NCERT Solutions for Class 7 English Chapter 3 Dreams and Discoveries (PDF) – 2027

Zero (shunya, 0). Ancient Indian mathematicians first used zero as a number. It gives digits their place value (5, 50, 500), and computers do all their work with just 0 and 1.

Yoga. It is an ancient Indian practice that joins postures (asanas), breathing and meditation, so it works on both the body and the mind. Today it is practised all over the world.

Without inventions and discoveries, life would be slow, hard and short. We would walk everywhere, because there would be no wheel or engine. Without electricity, the day would end at sunset. Without medicines, a simple fever could kill. Without printing and the internet, knowledge would spread only by word of mouth. Inventions have made our lives easier, safer and longer.

The five words are CREATIVITY, CURIOSITY, RISK-TAKING, DETERMINATION and IMAGINATION.

Yes, he kept his promise, though only just. Anand did not switch on the time machine himself; he fell asleep as soon as his parents left. It was Boppa, the thief, who started it after Anand sent him into that room: “My time machine, he’s started it!”

The correct order is 4 → 1 → 5 → 3 → 2.

1. (4) Anita wakes Anand up, informing him that someone is trying to get into the house.
2. (1) The door swings open, and they see Boppa, standing there with an evil grin.
3. (5) Anand misleads Boppa into entering his room instead of his father’s room.
4. (3) Mrs. Sharma, her husband, and Dr. Mohan unlock the door and enter the house to help the children.
5. (2) Boppa is nowhere to be found, but his green scarf is lying near the time machine.

When Anita says, “…let me put you in the picture”, she wants to introduce the situation for the benefit of the readers.

To ‘put someone in the picture’ means to give them the background they need, so Anita is introducing herself and her brother.

A. dismantling and creating — Anand takes gadgets apart for their parts and keeps creating ‘inventions’ out of them.

B. creative and experimental — he invents a burglar alarm and a time machine, and tries them out at home.

Anand thinks he is a real scientist — even a genius — whose carefully planned inventions deserve respect. Anita thinks he only ‘thinks he is a scientist’. To her he is a troublesome younger brother whose ‘inventions’ never work as they are supposed to and who keeps getting on Papa’s nerves. Still, she teases him fondly and helps him.

Anita was angry with Anand because he sent the thief into his own room instead of upstairs to their father’s room, and she feared that Boppa would come back ‘as mad as mad can be’ when he found out.

When Boppa asked where their father’s room was, Anand quickly said, “The one next to this one.” He sent the thief into his own room instead of upstairs. This bought the children time to think and to shout for help.

B. Anand’s time machine getting activated — Anand gasps, “My time machine, he’s started it!”, and later the machine is still humming softly.

(c) C and E — the atmosphere is tense and suspenseful. The children are locked in with a thief in the house, and we hear only a crash, a scream and strange noises from the next room.

There had been a rush of thefts in the colony, so Anand ‘got it into his head that what was needed was a burglar alarm’. As soon as Papa left for the office and Ma for the market, he started building it.

Anand rigged the alarm to work only when the door was opened gently, because he thought a thief would open it stealthily. But Papa always opens the door softly. So when Papa came home, the alarm went off, the water bag fell on him, and he was left ‘sopping wet and scowling’.

• Papa was angry and strict. He scolded Anand, said “When I say NO, I mean NO,” locked up his tool box and later had the time machine dismantled.
• Ma was gentle and protective. She calmed Papa and asked him to at least look at the machine, but she kept a wary eye on her oven and mixer.
• Anita was doubtful but still helped him. She kept her doubts to herself and warned him not to involve her if he got into trouble.

He became completely absorbed in his work. He took apart gadgets in the house for parts, filled the house with ‘hammering and sawing and clattering’, let no one into his room, and stopped caring about his looks — he did not even comb his hair. He kept this up for a fortnight.

Mr. Sharma thought it was only a child’s imagination. To an adult it seemed far more likely that Boppa had run out of the house unnoticed than that he had travelled through time. So he smiled ‘indulgently’ and said, “What an imagination this boy has!”

A month later, Papa was reading the newspaper when he suddenly went pale. It showed an old painting, two hundred years old, found in a museum in Kolkata. In one corner stood a startled man holding a short, thick stick — just like Boppa’s cudgel. Anand looked at it and smiled. “I told you,” he said. “My time machine worked!” Papa said nothing, but he quietly unlocked his tool box.

