Note on this chapter's printed title and Urdu name: the book prints the unit heading simply as “Freedom” (p. 105) — “(Poem)” in this page's title is a descriptor only, as in the earlier poem chapters. The book prints no Urdu subtitle for this unit, so the hero's Urdu line “باب 9: نظم” is supplied following the poem chapters' pattern, not a printed book subtitle — flagged here honestly. ⚠️ Hughes year warning: the unit heading prints “(1901–1967)” but the book's own About-the-Poet box on the same page prints “(1902–1967)”, and 1902 is correct — this page uses 1902 throughout (see Section 1). Session 2026–27. Book pages: PDF 109–117 = printed 105–113. The scan's diagonal publisher watermark has NOT been reproduced anywhere in this page.
Before a single line of the poem, stop at the man speaking. James Mercer Langston Hughes (1902–1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright and columnist, and a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance — the 1920s flowering of Black American art, music and writing in Harlem, New York. The book's About-the-Poet box (p. 105) says his work returns again and again to racial identity, injustice and the quest for freedom, and that it carries dignity, pride and hope even when it faces hardship. That one sentence is the key to this whole poem: the speaker is not whining, he is standing up.
⚠️ Warning — book کی تاریخ میں غلطی: the unit heading on p. 105 prints “Langston Hughes (1901–1967)”, but the book's own About-the-Poet box on the same page prints “(1902–1967)”, and 1902 is the correct birth year (1 February 1902 – 22 May 1967). This page uses 1902 throughout and flags the heading's 1901 as a misprint — do not copy 1901 into an exam answer. Learning outcomes (p. 105) are plain: ask and answer questions, comment on implied meaning, spot rhyme schemes and figurative language, judge first-person versus third-person viewpoints, use capitalisation and punctuation correctly, use the aspect of time correctly, and write a précis and an objective summary.
Pre-reading (p. 105) — pehle khud socho: look at the title Freedom. Is it about personal freedom, social freedom, or something else? And will the poet sound happy, sad or frustrated — and why? My short take, before we read: the title alone sounds like a demand, not a daydream, and a demand usually comes from frustration mixed with determination. Keep your own guess in mind and check it against stanza 1.
نظم کی پہلی سطر سے پہلے بولنے والے شخص کو پہچانیں۔ جیمز مرسر لینگسٹن ہیوز (۱۹۰۲–۱۹۶۷) امریکی شاعر، ناول نگار، ڈرامہ نگار اور کالم نگار تھے، اور ۱۹۲۰ء کی دہائی کی ہارلم رینے ساں تحریک کی نمایاں آواز تھے — یہ نیویارک کے علاقے ہارلم میں سیاہ فام امریکی فن، موسیقی اور ادب کا عروج تھا۔ کتاب کے مطابق ان کی تحریریں نسلی شناخت، ناانصافی اور آزادی کی تلاش کے گرد گھومتی ہیں، اور مشکل حالات میں بھی عزت، فخر اور امید کی آواز دیتی ہیں۔ یہی اس نظم کی کنجی ہے: بولنے والا رونا نہیں رو رہا، کھڑا ہو رہا ہے۔
⚠️ انتباہ — کتاب کی تاریخ میں غلطی: صفحہ ۱۰۵ کی سرخی میں “۱۹۰۱–۱۹۶۷” چھپا ہے، مگر اسی صفحے کے تعارفی خانے میں “۱۹۰۲–۱۹۶۷” درج ہے، اور درست پیدائش ۱۹۰۲ ہی ہے۔ اس صفحے میں ہر جگہ ۱۹۰۲ استعمال ہوا ہے؛ امتحان میں ۱۹۰۱ مت لکھیں۔
پہلے خود سوچیں: عنوان Freedom کو دیکھ کر بتائیں — کیا یہ ذاتی آزادی کے بارے میں ہے، سماجی آزادی کے بارے میں، یا کسی اور چیز کے بارے میں؟ اور شاعر خوش ہوگا، اداس ہوگا یا مایوس؟ میرا اندازہ: عنوان مطالبے جیسا لگتا ہے، خواب جیسا نہیں — اور مطالبہ عام طور پر مایوسی اور عزم دونوں سے جنم لیتا ہے۔
Read it slowly, line by line, exactly as the book prints it (p. 106):
Freedom will not come
today, this year
nor ever
through compromise and fear.
Notice the shape of the sentence first. It starts with a flat denial — will not come — and then stretches the time out: not today, not this year, not ever. Each short line is a door closing. Then comes the reason, in the last line: through compromise and fear. Compromise here means giving up part of what you are owed so that the other side stays comfortable; fear means staying quiet because you are afraid of what will happen if you speak. Hughes is saying, with unusual bluntness for a poem, that freedom is not a gift that arrives if you wait politely and stay afraid. It will not come through those two things — the word through matters, because it names the road, and this road leads nowhere.
A small craft point the book makes (p. 106): the end words year and fear echo each other, and that echo is doing work — it ties the long wait (this year, and year after year) to the cause of the wait (fear). Say the stanza aloud and you hear the speaker getting firmer, not louder, with every line. That firmness is the tone of the whole poem.
نظم کی یہ سطریں آہستہ پڑھیں: Freedom will not come / today, this year / nor ever / through compromise and fear. یعنی آزادی نہ آج آئے گی، نہ اس سال، نہ کبھی — اگر راستہ سمجھوتا اور خوف ہو۔ Compromise کا مطلب ہے اپنا حق چھوڑ دینا تاکہ دوسرا فریق خوش رہے، اور fear کا مطلب ہے ڈر کے مارے خاموش رہنا۔ شاعر صاف کہتا ہے کہ شائستگی سے انتظار کرنے اور ڈرتے رہنے سے آزادی تحفے میں نہیں ملتی۔ لفظ through اہم ہے، کیونکہ یہ راستے کا نام بتاتا ہے — اور یہ راستہ کہیں نہیں جاتا۔
کتاب کی ایک باریک بات: آخری الفاظ year اور fear ایک دوسرے کی گونج ہیں، جو لمبے انتظار کو اس کی وجہ یعنی خوف سے جوڑ دیتے ہیں۔ بلند آواز سے پڑھیں تو بولنے والا ہر سطر کے ساتھ زیادہ پختہ لگتا ہے، زیادہ شور مچانے والا نہیں۔ یہی پختگی پوری نظم کا لہجہ ہے۔
I have as much right
as the other fellow has
to stand
on my two feet
and own the land.
This is the poem's argument in its simplest form, and it is built on one little phrase: as much … as. The speaker is not asking for something extra, or for charity, or for a favour. He is claiming equality — exactly as much right as the other fellow, the other person in the same situation. Fellow in the glossary (p. 107) means somebody who is the same as you in some way, or in the same situation; so the comparison is deliberate. If that man can stand on his own two feet and own land, why can the speaker not?
Look at the two pictures in the last lines, because they are not decoration. To stand on my two feet is the picture of a person who is not kneeling, not leaning on anyone, not being carried — self-respect in one image. To own the land is the picture of belonging: not a visitor, not a worker on somebody else's ground, but a citizen with a stake in the place where he lives. And the book notes (p. 106) that stand and land rhyme — the sound itself pairs the two claims together, as if standing and belonging were one right, not two. The voice is first person, I, and that matters: one person's claim, spoken plainly, is made to stand for a whole group (see exercise A1).
I have as much right / as the other fellow has / to stand / on my two feet / and own the land. یعنی میرا اتنا ہی حق ہے جتنا دوسرے شخص کا ہے۔ یہ نظم کی دلیل کی سب سے سادہ شکل ہے، اور یہ ایک چھوٹے سے جملے پر کھڑی ہے: as much … as — اتنا ہی … جتنا۔ بولنے والا کچھ زیادہ نہیں مانگ رہا، نہ خیرات مانگ رہا ہے، نہ احسان۔ وہ برابری کا دعویٰ کر رہا ہے۔ Fellow کا مطلب ہے وہ شخص جو کسی طرح آپ جیسا ہو یا آپ جیسی حالت میں ہو، اس لیے موازنہ جان بوجھ کر کیا گیا ہے۔
آخری سطروں کی دو تصویریں دیکھیں: اپنے دو پاؤں پر کھڑا ہونا خودداری کی تصویر ہے — نہ گھٹنے ٹیکنا، نہ کسی کا سہارا۔ زمین کا مالک ہونا تعلق کی تصویر ہے — مہمان نہیں، کسی اور کی زمین پر مزدور نہیں، بلکہ اپنے وطن کا شہری۔ کتاب بتاتی ہے کہ stand اور land ہم قافیہ ہیں — آواز ہی دونوں دعووں کو ایک حق بنا دیتی ہے۔ اور آواز پہلے شخص کی ہے، I — ایک شخص کا دعویٰ، صاف لفظوں میں، پورے گروہ کی نمائندگی کرتا ہے۔
I tire so of hearing people say,
let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
This stanza changes gear. The first two stanzas argued; this one is tired — and the tiredness is the argument. I tire so of hearing people say: the speaker has heard the same advice so often that hearing it has itself become exhausting. What advice? Let things take their course — let events flow on their own, do not push, wait and see. The glossary (p. 107) gives course as “to move or flow quickly”, and here the phrase means letting life drift along without interference. The next line answers it with the politest-sounding excuse in the world: Tomorrow is another day — put it off, there will always be another chance.
