middle of the thirteenth century. Genghis Khan was represented by the term ‘Great
Khan’.

Question 11.
The Warka Head
This woman’s head was sculpted in white marble at Uruk before 3000 BCE. The eyes
and eyebrows would probably have taken lapis lazuli (blue) and shell (white) and
bitumen (black) inlays, respectively. There is a groove along the top of the head,
perhaps for an ornament. This is a world-famous piece of sculpture, admired for the
delicate modelling of the woman’s mouth, chin and cheeks. And it was modelled in a
hard stone that could have been imported from a distance.

(a) What is a Warka Head? (1)

(b) In what manner were the eyes and eyebrows of the Warka Head completed? (1)
(c) Why is the Warka Head admired all over the world? (2)

Answer:
(a) This was woman’s head which was sculpted in white marble at Uruk before 3000
BCE.
(b) The eyes and eyebrows would probably have taken lapis lazuli (blue) and shell
(white) and bitumen (black) inlays, respectively.

(c) This is a world-famous piece of sculpture, admired for the delicate modeling of the
woman’s mouth, chin and cheeks.

Question 12
Because of the inadequacy which we often felt on feast days, for the narrowness of the
place forced the women to run towards the altar upon the heads of the men with much
anguish and noisy confusion, [we decided] to enlarge and amplify the noble church. We
also caused to be painted, by the exquisite hands of many masters from different
regions, a splendid variety of new windows… Because these windows are very valuable
on account of their wonderful execution and the profuse expenditure of painted glass
and sapphire glass, we appointed an official master craftsman for their protection, and
also a goldsmith. . .who would receive their allowances, namely, coins from the altar
and flour from the common storehouse of the brethren, and who would never neglect
their duty, to look after these [works of art]. Abbot Suger (1081-1151) about the Abbey
of St Denis, near Paris. Self-made

(a) Define cathedral. (1)

(b) What purpose did the stained windows serve? (1)
(c) What were the vital features of a cathedral and cathedral towns? (2)
Answer:
(a) Large/big churches in the cities.

(b) So that, those who were not educated can understand the real essence of bible as

these windows were very valuable on account of their wonderful execution.

(c) Cathedrals were the big churches and cathedral towns were the new established
towns/cities near these cathedral. These were the sign of the fourth town i.e., end of
feudalism.