NCERT Solutions for Class 9th English Chapter 5 The World of Limitless Possibilities (interview with Dr. Deepa Malik) — Vocabulary and Structures in Context

Book page 147–151 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.

I. Work in pairs. Match the given phrases in Column 1 with their meanings in Column 2. Use the phrases in sentences of your own. Column 1 1. defy the odds 2. a new lease of life 3. in hindsight 4. breakthrough moment 5. turn obstacles into stepping stones Column 2 (i) a time of significant development or discovery (ii) overcome challenges and achieve goals (iii) succeed in doing something when most people think it would result in failure (iv) ability to understand something after it has happened (v) an occasion when you become more energetic and active than earlier

Answer

Column 1	Column 2	Where it occurs in the text
1. defy the odds	(iii) succeed in doing something when most people think it would result in failure	“incredible athletes defy the odds and showcase their exceptional skills on a global stage” (page 138)
2. a new lease of life	(v) an occasion when you become more energetic and active than earlier	“Paralympics has given me a new lease of life” (page 141)
3. in hindsight	(iv) ability to understand something after it has happened	“In hindsight, I feel it was a moment of personal victory” (page 140)
4. breakthrough moment	(i) a time of significant development or discovery	“My breakthrough moment came in the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games” (page 140)
5. turn obstacles into stepping stones	(ii) overcome challenges and achieve goals	“allowed me to turn obstacles into stepping stones” (page 141)

Sentences of my own (write your own on the same pattern — put the phrase in a situation, do not simply define it):

defy the odds — With one injured opener and no reserve spinner, our school team defied the odds and beat the district champions by four wickets.
a new lease of life — A coat of paint and a new chain gave my grandfather’s old cycle a new lease of life.
in hindsight — In hindsight, we should have left for the station an hour earlier; the road was dug up all the way.
breakthrough moment — Her breakthrough moment came when the state selectors watched her throw at the inter-district meet.
turn obstacles into stepping stones — He failed the first entrance test, used the paper to find his weak chapters, and turned that obstacle into a stepping stone.

Tip: ‘a new lease of life’ can be given to a thing as well as a person (a cycle, a library, a shop). ‘In hindsight’ almost always begins the sentence and is followed by a comma. Notice the small grammar change in sentence 5 — the idiom is plural in the book (‘obstacles… stepping stones’), so keep both nouns matched when you adapt it.

Q2.

II. A common word used in athletics is ‘sprinting’ which relates to movement. Read the words related to movement given in the box below. crawl amble walk jog saunter dart sprint stroll run plod creep Arrange them on the word cline in increasing order of pace from the slowest to the fastest. Some examples have been done for you. [Word cline on page 148: eleven boxes rising left to right along a diagonal, with a crawling figure at the bottom and a sprinter at the top. The book has already filled in box 1 ‘Crawl’, box 4 ‘Amble’, box 7 ‘Walk’ and box 11 ‘Sprint’.]

Answer

The four boxes the book has already filled — Crawl (1st), Amble (4th), Walk (7th) and Sprint (11th) — fix the scale for you. Everything before ‘amble’ must be slower than a leisurely walk; everything between ‘amble’ and ‘walk’ must be a slow, unhurried walk; everything after ‘walk’ must be faster than walking.

The completed word cline. The four words in green are the ones the book had already placed; the seven in blue are the answers.

Rank	Word	Why it sits here
1	crawl (given)	Movement on hands and knees — the slowest way a body can travel.
2	creep	To move slowly and very carefully, close to the ground, usually to avoid being noticed.
3	plod	To walk with slow, heavy, tired steps — upright, so faster than creeping, but laboured.
4	amble (given)	An easy, relaxed walk with no effort in it.
5	saunter	To walk slowly and casually, in no hurry at all.
6	stroll	A leisurely walk taken for pleasure — still relaxed, but with a direction.
7	walk (given)	The ordinary, neutral pace: the middle of the whole scale.
8	jog	A slow, steady run kept up for a long time.
9	run	Faster than a jog; both feet leave the ground with real speed.
10	dart	To move suddenly and very quickly — a short, sharp burst.
11	sprint (given)	Running flat out at top speed over a short distance.

Why a cline is useful: a cline shows that words are not simply synonyms. Amble, saunter and stroll all mean ‘walk slowly’, yet a writer chooses between them for shade of meaning — plod adds tiredness, creep adds secrecy, dart adds suddenness. Ordering them forces you to notice the extra idea each one carries.

Check it yourself: positions 5 and 6 (saunter, stroll) are very close in pace and could be exchanged without being wrong, so long as both stay between amble and walk. The same is true of 2 and 3. What must not move are the words at either end.

