Chapter 1: A Letter to God – Class 10 English Question Answer
Lesson: A Letter to God | Author: G. L. Fuentes
This chapter contains the textbook activities, comprehension questions, language exercises and poems included in Unit 1. The answers below are written in clear, exam-friendly English and checked against the standard Class 10 SEBA/NCERT chapter coverage .
I. Oral Comprehension Check – Page 5
1. What did Lencho hope for?
Answer: Lencho hoped for a good shower of rain because his ripe corn crop needed rain for a good harvest.
2. Why did Lencho say that the raindrops were like new coins?
Answer: Lencho believed that the rain would produce a good harvest and bring him money. Therefore, he compared the large raindrops with ten-cent coins and the smaller ones with five-cent coins.
3. How did the rain change? What happened to Lencho’s fields?
Answer: The rain suddenly changed into a severe hailstorm. Large hailstones fell for about an hour and completely destroyed Lencho’s crop. The trees also lost their leaves.
4. What were Lencho’s feelings when the hail stopped?
Answer: Lencho was deeply sad and worried. His entire crop had been destroyed, so he feared that his family would have no corn to eat or sell that year.
II. Oral Comprehension Check – Page 6
1. Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do?
Answer: Lencho had complete faith in God. After the hailstorm destroyed his crop, he wrote a letter to God asking for one hundred pesos so that he could sow his field again and support his family until the next crop.
2. Who read the letter?
Answer: A postman noticed the letter and showed it to the postmaster. The postmaster then read it.
3. What did the postmaster do then?
Answer: The postmaster was impressed by Lencho’s faith. He collected money from his employees and contributed part of his own salary. He managed to send Lencho seventy pesos in an envelope.
III. Oral Comprehension Check – Page 7
1. Was Lencho surprised to find a letter for him with money in it?
Answer: No. Lencho was not surprised because he had complete faith that God would answer his request.
2. What made him angry?
Answer: Lencho became angry because the envelope contained only seventy pesos instead of the one hundred pesos he had requested. He believed that God could not have made such a mistake and concluded that the post-office employees had taken the remaining money.
IV. Thinking about the Text
1. Who does Lencho have complete faith in? What does he do?
Answer: Lencho has complete faith in God. After losing his crop, he writes directly to God and asks for one hundred pesos to recover from the loss and continue farming.
2. Why does the postmaster send money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter ‘God’?
Answer: The postmaster wants to preserve Lencho’s strong faith in God. He signs the letter ‘God’ so that Lencho will believe that his prayer has truly been answered.
3. Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?
Answer: No. Lencho never tried to discover the real sender because his faith in God was absolute. He was convinced that God had sent the money.
4. Who does Lencho think has taken the rest of the money? What is the irony in the situation?
Answer: Lencho thinks that the post-office employees have taken the remaining thirty pesos. The irony is that the employees, especially the postmaster, were actually the people who collected and sent the money to help him.
5. Are there people like Lencho in the real world? What kind of people would you say they are?
Answer: Yes, there are people who possess very strong faith. Such people may remain hopeful even in difficult situations, although blind faith can sometimes prevent them from recognizing the help and kindness of other people.
V. Thinking about Language
1. Match the storm-related words with their meanings.
- Cyclone: A violent tropical storm in which strong winds move in a circular pattern.
- Gale: An extremely strong wind.
- Typhoon: A violent tropical storm with very strong winds.
- Tornado: A violent storm with a funnel-shaped cloud at its centre.
- Hurricane: A very powerful storm, especially in the western Atlantic region.
- Whirlwind: A strong, rapidly rotating wind that can cause considerable damage.
2. Join the sentences using relative clauses.
- I often go to Mumbai, which is the commercial capital of India.
- My mother, who cooks very well, is going to host a television show on cooking.
- These sportspersons, whose performance has been excellent, are going to meet the President.
- Lencho prayed to God, whose eyes see into our minds.
- This man, whom I trusted, cheated me.
3. Rewrite the sentences using negatives for emphasis.
- All the leaves had fallen from the trees. → Not a leaf remained on the trees.
- The letter was addressed directly to God. → It was nothing less than a letter to God.
- The postman had never seen such an address before. → Never in his career as a postman had he known such an address.
VI. Metaphors Used in the Chapter
Clouds: The clouds are compared with huge mountains because of their massive appearance.
Raindrops: They are compared with new coins because Lencho associates rain with the money he expects from a good harvest.
Hailstones: They are compared with frozen pearls and silver coins because of their appearance and value in Lencho’s imagination.
Locusts: They are described as a plague because they can destroy crops on a large scale.
VII. Poem – Dust of Snow
1. What is a ‘dust of snow’? What change does it bring in the poet?
Answer: A ‘dust of snow’ means fine particles of snow. When a crow shakes snow from a hemlock tree onto the poet, the simple incident changes his sad mood. It helps him recover a part of the day that he had been regretting.
VIII. Poem – Fire and Ice
1. What do fire and ice stand for?
Answer: Fire represents uncontrolled desire, greed and passion, while ice represents hatred, coldness and indifference. The poet suggests that either kind of destructive human emotion can bring about the end of the world.
2. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?
Answer: The rhyme scheme is ABAABCBCB.
IX. Value-Based Question
Was Lencho justified in accusing the post-office employees?
Answer: No, Lencho was not justified in accusing the employees. They had actually helped him by collecting money and sending him seventy pesos. His accusation resulted from his absolute faith in God and his inability to imagine that human beings could be responsible for the help he received. His faith is admirable, but his failure to appreciate the kindness of the postmaster and his colleagues makes his reaction ironic and somewhat ungrateful.
Exam Note
Important themes: faith in God, hope, human kindness, irony, innocence and the contrast between faith and reality.