Then the speaker cuts through both excuses with two lines that are almost shockingly plain. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead: freedom delayed until after death is no freedom at all, because the person who needed it is gone. And I cannot live on tomorrow's bread: here bread is doing double work, exactly as the glossary says — it is food made from flour and baked, and in old-fashioned slang it is money, a living. A promise of bread tomorrow does not feed anyone today, and a promise of freedom tomorrow does not free anyone today. That is why the poet rejects “tomorrow's bread” (exercise A3): a postponed right is, for a living person, no right at all.
I tire so of hearing people say, / let things take their course. / Tomorrow is another day. / I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. / I cannot live on tomorrow's bread. یہ بند لہجہ بدل دیتا ہے۔ پہلے دو بند دلیل دیتے تھے، یہ بند تھکا ہوا ہے — اور یہ تھکن ہی دلیل ہے۔ I tire so کا مطلب ہے بولنے والا یہ مشورہ اتنی بار سن چکا ہے کہ سننا ہی تھکا دینے والا ہو گیا ہے۔ مشورہ کیا ہے؟ Let things take their course — یعنی حالات کو اپنے حال پر چھوڑ دو، دھکا مت دو، انتظار کرو۔ اگلی سطر دنیا کا سب سے شائستہ بہانہ ہے: Tomorrow is another day — کل کر لیں گے، موقع پھر مل جائے گا۔
پھر بولنے والا دونوں بہانوں کو دو نہایت سادہ سطروں سے کاٹ دیتا ہے۔ مرنے کے بعد مجھے آزادی نہیں چاہیے — موت کے بعد ملنے والی آزادی کوئی آزادی نہیں، کیونکہ جسے ضرورت تھی وہ جا چکا۔ اور میں کل کی روٹی پر زندہ نہیں رہ سکتا — یہاں bread دوہرا کام کرتا ہے: یہ آٹے سے بنی خوراک بھی ہے اور پرانی slang میں روزی، پیسہ بھی۔ کل کی روٹی کا وعدہ آج کسی کا پیٹ نہیں بھرتا، اور کل کی آزادی کا وعدہ آج کسی کو آزاد نہیں کرتا۔ اسی لیے شاعر “کل کی روٹی” کو رد کرتا ہے: زندہ انسان کے لیے ٹالا ہوا حق کوئی حق نہیں۔
Freedom
Is a strong seed
planted
in a great need.
I live here, too.
I want my freedom
just as you.
After all the argument, the poem ends with an image and a claim, and both are deliberately quiet. Freedom is a strong seed planted in a great need. That is the book's central metaphor (p. 106): freedom is compared to a strong seed, symbolising growth. A seed is small and unimpressive, but it is alive, and once it is planted it pushes upward whether anyone watches or not. Planted in a great need tells you the soil: the seed was not planted in comfort, it was planted in deep, urgent need — the need of people who have waited too long. A seed cannot be argued out of growing, and it cannot live on promises; it needs ground, water and light now. That is the whole poem in one picture.
Then the final three lines — the tercet — turn from the picture to the person. I live here, too. Three small words, and they answer anyone who treats the speaker as an outsider: this is his home as well. I want my freedom just as you. Not more than you, not instead of you — just as you. The poem that began with a refusal (“will not come through compromise and fear”) ends with a belonging claim, and the last word is you: the reader is brought into the sentence, and asked, quietly, whether they would accept less for themselves.
Freedom / Is a strong seed / planted / in a great need. / I live here, too. / I want my freedom / just as you. تمام دلیل کے بعد نظم ایک تصویر اور ایک دعوے پر ختم ہوتی ہے، اور دونوں جان بوجھ کر خاموش ہیں۔ آزادی ایک مضبوط بیج ہے جو شدید ضرورت میں بویا گیا ہے۔ یہ کتاب کی مرکزی استعارہ ہے: آزادی کو مضبوط بیج سے تشبیہ دی گئی ہے، جو نشوونما کی علامت ہے۔ بیج چھوٹا اور بے رونق لگتا ہے، مگر وہ زندہ ہے، اور ایک بار بو دیے جانے کے بعد وہ اوپر کی طرف دھکیلتا ہے، چاہے کوئی دیکھے یا نہ دیکھے۔ شدید ضرورت میں بویا گیا مٹی بتاتا ہے: بیج آرام میں نہیں بویا گیا، ان لوگوں کی گہری، فوری ضرورت میں بویا گیا ہے جو بہت دیر انتظار کر چکے ہیں۔
پھر آخری تین سطریں تصویر سے شخص کی طرف مڑتی ہیں۔ میں بھی یہیں رہتا ہوں۔ تین چھوٹے الفاظ، اور یہ ہر اس شخص کو جواب ہیں جو بولنے والے کو باہر کا سمجھتا ہے: یہ اس کا گھر بھی ہے۔ میں اپنی آزادی چاہتا ہوں، بالکل تمہاری طرح۔ تم سے زیادہ نہیں، تمہاری جگہ نہیں — بالکل تمہاری طرح۔ جو نظم انکار سے شروع ہوئی تھی (“سمجھوتے اور خوف سے نہیں آئے گی”) وہ تعلق کے دعوے پر ختم ہوتی ہے، اور آخری لفظ you ہے: قاری کو جملے کے اندر لایا جاتا ہے، اور خاموشی سے پوچھا جاتا ہے کہ کیا وہ اپنے لیے اس سے کم قبول کرے گا۔
The book gives this poem a whole box of its own, “Structure of the Poem” (p. 106), and it is worth reading carefully because it explains why the poem looks uneven. It is a five-stanza poem in uneven sets of lines: the first and fourth stanzas have four lines (quatrains), the second and third have five (quintains), and the final stanza has only three (a tercet). Count them in section 5's diagram: 4 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 3 = 21 lines. The poem is written in free verse, with some examples of rhyme within it — fear and year in stanza one, stand and land in stanza two — used to emphasise certain lines and to make the reader pay close attention to how the lines work together.
The book's other point is about the lines themselves. The poem's irregular line alignment — lines staggered or indented in places — is a visual picture of the theme of struggle: the uneven, disrupted path towards freedom, not a smooth road. On top of that, the “Literary Devices” box (p. 106) names six tools, and each one is easy to spot once you know what to look for. Metaphor: freedom as a strong seed, symbolising growth, set against “tomorrow's bread”, highlighting that freedom cannot be delayed. Enjambment: continuous lines that run on without a pause, pushing the reader forward with a sense of urgency. Alliteration: repeated consonant sounds adding rhythm and musicality. Repetition: the frequent use of “freedom” emphasising its importance and the speaker's strong desire for it. Imagery: vivid images that make freedom tangible, helping readers visualise the need for autonomy. Contrast: the speaker's active pursuit of freedom set against the passive attitudes of others (“let things take their course”), stressing urgency. Exam tip: never just name a device — always quote the line and say what it does, as exercise A8 asks.
کتاب نے اس نظم کو اپنا ایک پورا خانہ دیا ہے، “Structure of the Poem” (صفحہ ۱۰۶)، اور اسے غور سے پڑھنا ضروری ہے کیونکہ یہ بتاتا ہے کہ نظم دیکھنے میں ناہموار کیوں ہے۔ یہ پانچ بندوں کی نظم ہے، جن کی سطریں برابر نہیں: پہلے اور چوتھے بند میں چار چار سطریں ہیں، دوسرے اور تیسرے میں پانچ پانچ، اور آخری بند میں صرف تین۔ گنیں: ۴ + ۵ + ۵ + ۴ + ۳ = ۲۱ سطریں۔ نظم آزاد نظم (free verse) میں ہے، جس میں قافیے کی کچھ مثالیں ہیں — پہلے بند میں fear اور year، دوسرے میں stand اور land — جو بعض سطروں پر زور دینے کے لیے استعمال ہوئی ہیں۔
کتاب کی دوسری بات سطروں کی ترتیب کے بارے میں ہے۔ نظم کی غیر منظم سطری ترتیب — سطریں جگہ جگہ آگے پیچھے ہیں — جدوجہد کے موضوع کی بصری تصویر ہے: آزادی کا راستہ ہموار نہیں، ناہموار اور مشکل ہے۔ اس کے علاوہ “Literary Devices” کا خانہ چھ اوزار بتاتا ہے: استعارہ (آزادی مضبوط بیج ہے)، انجمبمنٹ (سطریں بغیر رکے آگے بڑھتی ہیں، عجلت کا احساس)، ہم آوازی (ایک جیسی آوازوں کی تکرار، موسیقیت)، تکرار (“freedom” کا بار بار آنا)، تصویر کشی (واضح تصویریں جو آزادی کو محسوس کراتی ہیں)، تضاد (بولنے والے کی سرگرمی بمقابلہ دوسروں کی بے عملی)۔ امتحان کی نصیحت: صرف آلے کا نام مت لکھیں — سطر کا حوالہ دیں اور بتائیں کہ وہ کیا کرتی ہے۔
The book's “Theme” box (p. 107) puts the central theme in one breath: the urgent, unwavering demand for immediate freedom and equality. Hughes emphasises that freedom cannot be achieved through passivity, compromise, or deferred promises. The poem reflects the frustration of those denied their rights and highlights the need for active resistance against injustice. It also explores universal equality, asserting that freedom is a fundamental right for all, not something to be postponed or earned over time. In short: freedom is not a reward for good waiting. It is a right, and rights are for now.
