About This Section
This section collects previous-year Board examination questions (CBSE and State Boards) from Chapter 5, with model answers, to show the pattern and depth expected in the exam.
Board PYQ — Very Short Answer (1 mark)
Q1. What is calligraphy? Ans. The art of beautiful and stylised writing.
Q2. Who brought woodblock printing knowledge to Europe? Ans. Marco Polo.
Q3. What was the Bibliotheque Bleue? Ans. Cheap, low-priced small books in France bound in blue covers.
Board PYQ — Short Answer (3 marks)
Q4. Why did the print revolution create a new reading public? Ans. Printing reduced the cost and labour of producing books, so multiple copies could be made and books flooded the market, reaching far more people. Earlier reading was limited to elites; now cheaper, plentiful books — and illustrated ballads read aloud — created a new and wider reading public.
Q5. How did print help connect communities and create pan-Indian identities? Ans. Newspapers conveyed news from one place to another, so people in different parts of India learnt of common events and shared ideas. This flow of information connected communities and helped create a sense of pan-Indian identity.
Board PYQ — Short Answer (3 marks)
Q6. What were the effects of print culture for the poor people in nineteenth-century India? Ans. Very cheap books reached the poor in markets (as in Madras), and public libraries expanded access. Print gave a voice to protest against caste injustice — Jyotiba Phule's Gulamgiri (1871), and later Ambedkar and Periyar — and mill workers set up libraries for self-education.
Q7. Why did Gandhi say that the fight for Swaraj was a fight for liberty of speech, the press and freedom of association? Ans. Because Gandhi saw these three as the powerful vehicles for expressing and cultivating public opinion. The colonial government was trying to crush them, so defending this threatened freedom was, for Gandhi, essential to the very fight for Swaraj.
Board PYQ — Long Answer (5 marks)
Q8. Explain the role of print in shaping the religious reform movements and public debates in nineteenth-century India. Ans. Debates over issues like widow immolation, idolatry and Brahmanical priesthood were carried out in public and in print. Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi (1821) and the orthodoxy replied with the Samachar Chandrika. The ulama used lithographic presses, and the Deoband Seminary (1867) issued fatwas; Hindu texts like the Ramcharitmanas (printed 1810) were sold cheaply. Thus print let a wider public join debates, spreading and shaping new religious ideas.
Q9. Explain the developments in printing technology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ans. The metal press replaced the wooden one; Richard M. Hoe perfected the power-driven cylindrical press (8,000 sheets/hour, useful for newspapers); the offset press could print six colours; and electric presses followed from the turn of the twentieth century. Publishers also serialised novels, sold cheap 'Shilling Series' and, during the Great Depression, brought out cheap paperbacks.