1. (i) This project will be a make-or-break moment for our team’s success.
2. (ii) After a long journey, we were relieved to arrive home safe and sound.
3. (iii) Every friendship works well when there is a balance of give and take.
4. (iv) She organised all the odds and ends in the cupboard, to make space for new clothes.
5. (v) Before making a decision, it is important to weigh the pros and cons carefully.
6. (vi) This is our final chance to perform on stage, it is now or never.

It had been raining and we (i) ran out of time to set up for the function, so we quickly (ii) rigged up some decorations using whatever materials we had. We accidentally (iii) tripped off the fire alarm because of the smoke from the bonfire. Thankfully, the rain (iv) let up just as the guests were arriving, and despite all the chaos, the function (v) turned out to be a huge success.

Shekhar knew he would get a shelling for breaking his mother’s favourite flower vase.

Get a shelling means to be scolded severely.

We fell over ourselves trying to help the injured dog and get it to the vet as quickly as possible.

Fall over oneself means to be very eager (and a little clumsy) in trying to do something.

Faizy distracted Kanchan, leaving the coast clear for us to get inside the room to prepare the birthday surprise.

Leave the coast clear means to make sure no one is watching, so that it is safe to act.

The constant power fluctuations during meetings can get on our nerves.

Get on someone’s nerves means to irritate or annoy them.

When I am alone at home, any unexpected loud noise in the night can frighten me half to death.

Frighten someone half to death means to frighten them very badly.

(i) After Rohan A. had finished his homework, he B. decided to go for a walk. He C. left the house and D. realised he E. had forgotten his keys inside.

(ii) By the time we A. reached the station, the train B. had already left. We C. waited for the next one to arrive.

The true statements are 2 and 3.

Toby: I miss my people and home.

Toby: Well, we Martians don’t need to eat anything. We get our energy from the Sun.

Anita: Oh! Don’t you ever feel like having ice creams and chocolates?

Anita: Okay, tell me one thing. How are you able to see with only one eye?

Toby: I can see beyond mountains and clouds, woods and even metals.

Nothing blocks Toby’s sight — he can even see the toy aeroplane in Anita’s pocket.

Read the passage slowly first, marking every –ough word with the box it belongs to, then read it again at normal speed. Here is the key you need:

Break the twister into its five sound groups before you speed up:

Say it slowly three times, keeping each vowel sound different; then say it faster. Clear sounds first, speed afterwards.

Sample answer (Electrician): I would like to become an electrician, because electricians bring light and power to our homes. After Class 10, I would do a two-year ITI course and then train under an experienced electrician. My tools would include a tester, screwdrivers, pliers, wire strippers, a multimeter and rubber gloves. I would work with helpers, plumbers and masons, and teamwork would matter because each job depends on the others. I would treat customers politely, explain problems honestly and tell them the cost first. I would do this work with pride, because safe wiring protects people’s lives.

Sample answer — more Indian inventors and their inventions:

• Sir J.C. Bose — the crescograph, which measures the growth of plants.
• Sir C.V. Raman — the Raman Effect in the scattering of light (Nobel Prize, 1930).
• Sir M. Visvesvaraya — automatic sluice gates for dams.
• Shankar Abaji Bhise — a type-casting machine for printing.
• Dr. Tessy Thomas — led the Agni missile projects.

When I think of paper boats, I remember the first heavy rain, when the drain outside our house becomes a little stream. Children fold boats from old notebook pages and race them. A paper boat reminds me that we need very little to be happy — one sheet of paper and some running water.

They hope the boat will travel far and reach a place and a person they have never seen. They may also send a wish or a message with it, hoping that someone downstream will find it and think of them.

The poem is probably about a child who floats paper boats on a stream during the rains. It may describe where the boats go, who might find them and what the child dreams about. It may also be about sending a message or a wish out into the world.

1. stream, 2. village, 3. strange, 4. shiuli, 5. night, 6. clouds, 7. float, 8. dreams

(iv) 1, 2 and 4 — innocence, imagination and playfulness.

The child’s simple trust (innocence), his dreams about clouds and fairies (imagination) and his daily game with boats (playfulness) run through the poem.

True. The poem is set out of doors, in nature — the running stream, the garden, the sky, the little clouds and the midnight stars.