Now the six glossary words (p. 107), because the exam loves them and because each one unlocks a line. Bread — a type of food made from flour, water and usually yeast mixed together and baked; also, in old-fashioned slang, money. Compromise — an agreement between two people or groups in which each side gives up some of the things they want so that both sides are happy at the end. Course — to move or flow quickly (in the poem, “let things take their course” means let events run on by themselves). Fear — the bad feeling you have when you are in danger or when a particular thing frightens you. Fellow — used to describe somebody who is the same as you in some way, or in the same situation. Tire — to become tired and feel as if you want to sleep or rest; also to make somebody feel this way. Learn them as a set: compromise and fear are the wrong road, course is the excuse for waiting, bread is the postponed promise, fellow is the measure of equality, and tire is the feeling of a person who has heard the excuses too often.
کتاب کا “Theme” خانہ (صفحہ ۱۰۷) مرکزی موضوع ایک سانس میں بیان کرتا ہے: فوری آزادی اور برابری کا غیر متزلزل مطالبہ۔ ہیوز زور دیتے ہیں کہ آزادی بے عملی، سمجھوتے یا ٹالے ہوئے وعدوں سے حاصل نہیں ہو سکتی۔ نظم ان لوگوں کی مایوسی ظاہر کرتی ہے جن سے ان کے حقوق چھین لیے گئے ہیں، اور ناانصافی کے خلاف سرگرم مزاحمت کی ضرورت پر زور دیتی ہے۔ یہ آفاقی برابری کا بھی تصور پیش کرتی ہے: آزادی سب کا بنیادی حق ہے، نہ کہ وقت گزرنے پر کمایا جانے والا انعام۔ مختصر یہ کہ آزادی اچھے انتظار کا انعام نہیں، حق ہے — اور حق ابھی کا ہوتا ہے۔
اب چھ مشکل الفاظ (صفحہ ۱۰۷)، کیونکہ امتحان میں یہ بہت آتے ہیں اور ہر لفظ ایک سطر کی کنجی ہے۔ Bread — آٹے، پانی اور خمیر سے بنی پکی ہوئی خوراک؛ پرانی slang میں پیسہ، روزی۔ Compromise — دو فریقوں کے درمیان معاہدہ جس میں ہر فریق اپنی کچھ خواہشات چھوڑ دے تاکہ دونوں خوش رہیں۔ Course — تیزی سے حرکت کرنا یا بہنا (نظم میں “let things take their course” کا مطلب ہے حالات کو اپنے حال پر چھوڑ دینا)۔ Fear — خطرے یا خوفناک چیز کے سامنے برا احساس۔ Fellow — وہ شخص جو کسی طرح آپ جیسا ہو یا آپ جیسی حالت میں ہو۔ Tire — تھک جانا اور سونے یا آرام کی خواہش محسوس کرنا۔ انھیں ایک سیٹ کے طور پر یاد کریں: سمجھوتا اور خوف غلط راستہ ہیں، course انتظار کا بہانہ ہے، bread ٹالا ہوا وعدہ ہے، fellow برابری کا پیمانہ ہے، اور tire اس شخص کا احساس ہے جو بہانے بہت بار سن چکا ہے۔
The last teaching block of the unit (pp. 109–111) is not about the poem at all — it is about how English shows time, and it is the grammar you will be tested on in exercise C. Aspects of time refer to the different ways actions or events are viewed in relation to time: whether an action is completed, ongoing, habitual, or has been happening over a period of time. They are expressed mainly through verb tenses, which show when an action occurs and how it relates to time. There are four main aspects, and each one has a present, past and future form.
1. Simple Aspect — actions or states that are general, habitual, or completed at a specific time. Present Simple: general truths, habits, routines — She reads books every day. Past Simple: completed actions at a specific time in the past — They visited Quetta last summer. Future Simple: actions that will occur — I will travel to Karachi next month. 2. Progressive (Continuous) Aspect — actions ongoing or in progress at a certain point in time, formed with the verb “to be” plus the present participle (-ing form). Present: She is reading a book. Past: I was working when the phone rang. Future: I will be traveling at this time tomorrow. 3. Perfect Aspect — actions completed relative to another time. Present Perfect: an action at an unspecified time in the past but still relevant now — She has finished her homework. Past Perfect: completed before another past action — They had left before I arrived. Future Perfect: completed by a certain point in the future — By next week, I will have finished the project. 4. Perfect Progressive Aspect — actions happening in the past, present or future with a focus on duration or the ongoing nature of the action. Present: I have been studying for two hours. Past: She had been waiting for an hour before the train arrived. Future: By next month, I will have been working here for five years. The trick in the exercise is not memorising the table — it is matching the time words (by the time, before, when, for two years) to the right aspect.
اس یونٹ کا آخری تدریسی حصہ (صفحات ۱۰۹–۱۱۱) نظم کے بارے میں نہیں — یہ اس بارے میں ہے کہ انگریزی وقت کو کیسے ظاہر کرتی ہے، اور یہی گرامر مشق C میں آزمائی جائے گی۔ Aspects of time کا مطلب ہے اعمال کو وقت کے لحاظ سے مختلف انداز میں دیکھنا: کیا عمل مکمل ہے، جاری ہے، عادت ہے، یا کسی مدت سے ہو رہا ہے۔ یہ زیادہ تر فعل کے زمانوں سے ظاہر ہوتے ہیں۔ چار بنیادی اقسام ہیں، اور ہر ایک کی حال، ماضی اور مستقبل کی شکل ہے۔
۱۔ Simple — عام، عادت یا کسی خاص وقت پر مکمل عمل: She reads books every day. / They visited Quetta last summer. / I will travel to Karachi next month. ۲۔ Progressive — کسی خاص وقت پر جاری عمل، “to be” + -ing سے بنتا ہے: She is reading a book. / I was working when the phone rang. / I will be traveling at this time tomorrow. ۳۔ Perfect — کسی دوسرے وقت کے لحاظ سے مکمل عمل: She has finished her homework. / They had left before I arrived. / By next week, I will have finished the project. ۴۔ Perfect Progressive — مدت پر زور کے ساتھ جاری عمل: I have been studying for two hours. / She had been waiting for an hour before the train arrived. / By next month, I will have been working here for five years. مشق میں اصل چال جدول رٹنا نہیں — وقت کے الفاظ (by the time, before, when, for two years) کو درست قسم سے ملانا ہے۔
The book's printed exercise (printed pp. 107–113) is answered in full below — 43 blocks in total: Reading and Critical Thinking A (8 comprehension questions) + B (agree/disagree statement) + C (5 MCQs) + D (5 completions); Vocabulary and Grammar A (5 context-clue MCQs) + B (paragraph correction) + C (5 aspect-of-time items); Oral Communication (10 asking-and-answering model responses); Writing Skills A (objective summary + precis) + B (reference to the context). No MCQs beyond the book's own 10 have been invented. ⚠️ Contents-page vs printed-book note, flagged honestly: the book's contents page describes this unit's Reading and Critical Thinking as also including Paragraph Writing, Pronunciation and Organizational Patterns, and its Oral section as Discussion, Short Stories and Dialogues — but as printed on pp. 107–113 there is no separate pronunciation drill, no organizational-patterns task, and no short-story or dialogue task. Paragraph writing appears only as comprehension question A5 (a short paragraph, answered in full above), and Oral is printed as “Asking and Answering Questions” (10 questions, answered as full model responses above). Nothing has been invented to fill those contents-page labels. The printed Writing section also adds task B (explain lines with reference to context) beyond the contents summary/precis labels — answered in full as WB.