Q3.

III. Match the highlighted verbs in Column 1 with their functions in Column 2. There are two extra functions that you do not need. Column 1 1. I could hear the audience clapping. 2. It couldn’t be helped. 3. I should give it my best shot. 4. I knew if I tried, I would win. Column 2 (i) promise (ii) possibility (iii) prediction (iv) obligation (v) past ability (vi) impossibility

Answer

Sentence	Function	How you can tell
1. I could hear the audience clapping.	(v) past ability	‘Could’ here is simply the past of ‘can’ — the clapping was audible to the speaker at that time. Nothing is uncertain about it, so it is not possibility.
2. It couldn’t be helped.	(vi) impossibility	The idiom means ‘there was no way to prevent it’. Note it is not inability of a person — the subject is ‘it’, so the whole situation was impossible to change.
3. I should give it my best shot.	(iv) obligation	‘Should’ states a duty the speaker accepts — what is right to do. Replace it with ‘ought to’ and the meaning is unchanged; that is the obligation test.
4. I knew if I tried, I would win.	(iii) prediction	‘Would’ is the past form of ‘will’, and ‘will’ predicts. The speaker, at that earlier time, was forecasting the result of trying.

The two extra functions not needed here are (i) promise and (ii) possibility. They are genuine functions of these modals, but no sentence in Column 1 uses them:

Promise would need a commitment to the listener — “I will return your book tomorrow, I promise.”
Possibility would need an open outcome — “It could rain before the match ends.”

Why one modal has several functions: a modal auxiliary carries no meaning of its own; it takes its meaning from the situation and the tense around it. ‘Could’ is past ability in sentence 1 and pure possibility in “It could rain”. This is exactly what the box under the exercise says — “Each of these modal verbs can perform various functions based on the situation in which they are used.” So always read the whole sentence, never the modal alone.

Q4.

IV. Read the table which shows other functions of the modal auxiliaries. Modal Verbs / Functions 1. could — (i) possibility (ii) unreal ability (iii) request (iv) suggestion 2. couldn’t — (i) inability 3. should — (i) probability (ii) advice 4. would — (i) request (ii) past habit Now, make sentences with the modal verbs given in the table above with each function of the modal verbs. Mention the function in brackets.

Answer

One sentence for each function, all set in situations from this chapter or from school life. The function is named in brackets, exactly as the exercise asks.

Modal	Function	Sentence
could	(i) possibility	If it rains tomorrow, the athletic meet could be postponed to Monday. (possibility)
could	(ii) unreal ability	With a proper coach and a decent track, I could run the 800 metres in under three minutes. (unreal ability)
could	(iii) request	Could you tell me how your journey in sports began, ma’am? (request)
could	(iv) suggestion	We could invite a para-athlete to speak at the school assembly. (suggestion)
couldn’t	(i) inability	I couldn’t finish the last lap because my shoelace came undone. (inability)
should	(i) probability	The results should be on the notice board by now — they were announced an hour ago. (probability)
should	(ii) advice	You should warm up for ten minutes before you throw. (advice)
would	(i) request	Would you hold the stopwatch while I time the relay? (request)
would	(ii) past habit	Every winter morning my grandfather would walk five kilometres before sunrise. (past habit)

Two distinctions worth fixing in your mind:

Ability vs unreal ability. “I could hear the clapping” reports something that actually happened. “I could run it in three minutes (if…)” reports something that has not happened and depends on a condition.
Probability vs advice with ‘should’. Advice is addressed to a person and can be obeyed — “You should warm up.” Probability is about a fact and cannot be obeyed — “The results should be out by now.”
‘Could’ and ‘would’ are more polite than ‘can’ and ‘will’ in requests, which is why the formal interview column on page 152 uses “Could you tell me…” while the informal column uses “Tell me about yourself.”

Q5.

V. Read the following sentences. Interviewer: You’ve been listed as one of the 10 most inspirational women para-athletes globally by the International Paralympic Committee. Dr. Malik: I love sports and had been a swimmer too, so I decided to switch to para-athletics. The sentences given above are in ______________________. (Direct Speech/Reported Speech) The sentences given above are ___________ sentences. (declarative/interrogative/exclamatory/imperative) Now, work in pairs. Observe the changes from Column 1 to Column 2. Note these changes in Column 3. One example has been done for you.

Answer

The sentences given above are in Direct Speech. Each one gives the speaker’s exact words after a name-tag (‘Interviewer:’, ‘Dr. Malik:’), with no reporting verb and no ‘that’.