The tone is gentle and wishful and the mood is thoughtful.

The child keeps hoping that someone will find his boats and that his flowers will reach land safely, and the poem leaves us quiet and thinking.

Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words close together. Examples from the poem:

• ‘In big black letters’ — /b/
• ‘someone in some strange land’ — /s/
• ‘I load my little boats’ — /l/
• ‘The fairies of sleep are sailing in them’ — /s/

The repetition of the words ‘day’ (in Day by day) and ‘on’ (in float on and on) emphasises the passage of time.

The poet uses imagery like ‘the little clouds setting the white bulging sails’ and ‘the midnight stars’ to create a clear picture in the minds of the readers.

Other images you may use: ‘big black letters’, ‘shiuli flower’, ‘blooms of the dawn’, ‘baskets full of dreams’.

Option A — the child lying curled up on one side with the arms drawn up to the face. It best matches the line ‘I bury my face in my arms’.

He feels calm, happy and safe when night comes. He goes to sleep willingly, burying his face in his arms, and looks forward to dreaming that his paper boats float on under the midnight stars, with gentle fairies of sleep sailing in them.

B. gentle — the fairies quietly sail the boats and carry ‘baskets full of dreams’. They do nothing mischievous, fearsome or playful.

…the speaker imagines the fairies of sleep carefully carrying his dreams in their baskets.

Lading means the load a boat carries, so the fairies are carrying his dreams, not collecting them.

He writes his name and the name of his village on the boats because he hopes that someone in some strange land will find them and know who he is. The boats carry a message about him to the wider world. This shows his innocent trust in strangers and his wish to be known and remembered.

The poem shows a child’s imagination in many ways:

• He believes his paper boats will reach ‘some strange land’ and that a stranger there will know who he is.
• He sees the little clouds as boats with ‘white bulging sails’.
• He imagines an unseen playmate in the sky who sends the clouds to race with his boats.
• He dreams that the fairies of sleep sail his boats with ‘baskets full of dreams’.

The poet begins with real things and lets the child’s imagination grow out of them. Real paper boats on a stream become messages to a strange land. Real clouds become sails raced by a playmate in the sky. Going to sleep becomes a dream of fairies sailing the boats under the midnight stars. Because the real details are simple and familiar, we easily accept the imagined ones.

Any word of Column 1 may join any word of Column 2, so long as the picture makes sense. Here are the strongest combinations:

The true statements are 2, 3, 5 and 6.

“Good morning, everyone. Today, I’m going to show you a pen stand I made. This pen stand is made of half a coconut shell and old newspaper. It’s brown and round, and it can be used to hold pens and pencils. First, I started by cleaning and drying the shell. Then, I used glue to paste strips of newspaper on it. The most difficult part was to keep the strips smooth at the edge. This pen stand is special to me because it is made from waste. I hope you enjoyed seeing my craft and learning about it. Thank you for your attention.”

Friday, 15 July 20XX
6:30 p.m.

Dear Diary,

It was quite humid today. On my journey back from school, I wished that it would rain. And it did! The first drops fell on the hot road, and the air smelt of wet earth. I reached home fully drenched, but I did not mind at all. Amma made hot pakoras for us. Later, my friend Meera and I floated paper boats in the stream of rainwater outside our house and ran beside them, laughing. It was the happiest day of the week. I hope it rains again tomorrow.

Shiuli is called harsingar or parijat in Hindi; in English it is the night-flowering jasmine.

Sample answer — fragrant flowers in my locality:

Then draw any two of these flowers, for example the rose and the mogra, and colour them.

The sea (the ocean).

A pond (a lake). Its still water sits in one place and mirrors the world; people take a dip in it, and ducks, frogs and fish live in it.

A stream (a brook). It is small, gentle and crystal clear, it ‘skips along’, and children float paper boats on it in the rain.

A river. A river has a bed and a bank (but does not sleep or keep money), and it flows from high mountains to meet the sea.

The place I enjoyed most was Hampi in Karnataka. I went there last December with my parents and my cousin. We travelled by an overnight bus from Bengaluru and then cycled around the ruins of the old Vijayanagara city. I learnt that a place can teach history better than a book, and that travelling slowly helps you notice much more.

Fill in the six rows for your own State or Union Territory. Two filled examples are given below so that you can see the level of detail expected.