The poem is written from a first-person perspective — the speaker says “I” throughout: “I have as much right”, “I tire so”, “I live here, too”, “I want my freedom”. That single voice does two jobs at once. First, it makes the demand personal and direct: this is not an abstract essay about freedom, it is one living person saying what he needs, and the reader cannot hide behind generalities. Second, that one voice stands for a whole group — the book's theme box says the poem reflects the frustration of those denied their rights — so the “I” speaks for everyone in the same situation without ever becoming vague or third-person. If the poem were written in the third person (“he wants freedom”), it would feel like a report about somebody else; in the first person it feels like a demand made to your face, which is exactly why the last line turns to “you”. نظم پہلے شخص کی آواز میں ہے — بولنے والا ہر جگہ “I” کہتا ہے۔ یہ آواز دو کام کرتی ہے: مطالبہ ذاتی اور براہ راست بن جاتا ہے، اور ایک شخص کی آواز اسی حالت میں سب لوگوں کی نمائندگی کرتی ہے۔
Hughes criticises gradual change by showing what it actually asks a living person to do: keep waiting. In stanza 1 he says freedom will not come “through compromise and fear” — the two tools of gradualism, giving up part of the claim and staying quiet. In stanza 3 he names the advice itself, “let things take their course”, and the excuse behind it, “Tomorrow is another day”, and then demolishes both with lived facts: he is tired of hearing them, he does not need freedom when he is dead, and he cannot live on tomorrow's bread. The criticism is therefore not that gradual change is slow — it is that gradual change, for the person waiting, is no change at all, because a right postponed past a lifetime is a right denied. The tone is never abusive; it is the calm, repeated refusal of a person who has heard the same advice too many times. ہیوز بتدریج تبدیلی کی تنقید یہ بتا کر کرتے ہیں کہ یہ زندہ انسان سے کیا مانگتی ہے: بس انتظار کرو۔ سمجھوتا اور خوف، “حالات کو اپنے حال پر چھوڑ دو” اور “کل ایک اور دن ہے” — یہ سب انتظار کے بہانے ہیں، اور مرنے کے بعد ملنے والی آزادی کوئی آزادی نہیں۔
Because “tomorrow's bread” is a promise, not food, and a promise does not keep a person alive today. The word bread carries two meanings in the poem (glossary, p. 107): literal food, and, in old-fashioned slang, money or a living. On both meanings the logic is the same — you cannot eat bread that has not arrived, and you cannot spend wages that have not been paid. Hughes extends that everyday logic to freedom itself: a freedom promised for tomorrow does not free anyone today, and a freedom that arrives only after the speaker is dead (“I do not need my freedom when I'm dead”) is useless to the person who needed it. So he rejects the idea not out of impatience, but because delay changes the thing itself: tomorrow's freedom is not today's freedom arriving late, it is a different, empty thing. “کل کی روٹی” وعدہ ہے، خوراک نہیں — اور وعدہ آج کسی کا پیٹ نہیں بھرتا۔ روٹی کے دو معنی ہیں: خوراک اور روزی۔ دونوں معنوں میں منطق ایک ہے: جو روٹی ابھی آئی نہیں، وہ کھائی نہیں جا سکتی، اور جو آزادی کل ملے گی، وہ آج کسی کو آزاد نہیں کرتی۔
Yes — and this is a reasoned personal response, labelled as such, since the book asks for your opinion, not a book fact. I agree, for the reason the poem itself gives: postponement is not neutral. A student who is told “you will get your books next year” loses a year of learning that cannot be given back; a worker told “your wages will rise someday” still pays today's rent with today's money; a patient told “treatment will come later” suffers now. Freedom works the same way — every year of delay is a year lived without the right, and for some people the delay outlasts their lives. A fair counter-argument exists and should be named honestly: some changes genuinely take time to arrange (laws, schools, jobs cannot appear overnight), so “now” must mean “start now, with real steps and a date”, not magic. But that is still the poet's side of the argument: start now, do not hide behind “tomorrow”. An answer that disagrees is also acceptable in class if it argues its case — for example, that rushed change can cause chaos — but it must answer the poem's point about the cost of waiting, not ignore it. میں متفق ہوں، اور یہ میری دلیل ہے: ٹالنا غیر جانبدار نہیں ہوتا۔ ہر سال کی تاخیر ایک سال ہے جو بغیر حق کے گزرا، اور بعض لوگوں کے لیے تاخیر ان کی زندگی سے لمبی ہو جاتی ہے۔ البتہ “ابھی” کا مطلب یہ بھی ہے کہ ابھی سے حقیقی قدم اٹھائے جائیں، نہ کہ جادو کی توقع کی جائے۔
Model paragraph — اپنا paragraph اپنے الفاظ میں لکھنا بھی درست ہے; یہ ایک namuna ہے. If I were in the poet's position, I would not shout and I would not beg — I would say, plainly and in front of everyone, that I live in this country too, I work here, and I follow its laws, so I deserve the same rights as any other citizen. I would ask for my freedom today, not because I am impatient, but because every day without it is a day I cannot get back: a day my children learn that they matter less, a day my work is valued less, a day I must ask permission for what others take for granted. I would promise, in return, to use that freedom responsibly — to study, to work, and to respect the freedom of others — because a right that is shared is stronger than a right that is hoarded. And I would keep saying it, calmly, until the promise of tomorrow became the reality of today. اگر میں شاعر کی جگہ ہوتا تو نہ چلاتا، نہ بھیک مانگتا — صاف اور سب کے سامنے کہتا کہ میں بھی اس ملک میں رہتا ہوں، یہیں کام کرتا ہوں، اسی کے قانون مانتا ہوں، اس لیے مجھے بھی ہر شہری جتنے حقوق ملنے چاہئیں۔ میں آج آزادی مانگتا، اس لیے نہیں کہ میں بے صبر ہوں، بلکہ اس لیے کہ بغیر اس کے گزرا ہر دن واپس نہیں ملتا۔
He uses these two words specifically because they name the two respectable-sounding ways in which freedom is usually postponed. Compromise sounds reasonable — meet halfway, give a little, keep the peace — but for a person denied a basic right, “halfway” means accepting half a right, which is still a denial. Fear sounds private, but in a society it is political: people stay silent because they fear losing a job, facing violence, or being punished for speaking. Together they describe a climate in which the powerful do not need to refuse freedom openly; they only need the denied to accept less and stay quiet. Hughes's opinion, read from these words, is therefore sharp: at the time the poem was written, the obstacle was not only open opposition, it was a whole atmosphere — laws, customs and threats — that made waiting look wise and demanding look dangerous. Derived reading, flagged: the book does not date the poem or describe its historical moment in this unit, so the climate described here is inferred from the poem's own words (compromise, fear, waiting, bread) and from Hughes's known subject — racial injustice in America — not quoted from a book passage. یہ دو الفاظ اس لیے چنے گئے ہیں کہ یہ آزادی ٹالنے کے دو معزز لگنے والے طریقوں کے نام ہیں: سمجھوتا، جس میں آدھا حق قبول کرنا پڑتا ہے، اور خوف، جس کی وجہ سے لوگ خاموش رہتے ہیں۔ ان سے یہ رائے ظاہر ہوتی ہے کہ اس وقت رکاوٹ صرف کھلی مخالفت نہیں تھی، بلکہ پورا ماحول تھا جو انتظار کو عقلمندی اور مطالبے کو خطرناک بنا دیتا تھا۔
Contrast works here like a courtroom: the passive view is allowed to speak, and then it defeats itself. On one side stand the patient phrases — “let things take their course”, “Tomorrow is another day”, compromise, fear, tomorrow's bread. They sound calm, reasonable, even kind. On the other side stands the speaker's active language — “will not come”, “I have as much right”, “I tire so”, “I do not need”, “I cannot live”, “I want”. Every passive phrase is answered by a bodily fact: waiting is answered by tiredness, tomorrow is answered by death, bread is answered by hunger. The contrast therefore does three things: it proves the speaker has heard the other side (he quotes it, he does not caricature it); it shows the other side failing against real life (a hungry person cannot eat a promise); and it makes immediate action feel not reckless but necessary — the only answer left once waiting has been shown to cost a lifetime. Without the passive phrases, the poem would be a slogan; with them, it is an argument that has survived its own objections. تضاد یہاں عدالت کی طرح کام کرتا ہے: بے عمل نظریہ بولتا ہے، پھر خود ہی ہار جاتا ہے۔ ایک طرف صبر کے جملے ہیں — “حالات کو اپنے حال پر چھوڑ دو”، “کل ایک اور دن ہے” — اور دوسری طرف بولنے والے کی سرگرم زبان — “نہیں آئے گی”، “میرا اتنا ہی حق ہے”، “میں تھک گیا ہوں”، “میں چاہتا ہوں”۔ ہر بے عمل جملے کا جواب جسمانی حقیقت دیتی ہے: انتظار کا جواب تھکن ہے، کل کا جواب موت ہے، روٹی کا جواب بھوک ہے۔
