The Voice of the Rain Class 11 English Important Questions

Please refer to The Voice of the Rain Class 11 English Important Questions with solutions provided below. These questions and answers have been provided for Class 11 English based on the latest syllabus and examination guidelines issued by CBSE, NCERT, and KVS. Students should learn these problem solutions as it will help them to gain more marks in examinations. We have provided Important Questions for Class 11 English for all chapters in your book. These Board exam questions have been designed by expert teachers of Standard 11.

Class 11 English Important Questions The Voice of the Rain

Short Answer Type Questions :

Question. Describe the never ending cycle of rain.
Answer: Water rises unperceived in the form of vapour from land and water bodies on the Earth. It goes up, takes the form of a cloud, changes its shape and falls down on Earth in the form of water drops to bathe the small dust particles, land and sea.
The water returns through rivers to oceans and seas after it rains on Earth.

Question. Latent seeds get a life by rain. Explain.
Answer: The seeds lying on Earth require water to germinate and take shape. When it rains, the seeds start germinating and change into the form of saplings. In this way, the seeds which would have dried up or get wasted get a new lease of life by rain.

Question. What does the phrase ‘strange to tell’ mean? 
Answer: The phrase expresses the poet’s surprise at the rain’s ability to reply and use words. The belief is that rain cannot speak like living beings. The poet believes that the readers will also find it surprising and weird that the rain should speak and answer the poet’s question.

Question. Why does the rain call itself ‘impalpable’?
Answer: ‘Impalpable’ means something that cannot be felt by touching or seeing. When water takes the form of vapour, it is not visible to the human eye and nor can we feel its touch.
The vapour rises to the sky, condenses and forms clouds which cause rain. Though we are aware of its presence, the process remains invisible to us. Hence, the rain has rightly called itself ‘impalpable’.

Question. What happens when it rains after a long hot spell?
Answer: After a long hot spell, everything is dried up on Earth.
When it rains, all the dust that has accumulated on Earth gets washed away, giving a new fresh look to nature.
Moreover the seeds which were lying latent till now, get germinated with the help of rain and new trees and plants start growing.

Question. How does the rain become the voice of Earth?
Answer: In the poem, ‘The Voice of the Rain’, the poet describes how the rain falls on Earth. He also asks a question to the rain about it. He calls the showers of the rain as ‘Poem of Earth’ as the rain gives a new lease of life to the scorched and parched Earth and falls on Earth in a rhythmic manner.
Actually, it is the voice of Earth as the slowly falling showers produce a very soft music and Earth finds its expression only through the showers falling on it.

Question. There are two voices in the poem. Who do they belong to? Which lines indicate this? 
Answer: The poem, ‘The Voice of the Rain’, presents a dialogue between the poet and the rain itself. In this poem, the poet asks rain who it is. The poet gets an answer as the rain itself gives its introduction.
Hence, the two voices in the poem are those of rain and the poet. These are
(i) In the poet’s voice and who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower.
(ii) In the voice of the rain and I am the poem of the Earth, said the voice of the rain.

Question. Why do you think the poet says the phrase ‘reck’d or unreck’d’?
Answer: The words have been poetically drafted. ‘Reck’d and unreck’d’ stand for reckoned and unreckoned. The words literally mean cared and uncared for respectively. The poet says these words to emphasise the fact that when it falls on the Earth, we sometimes take notice of it or sometimes completely ignore it.
But even if it is left uncared for, it completes its destiny and returns to absorbed where it started from.

Question. Why is rain essential for Earth?
Answer: If it doesn’t rain then Earth will remain parched, droughts will follow and the dust-layers will not be washed away. There will be nothing to quench the thirst of the plants and trees and their seeds will die.

Question. Justify the title ‘The Voice of the Rain’.
Answer: The whole poem is about the eternal process of rain and its benefits. Through the words of the rain, the poet has tried to bring out the importance of rain for Earth, for plants and for man. As the poet is translating what the rain is speaking through its own language (the sounds it makes when it falls), the whole poem is about the rain talking to the poet. Thus, the title is justified.

