Class 9 English Chapter 5: The World of Limitless Possibilities

The ability to recover quickly from difficult circumstances. It is the first quality the chapter attaches to the Paralympics, and the one Dr. Malik keeps returning to — including in its mental form.

Related to bones, joints or muscles. The chapter names three kinds of disability among Paralympic athletes: locomotor, sensory and intellectual.

To overcome. The chapter uses it of stereotypes, which is a deliberate choice — stereotypes are treated as something to be put down rather than argued with.

Strength to face adversity or difficulty. Dr. Malik pairs it with her family's support as the two things that let her turn obstacles into stepping stones.

Somebody who argues publicly for a given idea or course of action. She calls herself a proponent of the school of thought 'ability beyond disability'.

They are a celebration of resilience and of the extraordinary talent of athletes with locomotor, sensory or intellectual disabilities. Beyond the competition itself, the chapter says they exist to quell stereotypes and to redefine possibilities. The choice of verb is pointed: quell is normally used of riots, so a stereotype is presented as something to be put down rather than debated.

At twenty-nine she was diagnosed with a spine tumour. She underwent surgery, and the doctors then declared that she would be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, paralysed waist down. She says she had two choices: to squander her life in remorse, or to transform it into a world of limitless possibilities. She chose the second, and that phrase became the title of the chapter.

She had always loved sports and had been a swimmer, so switching to para-athletics came comfortably — the discipline was already hers and only its form changed. Her breakthrough came at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, where she secured the silver medal in the shot-put. Looking back, she calls it both a private triumph, and a step towards shifting the way people see things.

Because a testimony is evidence for something. She holds that physical limitations do not define a person's potential, and she treats the accolades as proof of that claim rather than as the point of her career. Placed that way, the medals are not what she was after; they are what makes the argument impossible to dismiss. It is consistent with her calling herself a proponent of ability beyond disability.

Societal perception. People often underestimated her abilities, and that is a difficulty no amount of training removes, so overcoming it required mental resilience as well as physical strength. She says she embraced challenges as opportunities to prove her capabilities, and that the support of her family together with her own fortitude allowed her to turn obstacles into stepping stones.

She works to strengthen the emotional health of persons with challenges, to empower women through outdoor sports and adventure activities, and to support persons from lower socio-economic strata, including by providing equipment to para sportspersons. She also organises disability sports awareness and advocacy sessions at schools and colleges, because youth is the voice of tomorrow. Her goal is a society in which every person, whatever they can or cannot do, is treated with dignity and given a fair run at success.

She was twenty-nine when an awful tragedy struck: a tumour was found in her spine. She underwent surgery, and then, as she puts it, misfortune raised its ugly head again — the doctors declared that she would be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, paralysed waist down.

What follows is the sentence the whole chapter rests on. She had two choices: to squander her life in remorse, or to transform it into a world of limitless possibilities. The second phrase is hers, and the book took it for its title.

The transition into sport was not a leap. She had always loved sports and had been a swimmer, so moving to para-athletics meant changing the form of a discipline she already had rather than acquiring a new one. That is the reason the switch came comfortably.

Her breakthrough came at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, where she took the silver medal in the shot-put. In hindsight, she says, it was two things at once: a private triumph, and a step towards shifting the way people see things.

By then the list of firsts had begun. She was the first Indian woman para-athlete to take an Asian Games medal on the track and field, and India's first female Paralympics medallist across any sport, and the interviewer says the list is never ending. She has also been given several coveted awards — the Khel Ratna, the Arjuna and the Padma Shri — and has been listed by the International Paralympic Committee among the ten most inspirational women para-athletes in the world.

And she appreciates all of it while refusing to treat it as the point. The accolades, she says, are a testimony to her belief that physical limitations do not define one's potential.

Asked about the challenges she faced, she does not begin with her body. The significant one, she says, was societal perception: people often underestimated her abilities.

The distinction matters. A physical difficulty can be worked at directly — with training, equipment or time. A perception held by other people is not hers to train away. That is why she says overcoming it required not only physical strength but mental resilience, and why she describes embracing challenges as opportunities to prove her capabilities rather than merely to overcome them. Proving is a public act; it is aimed at an audience.

The chapter then supplies the mechanism by which such perceptions shift. Asked how the Paralympics can challenge stereotypes, she answers in terms of witnessing: when people see the strength, the skill and the competitive spirit of para-athletes, it breaks down preconceived notions. Nobody is argued out of an assumption here; they are shown something that the assumption cannot accommodate.