Repetition — the word “freedom” itself. It opens the poem (“Freedom will not come”), returns in “I do not need my freedom when I'm dead”, and closes the poem's image (“Freedom is a strong seed”) and its claim (“I want my freedom just as you”). Repeating the key word refuses to let the reader forget what is at stake, and each repetition raises the demand: first freedom is denied by the wrong road, then it is needed in life, then it is pictured as alive, then it is claimed as a right. Enjambment — lines that run on without a pause. The clearest case is the opening: “Freedom will not come / today, this year / nor ever / through compromise and fear” — the sentence does not stop at the end of any line, it pushes through them, so the reader feels the same forward pressure the speaker feels: no pause, no rest, no “we will stop here”. The same run-on shape carries “I have as much right / as the other fellow has / to stand / on my two feet / and own the land”, where the claim only completes itself on the last line, like a person finally standing upright. Metaphor — “Freedom is a strong seed planted in a great need.” Freedom is not literally a seed, and that is the point: a seed is small but alive, it grows by itself once planted, and it cannot be fed on promises. The metaphor turns an abstract political idea into something a reader can picture in their hand, and it answers the waiting argument without arguing — seeds do not wait for permission to grow. Together the three devices do different jobs: repetition insists, enjambment hurries, metaphor pictures — insistence plus hurry plus a picture is why the short poem hits harder than a long speech. تکرار: لفظ “freedom” بار بار آتا ہے اور ہر بار مطالبہ بلند ہوتا ہے۔ انجمبمنٹ: سطریں بغیر رکے آگے بڑھتی ہیں، جیسے بولنے والے کا دباؤ۔ استعارہ: “آزادی مضبوط بیج ہے” — بیج چھوٹا مگر زندہ ہے، وہ اجازت کا انتظار نہیں کرتا، وہ اگتا ہے۔ یہ تینوں مل کر نظم کو لمبی تقریر سے زیادہ اثر انگیز بناتے ہیں۔
I agree with the statement, fully. The language is direct in a way that leaves no room for negotiation: the poem's first verb phrase is a refusal, “will not come”, and its verbs afterwards are claims and bodily facts — “I have”, “I tire”, “I do not need”, “I cannot live”, “I want” — not “I hope”, “I suggest” or “perhaps”. Example 1 — direct language against waiting: “I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.” This is not a metaphorical decoration; it is a test. If bread is food and a living, then a promise of bread tomorrow fails the test of hunger today, and by the same test a promise of freedom tomorrow fails today. No negotiation is offered, because hunger does not negotiate. Example 2 — strong imagery for immediate action: “Freedom is a strong seed planted in a great need.” A seed is the opposite of a negotiation: you do not negotiate with a seed, you plant it and it grows, and the phrase “great need” says the ground is ready now, not someday. Together the two examples prove the statement's second half too: the poem's words do not say “let us discuss when”, they say “now, here, just as you”. میں اس بیان سے مکمل متفق ہوں۔ زبان براہ راست ہے: “نہیں آئے گی”، “میرا حق ہے”، “میں تھک گیا ہوں”، “میں زندہ نہیں رہ سکتا”، “میں چاہتا ہوں” — ان میں “شاید” یا “امید ہے” نہیں ہے۔ مثال ۱: “میں کل کی روٹی پر زندہ نہیں رہ سکتا” — بھوک وعدے سے مذاکرات نہیں کرتی۔ مثال ۲: “آزادی مضبوط بیج ہے” — بیج سے مذاکرات نہیں ہوتے، وہ بویا جاتا ہے اور اگتا ہے۔
C1. The poet suggests that freedom cannot be achieved through:
Answer: (b) Compromise and fear. — Stanza 1 says it word for word: freedom “will not come … through compromise and fear”. Patience sounds virtuous, but the poem treats patient waiting as the problem, not the road — see “let things take their course” and “Tomorrow is another day”, both rejected in stanza 3. پہلا بند لفظ بہ لفظ کہتا ہے: آزادی “سمجھوتے اور خوف سے نہیں آئے گی”۔
C2. The speaker compares freedom to a seed because:
Answer: (c) It must be planted and grown. — The book's Literary Devices box (p. 106) says the metaphor compares freedom to a strong seed, symbolising growth. A seed must be planted and then it grows by itself; it is not found ready-made, and the poem's point is its living strength, not its fragility or its ready availability. کتاب کہتی ہے کہ بیج کی تشبیہ نشوونما کی علامت ہے: بیج بویا جاتا ہے، پھر خود اگتا ہے۔
C3. Why does the poet mention “tomorrow's bread”?
Answer: (c) To illustrate that freedom must be experienced now, not in the future. — “I cannot live on tomorrow's bread” (stanza 3) uses bread — food, and in slang a living — to prove that a postponed necessity is no necessity at all. Option (a) states the opposite of the poem, (b) mistakes the vehicle for the point, and (d) praises the very waiting the stanza rejects. “میں کل کی روٹی پر زندہ نہیں رہ سکتا” یہ ثابت کرتا ہے کہ ٹالی ہوئی ضرورت کوئی ضرورت نہیں — آزادی ابھی محسوس ہونی چاہیے، مستقبل میں نہیں۔
C4. What is the effect of the first-person perspective in the poem?
Answer: (c) It allows the poet to speak for a group while expressing personal feelings. — The “I” is personal — “I tire so”, “I want my freedom” — yet the book's theme box shows that this “I” carries the frustration of all those denied their rights. Distance and impersonality are the opposite of what the first person does here, and the poem's subject is the speaker's own claim, not other people's lives. “I” ذاتی ہے — “میں تھک گیا ہوں”، “میں اپنی آزادی چاہتا ہوں” — مگر یہی “I” ان سب کی نمائندگی کرتا ہے جن سے حقوق چھینے گئے ہیں۔
C5. Which of the following best describes the tone of the poem?
Answer: (c) Urgent and demanding. — From the first line's refusal to the last line's claim, the poem presses for now: “will not come”, “I tire so”, “I cannot live”, “I want”. Nothing in it jokes, accepts the wait, or builds mystery — urgency and demand are the tone, carried by repetition and enjambment. پہلی سطر کے انکار سے آخری سطر کے دعوے تک نظم “ابھی” پر زور دیتی ہے — یہی عجلت اور مطالبے کا لہجہ ہے۔
According to the poet, freedom will not come through compromise and fear (stanza 1). The two words are the whole first stanza's answer: not through giving up part of the right to keep the peace, and not through staying silent out of fear. شاعر کے مطابق آزادی سمجھوتے اور خوف سے نہیں آئے گی۔
The poet is tired of hearing people say, “let things take their course” — and, in the same breath, “Tomorrow is another day” (stanza 3). Both phrases are quoted in the poem as the waiting advice he has heard too often; either phrase completes the sentence, and together they are the full answer. شاعر یہ سن کر تھک گیا ہے کہ “حالات کو اپنے حال پر چھوڑ دو” اور “کل ایک اور دن ہے”۔
The metaphor “Freedom is a strong seed” suggests that freedom is a living, growing thing, planted in great need, that must be allowed to grow now — small at first like a seed, but strong, alive, and impossible to feed on promises. The book's device box (p. 106) states the point directly: the seed symbolises growth. اس استعارے سے معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ آزادی ایک زندہ، بڑھنے والی چیز ہے، جو شدید ضرورت میں بوئی گئی ہے اور جسے ابھی اگنے دینا چاہیے۔
The poet cannot live on “tomorrow's bread” because he needs freedom while he is alive, today — a promise for tomorrow does not feed, free or sustain anyone today, and freedom that arrives after death is no use to him (“I do not need my freedom when I'm dead”, stanza 3). Bread, food and a living, must arrive when hunger is felt, not afterwards. شاعر کل کی روٹی پر زندہ نہیں رہ سکتا کیونکہ اسے آزادی زندہ رہتے ہوئے، آج چاہیے — کل کا وعدہ آج کسی کو نہیں بچاتا، اور موت کے بعد ملنے والی آزادی اس کے کسی کام کی نہیں۔
The speaker wants freedom because he lives here too, and he has just as much right to it as anyone else — the right to stand on his own two feet and own the land (stanzas 2 and 5). It is not a favour he is asking for; it is his equal share, claimed “just as you” claim yours. بولنے والا آزادی چاہتا ہے کیونکہ وہ بھی یہیں رہتا ہے، اور اس کا اتنا ہی حق ہے جتنا کسی اور کا — اپنے پاؤں پر کھڑے ہونے اور زمین کا مالک ہونے کا حق۔
VA1. Vocabulary A — Use context clues. The scientist conducted an exhaustive study on climate change. The underlined word “exhaustive” means:
Answer: (b) thorough — A study described as exhaustive has left nothing out — every angle, every source, every detail. “Thorough” is the only option that means complete and detailed; brief, incomplete and limited all mean the opposite. Exhaustive مطالعہ وہ ہے جس میں کچھ چھوڑا نہ گیا ہو — مکمل اور تفصیلی، یعنی thorough۔