India has five States with ‘Pradesh’ in the name, so add a fifth row to the four printed in the book. (Pradesh means ‘region’ or ‘province’.)

D. wonder — she is amazed that such a place exists and that trees can grow in seawater.

Amma is sad about the frequent flooding in the Sundarbans because the floods are much worse than before, and they harm the rare mangrove forests, the animals that live there and the people of the area.

The line is: “We also saw crocodiles and a lonely snake while boating. I hope they don’t follow us home.”

Her hope that the crocodiles and the snake ‘don’t follow us home’ shows a small, half-joking fear.

A. Both the assertion and the reason are true, and the reason correctly explains the assertion.

Her questions ‘How is everyone? Are you missing me yet?’ show that she is thinking of her friends and misses them.

The speaker chooses to stay awake because she loves looking out of the window at the new sights — the plateaus, hills, beaches and tunnels of Goa.

She means that the plateaus are so beautiful that a description cannot do them justice — her friends would have to see them to believe her.

It is a friendly way of saying that the view is too lovely to describe.

A. from fear to comfort — ‘I used to be afraid of tunnels, but I’m not any more.’

The speaker’s wish indicates her sense of connection as well as the value she places on shared experiences with her peers.

Most likely she was scared of the sudden darkness inside a tunnel. When a train enters a tunnel, the daylight vanishes, the noise gets louder, and she cannot see where she is going or how long it will last. Closed, dark spaces often frighten children.

Yes. Amma and Appa enjoyed themselves just like children:

• In Kashmir, they threw snowballs at each other.
• On the way to Puducherry, they ‘splashed water on each other and behaved like children’. Shaana jokes that it was good she was there ‘to control them’.
• They went rafting on the Narmada and diving at Olaikaadu beach.

These observations show that the climate is changing. Less snow on the glacier shows that warmer weather is melting the ice. More flooding in the Sundarbans suggests rising sea levels and stronger storms. Both are harming India’s natural places and the people who live there.

Shaana sees almost every kind of landform in India: glaciers in Kashmir, mountains in Himachal Pradesh, thick forests in Arunachal Pradesh, wetlands and mangroves in the Sundarbans, a desert in Gujarat, a fast river (the Narmada), plateaus and hills in Goa, and beaches and the sea in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. In her last postcard she says she will miss ‘the forests, glaciers, deserts, wetlands, plateaus, and mountains’.

Shaana writes the way a child talks. She shows excitement with exclamations like ‘You won’t believe where I am!’ and ‘Today was the best day ever!’. She shows curiosity by asking questions and sharing new words — ‘Did you know…?’, ‘wetlands’, ‘mangroves’. She makes her fears seem small with humour: ‘I hope they don’t follow us home’ and ‘I used to be afraid of tunnels, but I’m not any more.’

Shaana learnt that India is vast and varied — it has glaciers, forests, wetlands, deserts, rivers, plateaus and beaches, and many languages and peoples. She saw that nature is under strain, with less snow and more floods, and she became braver too. Her travels would make India real to her, not just a map, and help her respect its differences and care for its natural places.

The postcard form makes the text personal, lively and easy to follow. Each short, dated postcard lets Shaana describe a place while the experience is fresh. It lets the author jump quickly from one place to the next across India. Because she writes to her classmates, she can ask questions and joke, so readers feel like her friends receiving the cards.

The six travel words are BOAT, DROVE, TOUR, TRAIN, WALKED and REACHED.

Amma and Appa are fast asleep. — Subject: Amma and Appa; Verb: are

Two nouns joined by ‘and’ take a plural verb.

It‘s hot, dry, and there is sand everywhere. — First clause: subject It, verb ‘s (is). Second clause: verb is, subject sand.

‘It’ and ‘sand’ are singular, so the verb is ‘is’.

There are so many hills here, and beaches too. — Verb: are; Subject: so many hills (and beaches).

After ‘there’, the real subject ‘hills’ is plural, so the verb is ‘are’.

A pair of sunglasses is essential when travelling to sunny destinations.

The subject is ‘pair’, which is singular.

Either the tour guide or the tourists have to arrive first at the meeting point.

The verb agrees with the nearer subject, ‘the tourists’, which is plural.

The information on travel expenses is useful for first-time travellers.

‘Information’ is uncountable, so it takes a singular verb.

