Hi Everyone!! This article will share The Prize Poem Questions & Answers.
In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of The Dying Detective, King Lear and After Twenty Years so, you can check these posts as well.
The Prize Poem Questions & Answers
Question 1: How did the majority of the students feel about writing poetry?
Answer: The majority of the students had no enthusiasm or interest in poetry.
Question 2: What did Reynolds enjoy doing but Smith did not?
Answer: Reynolds enjoyed writing poems and verses but Smith did not.
Question 3: Why had Montgomery’s afternoon been ‘wretched’?
Answer: Montgomery had spent a wretched afternoon trying to write a poem that could be sent for the poetry competition but he simply could not come up with any worthy lines.
Question 4: Who was Mr Wells? Why had he written to Mr Perceval?
Answer: Mr Wells was a great college friend of Mr Perceval. He had written to Mr Perceval about the submissions he had received for the Sixth Form Prize poetry competition.
Question 5: Why were the three ‘poets’ astonished to hear what Mr Perceval said?
Answer: The three ‘poets’ were astonished to hear Mr Perceval say that all their poems begin with the same four lines. This is because they did not know that they had each submitted the same poem written by the same poet.
Question 6: Read and answer the questions:
(a) Which prize is being referred to here?
Answer: The prize that is being referred to here is the Sixth Form Prize for poetry.
(b) Who chose the subject for the competition? What was the subject this year?
Answer: It is believed that the headmaster, Rev Arthur James Perceval, chose the subject for the competition. The subject this year was ‘The College’.
(c) How did the students react to the announcement of the competition?
Answer: Not all the students react to the announcement of the competition with enthusiasm. Except for Reynolds, the others such as Smith, Evans, Morrison and Montgomery were thoroughly disinterested and were only looking for means to get out of having to write a poem when they were not really poets.
Question 7: Read and answer the questions:
(a) Between whom did this conversation take place? Who is speaking these lines? Whom is the speaker addressing?
Answer: This conversation took place between Mr and Mrs Perceval when he was at the breakfast table. Mr Perceval is speaking these lines to Mrs Perceval after drawing her attention at the table.
(b) Who was the ‘extraordinary communication’ from?
Answer: The ‘extraordinary communication’ was from Mr Well, a great college friend ofMr Perceval, to whom he had sent the poetry submissions for the Sixth Form Prize.
(c) Why did the speaker say that the communication was ‘extraordinary’?
Answer: The speaker said that the communication was ‘extraordinary’ because the three poems that began with the same four lines, submitted by three different people, calling the act daring and at the same time, fascinating and amusing.
Question 8: Read and answer the questions:
(a) Who was the author of the poem? How had it reached the field?
Answer: The author of the poem was Reynolds. A draught of wind had blown away the papers on which he was writing the poems in the infirmary which is how it reached the field.
(b) Why was there a ‘metallic ring of sarcasm’ in the speaker’s voice?
Answer: There was a ‘metallic ring of sarcasm’ in the speaker’s voice because all the three poems were identical and he thought that the three students who had submitted them were lying. He thought they had invented an excuse about having found it in the field.
(c) What reply did the speaker receive from Smith?
Answer: Smith told the headmaster that he had made Reynolds write the poem for him.
Question 9: How did Smith expect the headmaster to respond to their deception?
Answer: Smith expected the headmaster to admonish them for having cheated in the poetry competition and punish them because he was a strict headmaster. As mentioned, Smith ‘waited for the storm to burst’.
Question 10: How did the headmaster respond to the deception? Why did he respond in the way he did?
Answer: Although the students thought that the headmaster would scold them and punish them but he didn’t do such. He remembered the letter his friend, Mr Wells had written. His innate sense of humour also made him see the situation for what it was and realise how cruel it was to ask ‘a prosaic man to write poetry.’
So, these were The Prize Poem Questions & Answers.