NCERT Solutions for Class 9th English Chapter 5 Nine Gold Medals (poem) — Check Your Understanding

Book page 158–160 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.

I. Work in pairs. Match the words and phrases in Column 1 with their meanings in Column 2. You may read the poem again and infer the contextual meaning. Check your answers with the teacher. Column 1 1. dashed in the dirt 2. stumbled 3. staggered 4. anguish 5. asphalt Column 2 (i) walk or move with difficulty (ii) destroyed (iii) a hard black substance used to make roads and paths (iv) step awkwardly, lose balance and almost fall (v) extreme pain or suffering

Answer

Column 1	Column 2	The line it comes from, and how the context proves it
1. dashed in the dirt	(ii) destroyed	“His dreams and his efforts dashed in the dirt” (stanza 5). Dreams cannot literally lie in dust — the phrase is figurative, and the only meaning that fits an abstract noun is ‘destroyed’.
2. stumbled	(iv) step awkwardly, lose balance and almost fall	“he stumbled and staggered / And fell to the asphalt instead” (stanza 4). The falling comes after, so ‘stumbled’ must be the near-fall that starts it.
3. staggered	(i) walk or move with difficulty	Same line. Between losing balance and hitting the ground there is a moment of lurching, unsteady movement — that is staggering.
4. anguish	(v) extreme pain or suffering	“He gave out a cry of frustration and anguish” (stanza 5). It is paired with ‘frustration’ and produces a cry, so it must be far stronger than ordinary sadness.
5. asphalt	(iii) a hard black substance used to make roads and paths	“And fell to the asphalt instead” (stanza 4). The word names the surface he fell on, and its hardness is exactly why the fall hurts.

Read 2 and 3 together — the order is the poet’s point. Stumbled, then staggered, then fell: three stages, three verbs, in the exact sequence a body goes through. The poet could have written ‘he fell’. Instead he slows the moment down so that the reader lives through it, which is what makes the next stanza’s cry believable.

Check it yourself: ‘asphalt’ also tells you where the race is being run — not on a grass field or a synthetic track but on a hard road-like surface, at “the old field” of stanza 2. This is a modest, local meet, not a stadium. That detail matters when you answer the question on setting.

Q2.

II. Identify the gist of each stanza. Write the number of the stanza in the boxes given. 1. Spectators cheered participants of different events and waited enthusiastically for the final event to start. 2. All runners dashed ahead as soon as they heard the gun shot; suddenly, one of the athletes tripped and fell on the ground. 3. The race finished with nine athletes holding hands and winning the well-deserved gold medals; their smiles, and spectators standing up to applaud, conveyed everything. 4. Participants got ready at the starting line and nine determined athletes waited for the sound of the gun. 5. Athletes from various parts of the country had gone through months of training; had big dreams of winning a medal. 6. The eight athletes stopped to help the young fallen athlete stand up, forgetting that they were competing. 7. Nine athletes held the banner and walked hand in hand; this gesture represented the ethos of Special Olympics. 8. The young athlete felt his dreams were shattered and cried in pain and disappointment, but something unique happened.

Answer

Gist given in the exercise	Stanza	The words that fix it
1. Spectators cheered… waited enthusiastically for the final event to start.	2	“The spectators gathered around the old field / To cheer on all the young women and men / The final event of the day was approaching / Excitement was high to begin.”
2. All runners dashed ahead… one of the athletes tripped and fell.	4	“The signal was given, the pistol exploded / And so did the runners all charging ahead / But the smallest among them, he stumbled and staggered / And fell to the asphalt instead.”
3. The race finished with nine athletes holding hands… standing up to applaud.	8	“That’s how the race ended, with nine gold medals / They came to the finish line holding hands still / And a standing ovation and nine beaming faces…”
4. Participants got ready at the starting line and nine determined athletes waited for the gun.	3	“The blocks were all lined up for those who would use them… These were nine resolved athletes in the back of the starting line / Poised for the sound of the gun.”
5. Athletes from various parts of the country… months of training; big dreams of a medal.	1	“The athletes had come from all over the country / To run for the gold, for the silver, and bronze / Many weeks and months of training / All coming down to these games.”
6. The eight athletes stopped to help the young fallen athlete stand up.	6	“The eight other runners pulled up on their heels… One by one they all turned round and went back to help him / And brought the young boy to his feet.”
7. Nine athletes… walked hand in hand; the gesture represented the ethos of Special Olympics.	7	“Then all the nine runners joined hands and continued / The hundred-yard dash now reduced to a walk / And a banner above that said (Special Olympics) / Could not have been more on the mark.”
8. The young athlete felt his dreams were shattered and cried, but something unique happened.	5	“He gave out a cry of frustration and anguish / His dreams and his efforts dashed in the dirt / But as sure as I’m standing here telling this story / The same goes for what next occurred.”