VA2. Vocabulary A — The manager's meticulous attention to detail ensured the project was completed without any errors. The underlined word “meticulous” means:
Answer: (b) careful — The clue is in the result: no errors. Only careful, exact attention to detail produces an error-free project; careless, quick and indifferent attention would produce the opposite. نتیجہ ہی اشارہ ہے: کوئی غلطی نہیں — یہ صرف محتاط، باریک بینی والی توجہ سے ممکن ہے، یعنی careful۔
VA3. Vocabulary A — The novel was intricate, with numerous characters and overlapping storylines. The underlined word “intricate” means:
Answer: (b) complex — The context clues are “numerous characters” and “overlapping storylines” — many parts woven together. That is complex, not simple, and neither boring nor predictable follows from having many parts. اشارے “متعدد کردار” اور “آپس میں ملتی کہانیاں” ہیں — بہت سے حصوں کا باہم گتھا ہونا، یعنی complex۔
VA4. Vocabulary A — The new software update is seamless, making the transition from the old version effortless. The underlined word “seamless” means:
Answer: (a) smooth — The clue word is “effortless”: a transition with no seams, no joins showing, no jolts. Smooth is the only option that matches; difficult, broken and incomplete all describe a transition with visible problems. اشارہ “effortless” ہے: ایسی تبدیلی جس میں کوئی جوڑ، جھٹکا یا رکاوٹ نظر نہ آئے — یعنی smooth۔
VA5. Vocabulary A — The teacher's astute observations during the class discussion helped clarify many complex concepts. The underlined word “astute” means:
Answer: (b) observant — The clue is the effect: the observations clarified complex concepts. Only a sharp, observant mind clarifies; ignorant, confused and inattentive minds cloud things instead. اشارہ اثر ہے: مشاہدوں نے مشکل تصورات واضح کر دیے — یہ صرف تیز، مشاہدہ کرنے والی ذہن کا کام ہے، یعنی observant۔
Corrected paragraph: “She went to the store to buy two kilos of apples and two dozen bananas. It was a lovely day, but she forgot her shopping list. When she returned home, she found out that she had bought the wrong items. ‘How could I be so careless?’ she thought.” Corrections made, one by one: (1) Capitalisation — “she” at the start becomes “She”, and the pronoun “i” becomes “I”. (2) Spelling/word choice — “to dozen” becomes “two dozen”: “to” is a preposition, “two” is the number, and the sentence needs the number. (3) Punctuation — a full stop after “bananas” ends the first sentence; a comma before “but” joins the two ideas in the second sentence; a full stop after “shopping list” ends it; a comma after “home” sets off the “when” clause; and the direct thought takes opening and closing quotation marks plus a question mark, because it is a question the character asks herself. (4) Hyphenation — no hyphen is needed anywhere in the corrected paragraph, and none has been forced in: “two dozen bananas” and “shopping list” are not compound adjectives before a noun, so hyphenating them would be an error, not a correction. For reference, a hyphen would appear if the quantity came before a noun as one description, as in “a two-kilo bag of apples”. درست پیراگراف اوپر دیا گیا ہے۔ غلطیاں: شروع میں بڑا S، “to dozen” کی جگہ “two dozen”، جملوں کے آخر میں فل اسٹاپ، “but” سے پہلے کوما، اور براہ راست سوچ کے گرد واوین اور سوالیہ نشان۔ اس پیراگراف میں کہیں ہائفن کی ضرورت نہیں — زبردستی ہائفن لگانا خود غلطی ہوگی۔
Corrected: “By the time he arrives, I will have finished my work.” The time phrase “by the time he arrives” points to a future moment, and the finishing must be complete by that moment — that is the Future Perfect (will have + past participle). Present Perfect (“have finished”) looks back from now, not forward to his arrival, so it mismatches the time phrase. “by the time he arrives” مستقبل کی طرف اشارہ ہے، اور کام اس وقت تک مکمل ہونا چاہیے — یہ Future Perfect ہے: will have finished۔
Corrected: “She will be working at the office tomorrow.” The Future Progressive is formed with “will be” plus the present participle (-ing form), and “tomorrow” with an ongoing action at that time needs exactly that form. “Will be work” is ungrammatical: after “be” in a progressive, the verb must carry -ing. Future Progressive کی شکل “will be” + -ing ہے، اس لیے “will be working” درست ہے — “will be work” گرامر کے لحاظ سے غلط ہے۔
Corrected: “They have finished the project before the deadline.” The Perfect Progressive (“have been finishing”) describes an action still going on with an emphasis on duration, but “finishing” a project before a deadline is a completion, not an ongoing stretch — so the Present Perfect (“have finished”) fits. Note for the careful student: if the deadline is still in the future, “They will have finished the project before the deadline” (Future Perfect) is equally correct; what is wrong in both readings is the progressive “been finishing” for a completed job. “have been finishing” جاری عمل اور مدت بتاتا ہے، مگر ڈیڈ لائن سے پہلے منصوبہ مکمل کرنا ایک تکمیل ہے — اس لیے “have finished” درست ہے۔ اگر ڈیڈ لائن مستقبل میں ہو تو “will have finished” بھی درست ہے۔
No correction needed — this sentence is already correct, flagged honestly rather than inventing an error. “I was studying” is the Past Progressive: an action in progress in the past. “When you called me” is the Past Simple: the shorter action that interrupted it. That pairing — longer ongoing past action plus shorter interrupting past action — is exactly the pattern the book teaches (compare the book's own example, p. 110: “I was working when the phone rang”). Leave it exactly as printed. یہ جملہ پہلے سے درست ہے — اس میں کوئی غلطی ایجاد نہیں کی گئی۔ “I was studying” ماضی میں جاری عمل ہے، اور “when you called” وہ چھوٹا عمل ہے جس نے اس میں خلل ڈالا — یہی کتاب کی سکھائی ہوئی جوڑی ہے۔
No correction needed — this sentence is already correct, flagged honestly rather than inventing an error. “Will have been living … for two years” is the Future Perfect Progressive: an action that will have been going on for a stated duration up to a future point (“when she moves to Dubai”). The duration phrase “for two years” is exactly what the perfect progressive exists to carry, and the future point is correctly given by the “when” clause. Leave it exactly as printed. یہ جملہ بھی پہلے سے درست ہے۔ “will have been living … for two years” Future Perfect Progressive ہے — مستقبل کے کسی نقطے تک جاری رہنے والی مدت — اور “for two years” وہی مدت ہے جو یہ قسم بتانے کے لیے بنی ہے۔
Model response — class میں اپنے الفاظ میں جواب دینا بھی درست ہے. I think he rejects waiting because, for him, waiting is not a neutral pause — it is the denial itself. He says he is tired of hearing “let things take their course” and “Tomorrow is another day”, and he gives the reason in the plainest possible words: he does not need his freedom when he is dead, and he cannot live on tomorrow's bread. A person who waits for freedom still lives every day without it — every day his children learn that they count for less, every day his work is worth less, every day he must ask for what others simply have. If the wait lasted his whole life, the freedom would arrive for somebody else, not for him. That is why he rejects waiting: not because he is impatient by nature, but because the cost of waiting is paid in real, unrepeatable days. میرا خیال ہے وہ انتظار کو رد کرتے ہیں کیونکہ ان کے لیے انتظار غیر جانبدار وقفہ نہیں، بلکہ انکار ہی ہے۔ جو شخص آزادی کا انتظار کرتا ہے، وہ ہر دن اس کے بغیر گزارتا ہے — اور اگر انتظار پوری زندگی چل جائے تو آزادی کسی اور کے لیے آئے گی، اس کے لیے نہیں۔
Model response. Yes, I largely agree, and the poem convinced me with its first stanza. Compromise, when the thing being compromised is a basic right, means accepting half a right — and half a right to stand, or to own land, is still a denial. Fear is even clearer: a person who is afraid to speak will never even ask, so nothing changes at all. I would add one honest qualification, because a class discussion should hear both sides: in ordinary life, compromise is often wise — friends, families and parliaments compromise every day. But Hughes is not talking about ordinary disagreements; he is talking about a fundamental right, and on fundamentals, meeting halfway means the wrong is only half removed. So I agree with him on the poem's ground, while noting that compromise has its place where rights are not at stake. میں بڑی حد تک متفق ہوں۔ بنیادی حق پر سمجھوتا آدھا حق قبول کرنا ہے — اور آدھا حق بھی انکار ہی ہے۔ خوف تو اور بھی واضح ہے: جو شخص بولنے سے ڈرتا ہے، وہ مانگے گا ہی نہیں، تو کچھ بدلے گا ہی نہیں۔ البتہ عام زندگی میں سمجھوتا اکثر عقلمندی ہے — مگر ہیوز عام اختلاف کی نہیں، بنیادی حق کی بات کر رہے ہیں۔