Question. Natural elements such as air and rain make no discrimination and bless everyone equally. Comment on class distinction and inequality, which is a totally human creation.
Answer: Man’s existence on this Earth is short-lived but even in this short span, he has been responsible for many wrong doings,against other human beings. God has created everyone as equal. But it is very unfortunate that man has divided this society on the basis of class, caste and other factors.
Man must learn from elements of nature which provide us fresh air, heat or water, without making any distinction. But in human society class distinctions and caste distinctions both exist and inequalities prevail in large numbers.
It is high time that man must learn lessons from nature and adopt universal brotherhood for the betterment of our society.

Question. Why are the last two lines put within brackets?
Answer: The last two lines of the poem have been put within brackets as they do not form a part of the conversation between the poet and the rain. The lines in the brackets indicate the reflections, observations and thoughts of the poet. He makes observations about the life course of a song and draws similarities between the life cycle of a song and the rain.

Question. How does the rain justify its claim ‘I am the Poem of Earth’?
Answer: The rain calls itself the poem of the Earth because the poem rendered by the poet has the task of bringing joy, happiness, life to its readers.
Similarly when the rain falls down over Earth, a rhythm or music is created . That’s why the rain calls itself the ‘Poem of Earth’.

Long Answer Type Questions :

Question. There is a parallel drawn between rain and music.
Which words indicate this? Explain the similarity between the two. 
Answer: The last two lines of the poem (in brackets) indicate the parallel drawn between rain and music (here it is called ‘song’, as a song always has music associated with it). In these lines, the poet observes that the life-cycle of rain and a song are alike. The song issues from the singer and travels to reach others. It wanders and, whether heard and enjoyed or not, eventually returns to its creator with all due love. Similarly, rain originates from Earth, and after fulfilling its role of spreading beauty and purity, returns to
its origin. Both are perpetual in nature. Moreover, the sound of the soft-falling rain is in itself a kind of music.

Question. The poem ‘The Voice of the Rain’ gives a hidden message that rain is essential for this Earth. Write an article describing the importance of rain.
Answer: Importance of Rain by Ali Jawed As we all know, the three essentials for survival are water, food and air. The most important element of weather is water. We get water in different forms of precipitation but rain is the most beneficial of all types of precipitation.
Rain helps in harvesting our crops that give us food to eat.
Without rain, no crops would grow and we would perish.
Also, falling showers remove the dust in air, making our air clean, because we need clean air to breathe.
Rain water plays a key role in creating the climate of certain areas. Its presence in the atmosphere provides replenishment of the moisture in cloud systems.
The most well-known and most important effect of rain water is to provide us with water to drink. Without rain, there would be no life.

Question. Rain is an eternal process benefiting mankind.
Contrast it with human life which is short lived on this Earth. Should we disturb these eternal elements of nature?
Answer: The poem ‘The Voice of the Rain’ beautifully shows the continued process of rain which sounds like music to human ears, as it fulfils our needs.
It is an ever going process which sustains human life and provides us with food, pure air and green cover. On the other hand, human lives are mortal.
We come on this Earth for a short period and then depart without leaving any mark on this planet.
Moreover human beings, for their greed and selfish motives, indulge in destructive activities which may disturb these eternal processes of nature.
We must learn a lesson from nature. If we want peaceful co-existence, we need not disturb the balance of nature, otherwise the whole of humanity will be in danger.
We must learn a lesson from such eternal processes and do something good for humanity at large.

Question. How is the cyclic movement of rain brought out in the poem? Compare it with what you have learnt in science. 
Answer: In the poem, water rises from the ‘land and the bottomless sea’ to reach the sky. There, it transforms itself into vague formations of clouds, different in their structure than the water from which they originated. After wandering, these clouds descend to Earth in the form of rain to provide relief to the drought-ridden areas and infuse life into unborn and latent seeds. The rain gives Earth beauty and purity.
In science, we learn the cyclical process of rain using terms like evaporation, condensation, precipitation, flowing rivers, ground water, ocean water etc, while in the poemthe same process becomes interesting and unusual. The rain speaks itself to describe its course. Thus, both what is given in the poem and what we learn in science are similar.