The sentences given above are declarative sentences. Each simply states something and ends in a full stop. They do not ask (interrogative), order (imperative) or exclaim (exclamatory).

Now the Changes Noted column, row by row. Row 1 is the book’s worked example; rows 2–4 are the answers.

Direct Speech	Reported Speech	Changes Noted
Row 1 (example given) Interviewer: You’ve been listed as one of the ten most inspirational women para-athletes globally by the International Paralympic Committee.	The interviewer said that she had been listed as one of the 10 most inspirational women para-athletes globally by the International Paralympic Committee.	1. ‘said’ added 2. that — linking word added 3. have been → had been 4. you → she
Row 2 Dr. Malik: I love sports and had been a swimmer too, and so I decided to switch to para-athletics.	Dr. Malik said that she loved sports and had been a swimmer too, and so she had decided to switch to para-athletics.	1. ‘said’ added 2. that — linking word added 3. I → she (given) 4. love → loved 5. the second I → she 6. decided → had decided (given)
Row 3 Interviewer: Your story is indeed a testament to the power of determination.	The interviewer said that her story was indeed a testament to the power of determination.	1. ‘said’ added 2. that — linking word added 3. your → her 4. is → was
Row 4 Dr. Malik: I believe youth is the voice of tomorrow.	Dr. Malik says that she believes youth is the voice of tomorrow.	1. ‘says’ (reporting verb) and the linking word ‘that’ added 2. I → she, and believe → believes (to agree with ‘she’)

The two rules that explain every row:

Back-shift of tense happens only when the reporting verb is in the past. In rows 1–3 the reporting verb is ‘said’, so present becomes past (love → loved, is → was) and present perfect becomes past perfect (have been → had been, decided → had decided). Notice that had been a swimmer does not change — it is already past perfect, and there is nothing further back to go.
Row 4 has no back-shift at all because the reporting verb is says, in the present. ‘Believes’ is not a tense change; it is only subject–verb agreement with ‘she’. This row is in the exercise precisely to make you notice that.

Steps to Remember (as printed on page 150): use the reporting verbs said, told or says; remove the quotation marks; add the linking word that after the reporting verb. To these add: change the pronouns to suit the reporter, and back-shift the tense if the reporting verb is in the past.

Q6.

VI. Read the conversation given below. Siya: I watched a documentary on the para equestrian event on television last night. Tarun: I didn’t know Paralympics has equestrian events. Siya: It does. It was so interesting to watch. Tarun: That’s wonderful. So, para equestrians must be training for months for this. Siya: They also have to find and develop their own style of communication with their horse. Tarun: I will watch this documentary the next weekend. Change the conversation given above to reported speech. Siya said that she 1. ______. Tarun replied that he hadn’t known that Paralympics had equestrian events. Siya added that 2. ______. Tarun remarked that it was wonderful and that para equestrians must be training for months for that. Siya replied that 3. ______. Tarun said that 4. ______.

Answer

The four blanks:

had watched a documentary on the para equestrian event on television the previous night
it did, and that it had been so interesting to watch
they also had to find and develop their own style of communication with their horse
he would watch that documentary the next weekend

The complete passage reads:

Siya said that she had watched a documentary on the para equestrian event on television the previous night. Tarun replied that he hadn’t known that Paralympics had equestrian events. Siya added that it did, and that it had been so interesting to watch. Tarun remarked that it was wonderful and that para equestrians must be training for months for that. Siya replied that they also had to find and develop their own style of communication with their horse. Tarun said that he would watch that documentary the next weekend.

Change made	Direct	Reported	Rule
Pronoun	I / this	she, he / that	The reporter is outside the conversation, so first person becomes third and ‘this’ becomes ‘that’.
Tense (back-shift)	watched, was, have to, will	had watched, had been, had to, would	The reporting verbs (said, added, replied) are all in the past, so every verb steps one tense back.
Time expression	last night	the previous night	‘Last night’ is fixed to the moment of speaking; a later report must re-anchor it.
Short answer expanded	It does.	it did	‘Does’ stands in for ‘does have equestrian events’; in reported speech it back-shifts to ‘did’.
Second clause re-linked	It does. It was so interesting.	…that it did, and that it had been so interesting…	When one reporting verb covers two statements, ‘that’ is repeated before the second.

Note on ‘must be training’ and ‘the next weekend’. The book’s own model keeps must be training unchanged in the fourth sentence — ‘must’ has no past form of its own, so it usually stays as it is. Similarly ‘the next weekend’ already reads from the reporter’s standpoint and needs no change; ‘the following weekend’ is equally acceptable in blank 4.

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