So the stanza order, read down the exercise, is: 2, 4, 8, 3, 1, 6, 7, 5.

What the exercise teaches by scrambling them: when you put the stanzas back in order — 1 training, 2 crowd, 3 blocks, 4 gun and fall, 5 cry, 6 the eight turn back, 7 the walk, 8 the finish — you can see the poem’s shape. The first three stanzas set up an ordinary race; the fourth and fifth deliver the expected disaster; and the last three break the pattern completely. A gist exercise is really a lesson in structure.

One small correction worth noticing in gist 7. The banner is not held by the athletes — the poem says it hangs “above” them: “And a banner above that said (Special Olympics)”. The gist is right about the walk and the meaning, but the picture in your head should be of a banner over the track, not a banner in their hands.

Q3.

III. Let us appreciate the poem. 1. Two examples of alliteration from the poem are (i) ______________ and (ii) _______________.

Answer

(i) “he stumbled and staggered” (stanza 4) (ii) “dashed in the dirt” (stanza 5)

Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words that are close together.

“stumbled and staggered” repeats the /st/ cluster. Say it aloud — the tongue has to catch twice, and the words themselves lurch. The sound imitates the unsteady movement it describes.
“dashed in the dirt” repeats the hard /d/. The two thumps land like the fall itself, and the harshness of /d/ suits the destruction of the boy’s hopes.

Two more you could use: “holding hands” (stanza 8) — a soft, breathy sound for a gentle image; and “brought the young boy” (stanza 6). Notice how the poet keeps the harsh consonants for the fall and the soft ones for the rescue.

Why alliteration is not just decoration: it slows the reader down at the exact place the poet wants attention. Both examples above sit at the poem’s two crisis lines. A reader who is enjoying the sound is a reader who is lingering on the meaning.

Q4.

III. 2. Give three examples of visual imagery from the poem. (i) ______________ (ii) _______________ (iii) _______________

Answer

Visual imagery is language that makes the reader see a picture. Three clear examples:

“The blocks were all lined up for those who would use them” (stanza 3) — the neat row of starting blocks on an empty track, seen from the stands a moment before the start.
“But the smallest among them, he stumbled and staggered / And fell to the asphalt instead” (stanza 4) — the single small figure lurching out of a line of upright runners and hitting the black surface.
“And a standing ovation and nine beaming faces” (stanza 8) — the crowd on its feet, and nine wide smiles in a row at the finish line.

Any of these would also be accepted, and each is worth noticing:

“The spectators gathered around the old field” (stanza 2) — the shape of the whole scene, a ring of people round a worn ground.
“One by one they all turned round and went back to help him” (stanza 6) — the runners reversing, one after another, against the direction of the race.
“They came to the finish line holding hands still” (stanza 8) — the linked line crossing together.
“a banner above that said (Special Olympics)” (stanza 7).

Notice what the poet chooses to show you. He never describes a single face until the last stanza, and then he gives you nine at once. The eye is kept on movement — lining up, charging, falling, turning back, walking — so that when the poem finally stops moving and shows you the smiles, the image lands with full force.

Q5.

III. 3. Give an example of auditory imagery from the poem. (i) _________________

Answer

“The signal was given, the pistol exploded” (stanza 4).

Auditory imagery is language that makes the reader hear something. The poet does not write ‘the starter fired the gun’; he writes that the pistol exploded — a violent word that puts the crack of the shot in your ears and makes the sudden burst of running feel like a consequence of the noise.

Other examples in the poem:

“Poised for the sound of the gun” (stanza 3) — the silence before the sound, which is itself a kind of listening.
“He gave out a cry of frustration and anguish” (stanza 5) — the single human sound in the middle of the poem.
“The spectators gathered… To cheer on all the young women and men” (stanza 2), and “a standing ovation” (stanza 8) — crowd noise at either end.

The sound design of the whole poem, in one line: cheering → silence → explosion → a cry → applause. The poem is as carefully built for the ear as for the eye, and its loudest moment (the pistol) and its most human moment (the cry) are placed side by side.

Q6.

III. 4. How does the use of imagery make the poem more appealing?

Answer

Because it lets the poem show instead of tell. David Roth never states a moral — he never says ‘kindness is greater than victory’. He gives you a series of pictures and sounds and allows you to reach that conclusion yourself, which makes it feel like your own discovery rather than a lesson delivered from above.