Extract Based Questions :

Question. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
I descend to lave the droughts, Atomies, dustlayers of the globe, And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, And make pure and beautify it.
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfillment, wandering Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.)
(i) With what purpose does the rain descend from the sky?
(ii) How does the rain help the seeds?
(iii) Why has the poet compared the rain to a song?
(iv) Why are the last lines put within brackets?
(v) Where does the song return?
Answer: (i) The rain drops fall from the sky in order to give life to the Earth which is suffering from dryness and draught.
(ii) Before the rain falls, the seeds are dormant and unborn because of lack of water. With rain they get the water which is needed for them to germinate and form a new plant.
(iii) The poet has compared the life cycle of the rain drops to that of the song saying that they both return to their origin after fulfilling their tasks. On their journey they both heal and beautify the Earth and Man’s heart respectively.
(iv) The last lines are put in brackets because they do not form the voice of the rain or the poet. They only certain a general observation by the poet about the course of a song.
(v) The song returns to the place of its origin i.e., comes back to the heart of poet.

Question. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
And who art thou? Said I to the soft falling shower, Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here Translated:
I am the poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, Upwards to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, altogether Changed, and yet the Same.
(i) What do you understand by the phrase ‘Strange to tell’?
(ii) Howhas the answer been conveyed to us and what is it?
(iii) Why does the rain call itself ‘eternal’?
(iv) Explain ‘vaguely formed’.
(v) Explain ‘altogether Changed, and yet the Same.’
Answer: (i) The phrase ‘Strange to tell’ means that it is an unusual and extraordinary thing to receive an answer from the inanimate raindrops.
(ii) To convey the answer, the poet has personified the rain drop and it is answering the poet’s question by saying that it is the ‘Poem of the Earth’.
(iii) The rain calls itself eternal because the process formation of rain goes on forever.
(iv) The phrase ‘vaguely formed’ refers to the formation of clouds that are full of rain water vapours. These clouds do not have a particular shape and thus the rain assumes a vague shape.
(v) The given phrase means that in the sky, the rain drops form the rain. In doing so, their form has changed but the essence has remained the same.

Extract Based MCQs :

1. Read the extract to attempt the questions that follow.
“And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower, Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,”

Question. What do you understand by the phrase ‘strange to tell’?
(a) Unusualness of the answer for the poet
(b) Stupidness of the answer for the earth
(c) Ordinariness of the answer for the poet
(d) Commonness of the answer for the raindrops

Question. What role does the poet play?
(a) To give voice of rain
(b) Translator
(c) Advocate of rain
(d) None of the above

Question. What is the difference between the two ‘I’ in the given lines?
(a) One is of the poet and the other is of the rain
(b) One is with love and other is with surprise
(c) One asks the question and the other answer
(d) Both (a) and 9c)

Question. The poet specifically says that the answer was given by ‘The Voice of the Rain’. The emphasis on voice of rain adds a hint of ………… to the poem.
(a) mystery
(b) thrill
(c) drama
(d) doubt

2. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
“Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, Upward to heaven,whence, vaguely form’d, altogether changed, and yet the same, I descend to lave the droughts, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;”

Question. With what purpose does the rain descend from the sky?
(a) To destroy crop
(b) To flatter the poet
(c) To entertain earth
(d) To give life to the planet

Question. What is ‘latent’ and ‘unborn’?
(a) Flowers
(b) Plants
(c) Earth
(d) Seeds

Question. What quality of rain is highlighted in the extract?
(a) Entertainer
(b) Healer
(c) Preserver
(d) Caregiver

Question. From where does the rain originate?
(a) Clouds and land
(b) Land and sea
(c) Sky and sea
(d) Sky and land

Question. What happens to the raindrops in the sky?
(a) They change their form
(b) They evaporate to become air
(c) They disappear from earth
(d) Nothing