Model response. The seed metaphor suggests that freedom is alive, not granted — it grows. A seed looks small and weak, but it carries life inside it, and once it is planted it pushes upward on its own; nobody has to argue it into growing. That tells us three things about freedom in this poem. First, it is natural: like a seed, it belongs in the ground of human life, it is not an artificial invention. Second, it is strong despite looking small: the poem calls it a “strong” seed on purpose, because a movement that looks small can still break through hard ground. Third, it needs the right conditions now — soil, water, light — which is why it was “planted in a great need”: the need is the soil, and the seed cannot wait for a better season that may never come. So the metaphor suggests freedom is not a prize handed down from above, but a living thing that grows from below when people refuse to let it be buried. بیج کی تشبیہ بتاتی ہے کہ آزادی زندہ ہے، عطا کردہ نہیں — وہ اگتی ہے۔ بیج چھوٹا لگتا ہے مگر اس میں زندگی ہوتی ہے، اور ایک بار بو دیا جائے تو وہ خود اوپر اٹھتا ہے۔ اس سے تین باتیں معلوم ہوتی ہیں: آزادی فطری ہے، چھوٹی لگنے کے باوجود مضبوط ہے، اور اسے ابھی صحیح حالات چاہئیں — ضرورت ہی اس کی مٹی ہے۔
Model response — a personal answer; other honest answers are acceptable. If I were living then, I think I would feel two things at once: relief, and fear. Relief, because at last somebody was saying aloud what many people were thinking quietly — that waiting had gone on long enough, and that “tomorrow” had become an excuse. Hearing “I want my freedom just as you” would feel like being counted as a person, not as a problem. But I would also feel fear, honestly, because speaking out then carried real risks — losing work, facing anger, even danger — and the poem itself names that fear in its first stanza. Would I support him? Yes, I believe I would, but support would not mean being fearless; it would mean being afraid and still agreeing, still standing with the demand, even if I stood quietly at first and found my voice gradually. That, I think, is the honest version of courage the poem asks for. اگر میں اس زمانے میں رہتا تو دو احساسات ایک ساتھ ہوتے: سکون، کہ آخر کسی نے وہ بات بلند آواز کہی جو بہت سے لوگ خاموشی سے سوچتے تھے — اور خوف، کیونکہ اس وقت بولنے کے حقیقی خطرات تھے۔ میں ان کی حمایت کرتا، مگر حمایت کا مطلب بے خوف ہونا نہیں — ڈرتے ہوئے بھی درست بات کے ساتھ کھڑا ہونا ہی اصل ہمت ہے۔
Model response. Yes — one clear example is a student who is treated unfairly at school or college and is told to “just wait, it will sort itself out”. Suppose a student's exam paper is marked wrongly, or a deserving student is passed over for a scholarship, and everyone advises patience: do not complain, do not make a fuss, next year will be better. The poem's message speaks directly to that student: waiting does not correct a wrong mark, and next year's scholarship does not pay this year's fees. The passive advice sounds kind, but it costs the student a year that cannot be returned — exactly the poem's point about “tomorrow's bread”. The relevant action is not rudeness or shouting; it is the poem's own kind of action: a calm, written, factual complaint, made now, asking for the same fair treatment others receive. That is Hughes's message applied to ordinary life: name the injustice, ask for the right, and do not let “tomorrow” swallow today. جی ہاں — ایک واضح مثال وہ طالب علم ہے جس کے ساتھ اسکول یا کالج میں ناانصافی ہو اور اسے کہا جائے کہ “بس انتظار کرو، خود ٹھیک ہو جائے گا”۔ انتظار غلط نمبر درست نہیں کرتا، اور اگلے سال کی اسکالرشپ اس سال کی فیس نہیں دیتی۔ نظم کا پیغام یہی ہے: ناانصافی کا نام لو، حق مانگو، اور “کل” کو “آج” نگلنے مت دو۔
Model response. Direct language makes the message impossible to misunderstand, and repetition makes it impossible to forget. Hughes does not hide behind fancy words: “will not come”, “I tire so”, “I cannot live”, “I want” — every verb is short, plain and physical, so the reader feels the claim in the body, not just in the mind. If he had written “one might perhaps consider the desirability of liberty at some future juncture”, the poem would be an essay and nobody would remember it. Repetition then does the second job: the word “freedom” returns in every stanza, and the word “tomorrow” returns as the thing being refused, so the two ideas wrestle in the reader's ear until the end. Together they work like a drumbeat behind a speech: the plain words make the argument clear, and the repeated words make it stay. That is why a 21-line poem can feel stronger than a long article — it says one thing, says it plainly, and does not let go. براہ راست زبان پیغام کو غلط سمجھنا ناممکن بنا دیتی ہے، اور تکرار اسے بھولنا ناممکن بنا دیتی ہے۔ ہیوز کے فعل چھوٹے، سادہ اور جسمانی ہیں — “نہیں آئے گی”، “میں تھک گیا ہوں”، “میں زندہ نہیں رہ سکتا”، “میں چاہتا ہوں” — اس لیے قاری دعویٰ ذہن سے زیادہ جسم میں محسوس کرتا ہے۔ اور لفظ “freedom” ہر بند میں لوٹتا ہے، اس لیے وہ کان میں گونجتا رہتا ہے۔
Model response — arguing the other side, as the question asks. If I believed in waiting, I would answer Hughes respectfully but firmly. I would say: “I hear your tiredness, and I share your goal — but freedom that arrives through sudden upheaval can be lost just as suddenly, while freedom built step by step, law by law, school by school, lasts. Compromise is not surrender; it is how divided people live together without breaking the country they share. And fear is not cowardice; it is care for the people who would be hurt first if change turns violent. Give the seed time, I would say — a seed forced open before its season dies.” Then I would have to answer his hardest line honestly: that a person who dies waiting never tastes the freedom at all. My reply would be that the work must therefore start now, even if the full fruit comes later — waiting for the fruit is not the same as doing nothing today. That, I think, is the strongest form of the waiting argument, and it still concedes Hughes's central point: start now. اگر میں انتظار پر یقین رکھتا تو احترام سے جواب دیتا: “اچانک تبدیلی سے ملنے والی آزادی اچانک ہی کھو بھی سکتی ہے، جبکہ قدم بہ قدم، قانون بہ قانون بنی آزادی قائم رہتی ہے۔ سمجھوتا ہتھیار ڈالنا نہیں، بلکہ تقسیم شدہ لوگوں کے ساتھ رہنے کا طریقہ ہے۔” مگر پھر مجھے اس کی مشکل ترین سطر کا جواب بھی دینا ہوگا: جو شخص انتظار میں مر جائے، وہ آزادی کبھی چکھتا ہی نہیں۔ اس لیے میرا جواب یہ ہوگا کہ کام ابھی شروع ہو، چاہے مکمل پھل بعد میں آئے۔
Model response. I would explain it like this, in one minute, without quoting too much. “There is a short poem by an American poet called Langston Hughes, and its whole message fits in one sentence: freedom should come now, not someday. The speaker says freedom will never arrive if people just compromise — give up half their rights to keep the peace — or stay quiet out of fear. He says he is sick of hearing ‘let things take their course’ and ‘tomorrow is another day’, because he will not need freedom when he is dead, and he cannot live on a promise of bread for tomorrow. Then he gives one beautiful picture: freedom is a strong seed planted in deep need — small, alive, and growing. And he finishes by saying, ‘I live here too, and I want my freedom just as you do.’ So the poem is not about shouting; it is about a person calmly refusing to wait for something that is already his by right.” That explanation keeps the argument, the two key images, and the ending, which is all a new reader needs to start. میں ایک منٹ میں یوں سمجھاتا: “لینگسٹن ہیوز کی ایک مختصر نظم کا پورا پیغام ایک جملے میں ہے: آزادی ابھی ملنی چاہیے، کسی دن نہیں۔ بولنے والا کہتا ہے کہ سمجھوتے یا خوف سے آزادی کبھی نہیں آئے گی، وہ ‘کل ایک اور دن ہے’ سن کر تھک گیا ہے، کیونکہ مرنے کے بعد اسے آزادی نہیں چاہیے، اور وہ کل کی روٹی پر زندہ نہیں رہ سکتا۔ پھر وہ ایک خوبصورت تصویر دیتا ہے: آزادی شدید ضرورت میں بویا ہوا مضبوط بیج ہے۔ اور آخر میں کہتا ہے: ‘میں بھی یہیں رہتا ہوں، اور میں اپنی آزادی چاہتا ہوں، بالکل تمہاری طرح۔’”
Model response. Yes, I think it is still relevant, for two reasons that have nothing to do with the poem's original time. First, the waiting excuse has not disappeared — it has only changed its words. Today people are still told to wait for fair treatment, for a job, for clean water, for a voice in decisions, with promises of “next year”, “next budget”, “next government”. The poem's test still works on every one of those promises: does it help the person today, or does it only help them someday? Second, the poem's definition of freedom is still the right one: not a luxury for later, but a basic condition of dignity now — standing on one's own feet, owning a stake in one's home, being counted as an equal. Wherever anyone is still asked to accept less and stay quiet, Hughes's line “I want my freedom just as you” still says exactly what needs saying. The poem is old; the situation it answers is not. جی ہاں، یہ آج بھی متعلقہ ہے، دو وجوہات سے۔ پہلی: انتظار کا بہانہ ختم نہیں ہوا، صرف اس کے الفاظ بدل گئے ہیں — آج بھی لوگوں کو “اگلے سال”، “اگلے بجٹ”، “اگلی حکومت” کا وعدہ دے کر انتظار کرایا جاتا ہے۔ نظم کا پیمانہ آج بھی کام کرتا ہے: کیا یہ وعدہ آج مدد کرتا ہے، یا صرف کسی دن؟ دوسری: نظم کی آزادی کی تعریف آج بھی درست ہے — بعد کی عیاشی نہیں، بلکہ ابھی کی عزت کی بنیادی شرط۔
