NBSE Class 11 English notes online with chapter-wise summaries

Here, you will find short summaries, notes, textbook solutions, answers, extras, pdf of English and Alternative English which is a part of the syllabus of Class 11 students studying under Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE). These solutions, however, should be only treated as references and can be modified/changed.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 1: Thank You, M’am

Short summary of the story Thank You, M’am: Thank You, M’am is the story of a 15-year-old boy named Roger who is poor and gets into the habit of stealing things to fulfill his needs and wants. One day he tries to snatch the purse of a woman named Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones on the street, but he could not bear the weight of the bag as it is too heavy and gets caught. Mrs. Washington gets visibly angry in the start, but as she hears the story of the boy, she takes him to her home instead of handing him over to the police. There, she feeds him and treats him kindly. Finally, she hands him a 10 dollar bill and let him go, thereby changing the life of the boy and instilling in him the values of honesty and kindness.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 2: No Men are Foreign

Short summary: of the poem No men are Foreign: Through the poem “No Men are Foreign” the poet James Kirkup tried to make the people of the world, irrespective of nation, race, ethnicity etc. to understand that despite the differences, all of us are at the end the same. We feel the same emotions and breath the same air. We live in the same world and when we die, we are buried in the same soil. But most often than not we don’t understand or rather focus on the aspects that connect us and instead concentrate on our insignificant differences, creating enmity. This enmity eventually leads to the defilement of the Earth.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 3: The Malefactor

Short summary of the story the Malefactor:The Malefactor by Anton Chekhov tells the story of a poor, sickly and simple peasant named Denis Grigoryev who is thrown into prison for a crime that he doesn’t understand. In the story, he is caught by a rail watchman when he tries to remove a nut from the rail track. Grigoryev is then produced to an unfriendly magistrate and he is asked to explain his actions. Being a simple man, Grigoryev doesn’t think much and admits the crime and he is accused of causing the derailing of a train. Grigoryev, who has no clue why he is thrown into prison till the end tries to understand his crime. For him, his entire village removes the nuts all the time as it can be a perfect weight to catch fish and doesn’t see how it can be a crime.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 4: If

Short summary of the poem If: Through his poem, the poet imparts an inspirational perspective for people to stay humble, soft, and tender, shun the extremes, and take advantage of any chance they may ever receive in life. Keeping humility and living with pride are crucial. It is important for an individual to live with his head up when he/she wins even when others are losing. When losing causes those who are unable to keep their heads up to blame us as the cause of their loss, it’s very important to remain calm and cool. A person should cultivate patience as well as learn to wait in life since patience is the key to success. The poet talks about a number of qualities in the poem which would make a person a proper man that he/she ought to be. Download Report

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 5: The Diamond Maker

Short summary of the story the Diamond Maker: The story is about a man who, according to the story narrated to the writer by himself, makes plenty of sacrifices to perfect the process of making a diamond in which he eventually finds success. In order to keep his knowledge a secret so that he can make a fortune by selling his diamonds, he does everything in his power to keep his intentions and his experiments only to himself. However, though he is successful, he finds it difficult to sell his diamonds as people don’t believe in him or his diamonds because he looks like a vagabond.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 6: Why can’t a Woman be More Like a Man

Short summary of the story Why can’t a Woman be More Like a Man: In the story, a person named Prof Higgins asks another person named Colonel Pickering why a woman cannot be more like a man and rants that women are annoyingly different compared to man and through his questions mock womenfolk while at the same time showering praises on men. We learn that the reason behind his misogyny is that he was treated wrongly by a woman which led him to generalise women and develop hatred towards them, but the tone of the story is such that we understand that the writer is indeed making a mockery of Prof Higgins.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 7: The Verger

Short summary of the Verger: The Verger tells the story of Albert Edward Foreman who had given 16 years of his life working as a verger in a church named St. Peter’s Neville Square but with the arrival of a new vicar in the church, he was asked to either learn to read and write within a few months or leave the church. Foreman was illiterate but intelligent and disciplined. He decided to leave the job because he was too old now to learn to read and write. While going home he got the urge to smoke but the street he was walking on had no tobacconist. He saw an opportunity and opened a tobacco shop there as well as working as a newsagent. Soon, he earned enough to open more shops. He also started investing in stocks and became a rich person, all because he wasn’t educated to continue as a verger.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 8: A Hunger for Books