It makes an unfamiliar scene concrete. Most readers have never been to a Special Olympics meet. “The blocks were all lined up”, “the old field”, “the asphalt” build the place out of ordinary things, so the reader is standing there before anything happens.
It creates suspense through the senses. The pistol that “exploded” and the runners “all charging ahead” carry the reader forward at the runners’ speed; the fall then arrives as a physical shock rather than as information.
It makes the emotion credible. “His dreams and his efforts dashed in the dirt” fuses an abstract loss with a visible image — dreams and dirt in the same phrase. Told plainly (‘he was very disappointed’) the line would be forgettable.
It gives the poem its ending without a sermon. “Nine beaming faces” and hands still joined at the finish line say everything the poet wants said, which is exactly why he can close with “Said more than these words ever will.”
It invites the reader to feel with, not merely feel sorry. Because you have seen the boy fall and heard him cry, you are inside the experience — the difference between empathy and sympathy that exercise II on page 156 set up before you ever read the poem.

The strongest evidence for this answer is the last line itself. A poet who admits that the applause “Said more than these words ever will” is telling you that his method has been to point rather than to explain. Imagery is that pointing.

Q7.

III. 5. How does the poet’s tone change from the beginning to the end of the poem?

Answer

The tone travels through four stages — brisk reporting, rising excitement, sharp distress, and finally warm, admiring wonder.

Stanzas	Tone	Evidence
1–2	Factual, matter-of-fact, like a commentator setting the scene	“The athletes had come from all over the country / To run for the gold, for the silver, and bronze”. Plain statements, no adjectives of feeling.
3	Expectant, taut	“nine resolved athletes… / Poised for the sound of the gun.” The word poised holds the poem still for a beat.
4–5	Shocked, then pained and sympathetic	“the pistol exploded”, “he stumbled and staggered”, “a cry of frustration and anguish”, “dashed in the dirt”. The vocabulary turns violent.
5 (last two lines)	Personal — the poet steps forward	“But as sure as I’m standing here telling this story” — the detached commentator suddenly becomes a witness who wants to be believed.
6–8	Admiring, warm, finally reverent and humble	“The ones who had trained for so long to compete”; “Could not have been more on the mark”; “nine beaming faces / Said more than these words ever will.”

The turn is marked, not accidental. Look at the hinge line — “The same goes for what next occurred.” The poet interrupts his own account to promise that something unexpected is coming. From that line onward every word carries approval. And the very last line reverses the poet’s own authority: he has been telling the story confidently for eight stanzas, and then admits that a crowd’s applause and nine smiles said more than his poem can. That movement from confidence to humility is the finest thing about the tone.

Q8.

III. 6. What is the overall mood created by the poem?

Answer

The overall mood is uplifting and heart-warming — a mood of quiet joy and admiration, reached by way of tension and distress rather than around them.

The mood is not steady; it is built in three movements:

Anticipation in stanzas 1–3 — “Excitement was high to begin”, “Poised for the sound of the gun.” The reader waits with the crowd.
Dismay in stanzas 4–5 — a fall, “a cry of frustration and anguish”, hopes “dashed in the dirt”. The mood drops sharply, and this drop is necessary: without it the ending would be merely pleasant.
Warmth, pride and wonder in stanzas 6–8 — the eight turning back, the linked walk, the “standing ovation and nine beaming faces”.

Mood and tone are not the same thing, and examiners test the difference. Tone is the poet’s attitude to his material; mood is the feeling produced in the reader. Here the poet’s tone moves from reporting to admiration, and the reader’s mood moves from excitement through anxiety to a settled gladness. Notice that the final mood is not triumphant or noisy — the race has been “reduced to a walk”. It is a calm, moved happiness, closer to being touched than to celebrating.

Q9.

III. 7. What is the message being conveyed by the poem?

Answer

The message is that compassion is a greater achievement than victory — and that a race can be won, in the sense that matters, by everyone in it.

The poem earns that claim in three steps rather than announcing it:

It first establishes what the eight had to give up. The poet deliberately reminds us: “The ones who had trained for so long to compete.” Their gesture costs something. Kindness that costs nothing would prove nothing.
It shows the act, not the motive. “One by one they all turned round and went back to help him.” One by one matters — this was eight separate decisions, not a herd instinct, and the boy was treated as a fellow competitor, not as an object of pity.
It lets the institution confirm the meaning. “And a banner above that said (Special Olympics) / Could not have been more on the mark.” The Special Olympics exists, in the words of the chapter’s own infographic on page 168, “to create a better world by fostering the acceptance and inclusion of all people.” The runners had simply done what the banner said.

The title carries the message too. ‘Nine Gold Medals’ is a contradiction on the face of it — a hundred-yard dash has one gold medal. By insisting on nine, the poem redefines what was being competed for. And the last line refuses to spell any of this out: “Said more than these words ever will.” The message is handed to the reader rather than pressed on him.

What the poem does not say. It is not a poem about pitying the boy who fell. Nobody in it feels sorry for him; eight athletes go back, lift him up and finish the race with him as an equal. That distinction — the difference between sympathy and compassion set out in the exercise on page 156 — is the whole reason the ending feels dignified rather than sentimental.

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