Her own record works the same way. She does not call her medals rewards but a testimony to her belief that physical limitations do not define potential — evidence produced for a public that needed convincing.

And her advocacy follows from the diagnosis of the problem. If the barrier is what people assume, then the work is to change assumptions: awareness sessions in schools and colleges, because youth is the voice of tomorrow; visibility for women through outdoor sports; a goal stated as dignity and a fair chance rather than as facilities or funding.

Two things she names lie outside all this and are worth noting: her family's support, and her own fortitude. Perception is changed in public, but it is endured in private.

The title is not the book's phrase but hers. Describing the moment after her surgery she says she had two choices: to squander her life in remorse, or to transform it into a world of limitless possibilities. The chapter simply took her words for its name, which means the possibilities belong to her first and to the reader afterwards.

It fits her attitude exactly. She does not describe her situation as something endured but as something chosen, and every answer she gives keeps that shape. Challenges are embraced as opportunities to prove her capabilities. Obstacles are turned into stepping stones. A setback, she says at the end, is an opportunity to prove your strength. There is no sentence anywhere in the interview in which she is acted upon without acting back.

It fits the achievements even more plainly, because a list of firsts is a record of things previously assumed impossible. She was the first Indian woman para-athlete to take an Asian Games medal on the track and field, and India's first female Paralympics medallist in any sport. Each of those was a limit until she passed it, and the interviewer says the list of firsts has no end — which is the title stated as a fact rather than as a hope.

And the title covers her advocacy too. Providing equipment, running sessions in schools, empowering women through outdoor sports: all of it works to make the same range of possibility available to people who have not had it.

Her closing sentence completes the case. Disability, she says, is not a limitation; it is a unique strength waiting to be unleashed. A limitation closes a world. A strength not yet unleashed is precisely a world of limitless possibilities — so the title is her argument compressed into five words.

Evidence or factual information that can be proved true. Knowing which sentences are facts is what lets a reader tell the record of a life from the meaning somebody attaches to it.

The writer's belief or perception. An opinion may be reported accurately and still not be a fact about the event — an accurate report of a belief is a fact about the speaker, not about the world.

The action or event that brings something about. In the worked pair it is the diagnosis of a tumour in the spine.

The outcome that follows. In the worked pair it is the surgery and the verdict about the wheelchair — and understanding this relationship is what the lesson calls deeper analysis.

A comparison drawn between two pairs that stand in the same relation. Here ability is to potential as preconceived notions are to stereotypes: in each pair, the second is the wider word for the first.

A fact is evidence or factual information that can be proved to be true; an opinion is the writer's belief or perception. The worked pair puts them side by side. Securing the silver medal in the shot-put at Rio in 2016 is a fact, since a record can confirm it. Feeling that it was a private triumph, and a step towards shifting the way people see things is an opinion. The verb settles it: secured describes an event, while I feel announces a perception.

The sentence is indeed true, but truth is not the test. An accurate report of what somebody believes is a fact about the speaker, not about the event described. The question asks whether the thing described can be proved, and a feeling about a medal's significance cannot be checked in the way the medal itself can. Sincerity makes a sentence honest; it does not make the content verifiable.

A cause is the action or event and an effect is the outcome. In the worked pair the cause is being diagnosed with a tumour in the spine, and the effect is the surgery together with the news that she would be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. The test is to ask which sentence could stand alone. A diagnosis makes sense by itself; surgery and a verdict about a wheelchair need the diagnosis behind them before they mean anything at all.

Because both are complete transformations out of confinement and into freedom. What emerges in each case is not a repaired version of what went in but something different in kind, capable of what the earlier form could not do. That is exactly how she describes her own situation: not her old life restored but a new one, deliberately chosen over spending the years in remorse. The comparison is about completeness, not about slowness or difficulty.

The correct combination is appreciative and optimistic. Moralistic fails because she describes what sport does and instructs nobody to be better. Sentimental fails because there is no appeal to pity anywhere in the extract — she speaks of strength, skill and competitive spirit. Defensive fails because she is answering no accusation; the question invited her to explain, not to justify. Note that the exercise wants a combination, so choosing one correct word alone still loses the mark.

Because the two work on different things. A policy determines what is permitted, and its reach ends where its wording ends. What a young person assumes determines what is expected, and expectation operates in every situation no policy covers — in a classroom, on a playing field, at a job interview years later. The effect is also cumulative, since today's students become tomorrow's employers, teachers and coaches, and carry their assumptions into those roles.