Short summary of the story Why can’t a Woman be More Like a Man: A Hunger for Books is actually a speech delivered by author Doris Lessing while accepting the Nobel Prize for literature. In her speech, Lessing gives the world a peek into the lives of Zimbabweans and their love for books. She tells that the love for books that they have are not the results of their government but of the colonial era and the government has done nothing to quench the people’s trust for books. She says that the schools in the country lack even the basic amenities and the popularity of any book there depends on its availability.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 9: Kelhoukevira

Short summary of the poem Kelhoukevira: Kelhoukevira, roughly translates as “life in a better place” in Angami language, is a poem written by Easterine Kire, who is a popular writer and has written many books. It is arguably one of the most famous poems in Naga literature. This poem tells about a time in the history of the Nagas when the land was marred with killings and people were so aggrieved by the conflicts that they would not even care to reap the harvest. Many, in search of an alliance, left the land while many warriors laid down their lives without saying a word. Though the times seemed to be against the Nagas, they continue to talk about Kelhoukevira.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 10: The Importance of Being Earnest

Short summary of the play The Importance of Being Earnest: Oscar Wilde’splay The Importance of Being Earnest revolves around two central figures Jack and his friend Algernon. Jack was adopted as a baby and his adopted parents made him the guardian of their granddaughter Cecily. Jack didn’t always like to be the guardian and often would leave the country assuming the name “Ernest”. Jack was planning to marry Gwendolen, the cousin of Algernon, but before he could propose to her, Algernon forced Jack to reveal his real identity. Jack revealed to him that Jack and Ernest were one person. While Jack proposed to Gwendolen and she accepted the proposal, the guardian of Gwendolen Lady Bracknell wasn’t impressed by Jack because of his unknown parentage. However, towards the end, we learn that Jack was indeed the lost nephew of Lady Bracknell and was the brother of Algernon.

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NBSE Class 11 English Chapter 11: Swami and Friends

Short summary of Swami and Friends: Swami and Friends written by RK Narayan and set in the fictional town of Malgudi is about the time when the British still used to rule the Indian sub-continent. It tells the story of Swami and his four friends, who meet a new guy named Rajam, the son of a new police officer who was assigned to the area. At first, none of the friends accepted Rajam, but soon two of them took him on, upsetting the others. During this time, Swami joined a nationalist mob that was protesting the British and was caught by Rajam’s father. A cricket team was formed by Rajam, but Swami’s new school refused to let Rajam leave early for the practices, which upset Rajam. Subsequently, Swami tried to flee from the school and Malgudi, but would eventually return to the town. However, Rajam eventually departed Malgudi for another place despite Swami trying to convince him not to.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 1: The Letter ‘A’

Short summary of The Letter ‘A’: In “The Letter A,” Christy Brown describes how, with willpower, firm determination, and his mother’s unwavering support and love, he overcame his massive handicap. Christy Brown was the tenth child in a family of twenty-two children. When he was four months old, his mother tried to feed him and his head would constantly fall backwards. As he grew older, his hands clenched and twisted unnecessarily. Because he couldn’t open or close his mouth freely, he couldn’t even hold the bottle’s nipple. At six months, he could only sit by resting his back on the mountain of pillows. His mother was alarmed by all of these symptoms, prompting her to seek medical attention.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 2: The Luncheon

Short summary of The Luncheon: The story “The Luncheon,” written by famed author William Somerset Maugham, is about a woman who admires the author. The storey is based on an episode that occurred in Paris twenty years ago, when the author was still a resident there. She’d read one of his books and written him a letter in which she expressed her thoughts. Her visit was announced in another letter, along with her desire to have a quiet luncheon at the upscale Foyots restaurant, where French senators dined. Maugham was not a wealthy man and had never anticipated finding himself in this predicament, but he couldn’t refuse her. In the end, his decision to attend the lunch proved to be a huge blunder.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 3: After Bhopal

