3.7 Going Deeper (Exam Prep)

Real-world connections

The friends’ method is the method of every scientist, doctor, and detective. A doctor reads symptoms to find an illness; a scientist reads data to find a law; a detective reads a footprint to find a suspect. Even in daily life, the skill matters: noticing that a friend is unusually quiet, or that the sky has darkened, lets you respond wisely. The play quietly trains us to look closely and think before we conclude.

Quick revision card

Quick Revision Card

  • Form: a play (drama), based on a folk tale; set in Ujjain.
  • Characters: King of Ujjain; four friends — Ram Datt, Shiv Datt, Har Datt, Dev Datt; a merchant; two sentries.
  • Plot: friends read a camel’s tracks → merchant accuses them of theft → king hears their reasoning → they are cleared and made advisers.
  • The four deductions: lame (uneven prints) · blind in one eye (grass eaten one side) · carried grain and honey · unwell (flies).
  • Theme: observation and reasoning over assumption.
  • Moral: wisdom and patience overcome false accusation.

Exam Corner

Objective / one-mark questions

  1. Where were the four friends going, and why?
  2. Name the four friends.
  3. Who accused them of theft?
  4. What reward did the king give them?
  1. To Ujjain, in search of work. 2. Ram Datt, Shiv Datt, Har Datt, and Dev Datt. 3. The merchant who had lost his camel. 4. He appointed them his royal advisers.

Short-answer questions (2–3 marks)

  1. How did Ram Datt know the camel was lame?
  2. Why did the merchant find it hard to believe the friends were innocent?
  3. How did the friends finally prove their innocence?
  1. He noticed that the footprints were uneven — one print dragged and was fainter — which showed the camel limped.
  2. Their description was so exact that the merchant could not imagine it came only from observing tracks; he assumed they must have seen and stolen the camel.
  3. They explained, clue by clue, the reasoning behind each conclusion, so the king understood they were observers, not thieves.

Long-answer questions (5–6 marks)

  1. “The play shows that observation and reasoning are powerful tools.” Discuss with examples from the text.
  2. Describe how the king’s attitude towards the friends changes, and why.
  1. Each friend turns a small clue (uneven prints, grass eaten on one side, spilled grain and honey, buzzing flies) into a sound conclusion (lame, half-blind, the load, unwell). Their method — observe, reason, conclude — solves the mystery and saves them, proving the power of careful thinking.
  2. The king first hears them accused of theft and must judge them. As they explain their reasoning, his doubt turns to admiration; recognising rare wisdom, he clears them and rewards them with high office. The change is driven by evidence and clear thinking.

HOTS (Higher-Order Thinking)

  1. If the friends had refused to explain their reasoning out of pride, how might the play have ended? What does this tell us about communicating our ideas?

Without an explanation, the king would have had only the merchant’s accusation to act on, and the friends might have been punished as thieves. This shows that being clever is not enough — we must be able to explain our thinking clearly so others can understand and trust it. Communication turns private wisdom into public proof.

Assertion–Reason

  1. Assertion (A): The merchant accused the four friends of stealing his camel. Reason (R): The friends described the camel so accurately that he thought they must have seen it.

Choose: (a) Both A and R true and R explains A; (b) Both true but R does not explain A; (c) A true, R false; (d) A false, R true.

(a) Both statements are true, and R correctly explains why the merchant accused them.

A pinch of history

Did You Know? The “clever travellers and the missing camel” is one of the world’s great wandering tales. A famous version appears in the European story of The Three Princes of Serendip, from which the English word serendipity (a happy, accidental discovery) was coined. The same admiration for sharp observation runs through detective fiction, from Sherlock Holmes to today.