Neither the flight crew nor the pilot was aware of the delay.

The verb agrees with the nearer subject, ‘the pilot’, which is singular.

The news about the heavy rains makes many people reconsider their vacation plans.

‘News’ ends in -s but is singular.

A pair of binoculars is useful for spotting wildlife on a safari.

The subject is ‘pair’, which is singular.

The hill stations in India remain a popular travel destination during winter.

The subject ‘the hill stations’ is plural.

Keeping accounts is important for spending money wisely during travel.

The subject is one activity, ‘keeping accounts’, so it is singular.

Either the ticket or the bus passes need to be used for travelling in the tourist bus.

The verb agrees with the nearer subject, ‘the bus passes’, which is plural.

Neither the passengers nor the taxi driver was aware of the best route to the hotel.

The verb agrees with the nearer subject, ‘the taxi driver’, which is singular.

(i) under the agar tree — ‘agar’ is a type of tree and ‘tala’ means underneath.

(i) gharuwood — the speaker says the trees are ‘also called aloeswood, eaglewood, or gharuwood’.

(ii) woody and flowery — ‘like a mix of woody and flowery scents’.

(iii) when the tree gets infected — agarwood forms only when the tree is hurt or infected with a bug or virus.

(ii) perfumes and wood carvings — ‘It’s used to make perfumes, incense, and the hand carvings which Tripura is famous for.’

“I prefer travelling by train to travelling by bus, because a train gives me room to walk about, a window that stays open, and a berth to sleep on for a long journey. A bus seat holds you in one position for eight hours.”

“I like a school trip better than a family trip, as I get to be with thirty friends instead of four relatives, and our teachers plan places we would never think of visiting on our own. I am alright with both, though — a family trip is more relaxed and nobody counts heads every ten minutes.”

“Given a choice, I would go for the mountains over the beaches, as the air is cool all day and there is always a higher path to climb. Shaana’s Himachal postcard says it best — ‘It is very quiet, and we can see so many mountains from our cabin.'”

“Adventure activities appeal to me more than sightseeing, as I remember the things I did far longer than the things I looked at. I would rather go rafting on the Narmada for one afternoon than see six temples from the window of a bus.”

“I prefer travelling in winter to travelling in summer, because I can walk about all day without getting tired by the heat, and most places are at their best — the hills are clear and the beaches are pleasant. In summer, sightseeing has to stop between eleven and four.”

“Wildlife sanctuaries are better than historic monuments for me, because a monument stays the same however many times you go, but a sanctuary is different every single morning. I am alright with both, but I prefer the sanctuary as I would like to see a red panda, the way Shaana hoped to in Arunachal.”

“I would rather take a long trip than a short one, because a short trip is spent mostly in getting there and coming back. On a long trip you stop hurrying — by the third or fourth day you begin to notice the food, the language and the way people live, which is what Shaana discovered over her two months.”

14, Kaveri Street, Anna Nagar
Madurai
Tamil Nadu
18 August 20XX

The Principal
Green Valley Public School
Madurai
Tamil Nadu

Subject: Request for leave for four days

Dear Madam,

I am writing to request four days leave with effect from 22 August to 25 August 20XX in order to attend my elder sister’s wedding in our hometown, Thanjavur.

I would like to assure you that I would collect the notes and homework from my classmates and complete all pending work by 27 August.

I would be grateful if you could grant me the leave.

Yours sincerely,
R. Meera
Class VII, Section B, Roll Number 21

Each clue names a landmark; the answer is the State or Union Territory where it is.

A unique place in my state, Gujarat, is the Sun Temple at Modhera. It was built nearly a thousand years ago, in 1026–27 CE, in the reign of King Bhima I. In front of the temple is a large stepped tank with 108 small shrines on its steps. Every January a dance festival is held there. The Archaeological Survey of India protects the site.

Sample answer — our findings:

• When: every year from 1 to 10 December; 1 December is Nagaland’s Statehood Day.
• Where: the Naga Heritage Village at Kisama, near Kohima.
• Who takes part: all the major Naga tribes, with artists and craftspeople; visitors come from India and abroad.
• Purpose: to protect and show Naga culture, bring the tribes together and promote tourism.
• Events: traditional dances and songs, indigenous games, archery and wrestling, craft and food stalls, and a rock music contest.