Model response — an original stanza plus its explanation, labelled as the student's own addition, not Hughes's words. My stanza would carry the poem's demand one step forward — from claiming freedom to using it well — because a demand alone leaves the reader asking “and then what?” I would write: “I will plant my freedom / in the open light, / and share its shade / with all who stand beside me, / for freedom kept alone / is a seed unshared.” The message is: freedom is not only mine to claim, it is mine to share — a seed that grows best when its shade covers others too, and a right that is strongest when it is not hoarded. It keeps Hughes's images (the seed, standing, sharing) and his plain language, and it answers the fear that demanding freedom is selfish: the stanza says the opposite, that true freedom makes room for everyone, “just as you” and just as me. Note: this stanza is invented for the exercise; it is not part of Hughes's poem and must never be quoted as his. میرا اضافی بند نظم کے مطالبے کو ایک قدم آگے لے جائے گا — آزادی کا دعویٰ کرنے سے اسے اچھی طرح استعمال کرنے تک۔ پیغام یہ ہے: آزادی صرف میری دعویٰ کرنے کی چیز نہیں، بلکہ بانٹنے کی چیز ہے — جو بیج بانٹا جائے، اس کا سایہ سب پر پڑتا ہے، اور جو حق بانٹا جائے، وہ سب سے مضبوط ہوتا ہے۔ نوٹ: یہ بند مشق کے لیے بنایا گیا ہے، ہیوز کی نظم کا حصہ نہیں ہے۔
Model objective summary (33 words — the poem is 85 words, so around one-third; no personal opinions added, as the book instructs): “Freedom must come now, not through compromise and fear. The speaker claims an equal right to stand and own land, rejects ‘tomorrow's bread’, and calls freedom a strong seed planted in great need.” Why it works as a summary: it keeps the poem's order and ideas — refusal, equal right, rejection of waiting, seed image — drops the repeated phrasing and the final direct address, and adds nothing of its own. It is objective: it reports what the speaker says, it does not judge whether he is right. یہ معروضی خلاصہ ہے (۳۳ الفاظ — نظم ۸۵ الفاظ کی ہے، اس لیے تقریباً ایک تہائی)۔ اس میں نظم کی ترتیب اور خیالات برقرار ہیں — انکار، برابر حق، انتظار کا رد، بیج کی تصویر — اور اپنی کوئی رائے شامل نہیں کی گئی۔
Model precis (19 words — within the book's one-fourth to one-fifth range for an 85-word poem; the author's urgent, demanding tone is kept): “Hughes demands freedom now, rejecting compromise, fear and delay, and claims an equal right to stand and own land.” Why it works as a precis rather than a summary: it is shorter than the summary above, it keeps the author's tone (demands, rejecting — not “suggests” or “hopes”), it keeps the core message in one tight sentence, and it stays closer to the poem's own forceful wording while still being in the student's own words. Difference to remember for the exam (book, pp. 112–113): a summary gives a brief overview, generally around one-third of the original, in simpler language; a precis is more concise (around one-fourth to one-fifth), retains the author's tone and style, and focuses on the essential meaning without unnecessary details. Both remain objective, without personal opinions. یہ پریسی ہے (۱۹ الفاظ — کتاب کی حد ایک چوتھائی سے پانچویں حصے کے اندر)۔ یہ خلاصے سے مختصر ہے، مصنف کا پرزور لہجہ برقرار رکھتی ہے (“demands”، “rejecting” — نہ کہ “suggests”)، اور بنیادی پیغام ایک جملے میں دیتی ہے۔ امتحان کے لیے فرق یاد رکھیں: خلاصہ تقریباً ایک تہائی اور سادہ زبان میں ہوتا ہے، پریسی اس سے مختصر، مصنف کے لہجے کے قریب اور صرف ضروری معنی پر مرکوز ہوتی ہے۔ دونوں معروضی ہوتی ہیں، ذاتی رائے کے بغیر۔
Reference to the context: These lines are the second stanza of Langston Hughes's poem “Freedom” (Unit 9), spoken by the first-person speaker immediately after the opening refusal that freedom will not come through compromise and fear. The stanza turns that refusal into a positive claim, and the rest of the poem — tiredness of waiting, rejection of “tomorrow's bread”, the strong seed, and “I live here, too” — grows out of this claim. Explanation: The lines assert equality in its simplest form. “As much right as” is a comparison of exact equality: the speaker asks for no more than the other fellow, and will accept no less. “The other fellow” means any other person in the same situation — the glossary's sense of somebody who is the same as you in some way — so the comparison is fair and universal, not a personal boast. “To stand on my two feet” is the image of self-respect and independence: a person upright, not kneeling, not leaning on another, not carried. “And own the land” completes the claim with belonging: land is not just soil, it is a home, a livelihood and a citizen's stake in the country. The rhyme of “stand” and “land” (noted by the book, p. 106) binds the two halves together, as if standing and belonging were one right. In the poem's argument, these lines matter because they give the demand its moral ground: the speaker does not demand freedom as a favour, he claims it as an equal share, and everything that follows — his refusal to wait, his seed image, his closing “just as you” — is the consequence of this one equal claim. یہ سطریں لینگسٹن ہیوز کی نظم “Freedom” کا دوسرا بند ہیں، جو پہلے بند کے انکار (“سمجھوتے اور خوف سے نہیں آئے گی”) کے فوراً بعد مثبت دعویٰ بن کر آتی ہیں۔ “As much right as” بالکل برابری کا موازنہ ہے: بولنے والا دوسرے شخص سے زیادہ نہیں مانگ رہا، اور کم بھی قبول نہیں کرے گا۔ “اپنے دو پاؤں پر کھڑا ہونا” خودداری اور خودمختاری کی تصویر ہے، اور “زمین کا مالک ہونا” تعلق کی تکمیل ہے — گھر، روزی اور وطن میں شہری کا حصہ۔ “stand” اور “land” کا قافیہ دونوں حصوں کو ایک حق بنا دیتا ہے۔ نظم کی دلیل میں ان سطروں کی اہمیت یہ ہے کہ یہ مطالبے کو اخلاقی بنیاد دیتی ہیں: بولنے والا آزادی احسان کے طور پر نہیں، بلکہ برابر حصے کے طور پر مانگ رہا ہے۔
This is the shortest poem in the book so far, and the loudest. A first-person speaker refuses waiting as a road to freedom — not through compromise, not through fear, not through “tomorrow” — claims the same right as any other person to stand on his own feet and own the land, and closes with a seed: freedom planted in great need, growing now, because he lives here too and wants it just as you do. Around that poem the unit teaches you how to read a poem (structure 4-5-5-4-3, rhyme, enjambment, metaphor, repetition, imagery, contrast), six glossary words that unlock its lines, and the four aspects of time that carry the grammar marks.
Revision guidance: پہلے Hughes کی تاریخ (1902, not 1901) اور 6 glossary لفظ زبانی کرو, پھر ہر بند کی ایک line کی وضاحت اپنے الفاظ میں لکھو, پھر devices کے 6 نام — metaphor, enjambment, alliteration, repetition, imagery, contrast — ہر ایک کی ایک مثال کے ساتھ یاد کرو. آخری میں aspects of time کے 4 نام اور ہر ایک کی ایک مثال لکھ کر C1–C5 دوبارہ حل کرو, اور summary (33 words) اور precis (19 words) بغیر دیکھے لکھنے کی کوشش کرو.
یہ کتاب کی اب تک کی سب سے مختصر نظم ہے، اور سب سے بلند آواز والی۔ پہلے شخص کا بولنے والا انتظار کو آزادی کا راستہ ماننے سے انکار کرتا ہے — نہ سمجھوتے سے، نہ خوف سے، نہ “کل” سے — اور کسی بھی دوسرے شخص جتنا حق دعویٰ کرتا ہے کہ وہ اپنے پاؤں پر کھڑا ہو اور زمین کا مالک ہو، اور آخر میں ایک بیج کی تصویر دیتا ہے: شدید ضرورت میں بوئی گئی آزادی، جو ابھی اگ رہی ہے، کیونکہ وہ بھی یہیں رہتا ہے اور اپنی آزادی چاہتا ہے، بالکل تمہاری طرح۔ اس نظم کے گرد یونٹ آپ کو نظم پڑھنا سکھاتا ہے (ساخت ۴-۵-۵-۴-۳، قافیہ، انجمبمنٹ، استعارہ، تکرار، تصویر کشی، تضاد)، چھ مشکل الفاظ جو اس کی سطروں کی کنجی ہیں، اور زمانے کی چار اقسام جو گرامر کے نمبر لاتی ہیں۔
دہرائی کی رہنمائی: پہلے ہیوز کی تاریخ (۱۹۰۲، نہ کہ ۱۹۰۱) اور چھ مشکل الفاظ زبانی کریں، پھر ہر بند کی ایک سطر کی وضاحت اپنے الفاظ میں لکھیں، پھر ادبی صنعتوں کے چھ نام ہر ایک کی ایک مثال کے ساتھ یاد کریں۔ آخر میں زمانے کی چار اقسام اور ہر ایک کی ایک مثال لکھ کر C1 تا C5 دوبارہ حل کریں، اور خلاصہ اور پریسی بغیر دیکھے لکھنے کی کوشش کریں۔
Chapter-wise tests, fresh random papers اور instant score کے لیے PunjabTest.com کا میں test section دیکھو:
PunjabTest.com — Complete Guide Book • FSc Part 1 English, Chapter 9 (New Book, Session 2026–27) • English + Urdu