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CTET 7 Feb 2026 Paper 1 English, Question 100

Topic: Poem comprehension

Passage

Read the extract given below and answer the questions (Q. Nos. 100–105) that follow :
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that is wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Q100

‘The huts of history’s shame’ refers to

  1. (1) a shameful event in historyCorrect answer
  2. (2) abject poverty
  3. (3) modest living standards
  4. (4) comfortable existence

Solution.

CBSE answer: (1)

Answer: (1) a shameful event in history

  1. The phrase is about "history's shame": the poet rises from "a past that's rooted in pain" as "the dream and the hope of the slave".
  2. So the huts stand for slavery, a shameful chapter of history that her ancestors lived through.
  3. The weight of the line falls on the wrong done in history, not on money or comfort.

Trap: (2) "Huts" may suggest poverty, but poverty is only the picture; what the phrase names is history's shame.