Short summary of After Bhopal: The Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984 is viewed as one of the world’s worst industrial disasters. Harsh Mander’s story After Bhopal is about Sunil, an eleven-year-old boy whose life was drastically altered as a result of this incident. Sunil survived the Union Carbide gas explosion in 1984, which killed his two brothers, three sisters, and both parents. As a result, Sunil struggled and suffered tremendously throughout his life in order to provide a good life for his surviving younger brother and sister. However, he eventually became mentally ill and committed suicide.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 4: Dream Children (A Reverie)

Short summary of Dream Children (A Reverie): Dream Children by Charles Lamb emphasises the emotional torment of losing loved ones in life, leading the essayist to indulge in a dream world fantasy in order to reflect on the delightful past memories. The essay, which is rich in pathos, outlines the significance of childhood and dear ones in the life of an individual without whom the world appears to be a dark alley suffocating the individual at every turn.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 5: The Fly

Short summary of The Fly: The Boss is sitting at his desk, entertaining an old friend, Mr Woodfield. Mr Woodfield recently suffered a stroke, and his family only allows him to visit the city once a week. He went to the Boss’s place of business today to get a cigar. Woodfield explains that his family has visited his son’s grave in Belgium, where he died and was buried. Woodfield claims that his family also visited the Boss’s son’s grave. Woodfield departs, and the Boss begins to reflect on his son. A fly has become trapped in his inkstand, he notices. He fishes it out and observes the fly cleaning itself and preparing to fly. Cruelly, the Boss smears ink back onto the fly and watches it clean itself. The fly dies as a result of him dropping another blot. Finally, the Boss can’t recall what he was thinking about.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 6: The Slave’s Dream

Short summary of The Slave’s Dream: H.W. Longfellow’s poem The Slave’s Dream is about a slave who escaped despite all odds. The Slave is lying on bare earth when the poem begins. The Slave was in a dreamy swoon, bare-chested, his tangled, unkempt hair buried in the sand, still clutching his sickle, too exhausted to continue his work of gathering rice. He dreams of Africa, his home, his Native Land, in the mysterious shadows of sleep. The slave sees the majesty of the Niger River in his dream. He imagines himself to be the king he once was. Imagine a valiant warrior-king striding through the plains, beneath priest-like palm trees, listening to the distant tinkling of caravans down a mountain road.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 7: Mending Wall

Short summary of Mending Wall: The poem “Mending Wall” is written by American poet Robert Frost. It was published as the first poem in Frost’s second book of poems, North of Boston, in 1914. The poem is set in rural New England, where Frost was living at the time and is inspired by the rhythms and rituals of daily life there. The poem describes how the speaker and a neighbour meet every spring to rebuild a stone wall between their properties. This ritual raises some important questions throughout the poem, as the speaker considers the purpose of human borders and the value of human labour.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 8: Money Madness

Short summary of Money Madness: Money Madness is a look at the modern consumerist world based on money and material wealth. People today are so obsessed with accumulating wealth that they are willing to sacrifice their morals, if not their sanity. Money and greed for it, according to the poet, are our own form of insanity that is destroying us as a society. Individuals becoming overly concerned with money has resulted in the entire world becoming overly concerned with money. Each episode of insanity turns the entire world into a money-grubbing maze.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Chapter 9: She Walks in Beauty

Short summary of She Walks in Beauty: She Walks in Beauty is a poem of eighteen lines about female beauty. The speaker describes a woman who is attractive both on the outside and on the inside. Although it is commonly classified as a love poem, the poet never expresses his feelings for the subject. The central theme of “She Walks in Beauty” is a perfect woman’s beauty and goodness. Byron makes no attempt to individualise his subject, instead making her universal, so that any man in love can recognise himself in the poem.

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NBSE Class 11 Alternative English Drama: Ever Young

Short summary of Ever Young: Four older women meet, some of whom have lost their husbands through death, while others have lost their husbands through divorce. They talk about their lost loves as well as how they deal with their place in life and society. Some parents want to be involved in their children’s lives, while others prefer to stay away. Some mourn the loss of their husbands, while others yearn for a love they can’t have.

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