The first is telling a fact from an opinion. A fact is evidence or factual information that can be proved to be true; an opinion is the writer's belief or perception. The worked pair puts the two in adjacent sentences: securing the silver medal in the shot-put at Rio in 2016 is a fact, while feeling that it was a private triumph, and a step towards shifting the way people see things is an opinion. The test is the verb — secured describes an event a record can confirm, while I feel announces that a perception follows. The trap is to reason that because the second sentence is true it must be factual; an accurate report of a belief is a fact about the speaker, not about the event.

The second skill is telling a cause from an effect. A cause is the action or event and an effect is the outcome, and understanding the relationship is what the lesson calls deeper analysis. Its worked pair gives the diagnosis of a tumour in the spine as the cause, and the surgery together with the verdict about the wheelchair as the effect. The test here is to ask which sentence could stand alone: a diagnosis makes sense by itself, whereas surgery and a prognosis need it behind them.

The two practice pairs are then deliberately mixed. In the first, her membership of the Working Group for the Twelfth Five Year Plan is set against the statement that it is believed she contributed greatly to better sports policies. Membership is a matter of record and the phrase it is believed announces a belief, so this is fact and opinion. In the second, the Paralympics showcasing the talent and determination of para-athletes is set against the shift in global perception that inspires other athletes — and since the second follows from the first, this is cause and effect.

The mixing matters. Given two pairs of the same type a student could answer the second without reading it.

The extract covers the two choices she faced and the beginning of her Paralympic career.

Her decision can be likened to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly because both are complete transformations out of confinement and into freedom. What emerges is not a repaired version of what went in but something different in kind, able to do what the earlier form could not. She had been told she would spend her life in a wheelchair, and rather than treating that as a damaged version of her old life she built a different one. The comparison is about completeness, not about slowness.

She could switch to para-athletics comfortably because she already loved sports and had been a swimmer. The discipline, the training habit and the competitive instinct were all in place; only the form of the sport changed, so she was not starting from nothing.

She calls the 2016 Rio Games a breakthrough moment because it produced her first Paralympic medal and the first won by an Indian woman in any sport at all. It broke through for her own career and for the country's record simultaneously, which is more than any single medal usually does.

Of the four options offered for what in hindsight indicates, the answer is reflective. The phrase means understanding something only after it has happened, which is reflection and nothing else. She is plainly determined and courageous as well, but the question asks what the phrase shows, not what she is like, and nothing in it suggests curiosity.

As for a perception she might have changed, any well-reasoned answer is accepted. One would be the belief that a woman using a wheelchair could not represent her country in an international throwing event — an assumption her medal makes impossible to hold.

The tone is appreciative and optimistic. The three decoys all fail for identifiable reasons. Moralistic fails because she describes what sport does and instructs nobody to be better. Sentimental fails because there is no appeal to pity anywhere — the words she uses are strength, skill and competitive spirit. Defensive fails because she is answering no accusation; the question invited an explanation, not a justification. Note that a combination is wanted, so one right word alone is not enough.

The analogy is completed by stereotypes: ability is to potential as preconceived notions are to stereotypes. In each pair the second word is the wider term for the first, so the relation is between a particular instance and the general category it belongs to.

The statement that the Paralympics both showcase remarkable abilities and question stereotypes is true, and the extract says both things within a single sentence.

That she was helped to push boundaries tells us she did not settle for what was expected of her and kept enlarging what she attempted. A boundary is a limit somebody else has drawn, so pushing it is a continuing activity rather than a single achievement.

And the phrase suggesting she was able to transform her life is a new lease of life, which is the only expression in the extract naming a change of state rather than a change of circumstance.

What the extract contributes to the chapter is the mechanism. Everywhere else the chapter asserts that perceptions change; here it explains how. People witness the competitive spirit of para-athletes and preconceived notions break down. Nobody is argued out of an assumption — they are shown something the assumption cannot accommodate, which is why the chapter's central claim rests on sport rather than on advocacy alone.

An arrangement of words of similar meaning along a scale, so that the differences between them become visible. Here the scale is pace, and it runs from creep to dart.

A helping verb whose function changes with the situation it is used in. The same word can carry ability, possibility, obligation, advice or prediction, so the sentence rather than the dictionary decides.

Somebody else repeating what a speaker said. For a declarative sentence the changes are small: a reporting verb, no quotation marks, the linking word that, and the usual shifts of tense and pronoun.

The level of formality a situation calls for. The lesson sets the same five questions in an informal version and a formal one, so that the difference can be seen line by line.

A short piece of writing conveying information to students or to a particular group — an event, a competition, a lost article. It is boxed, dated, headed, and signed with a name and designation.

To defy the odds is to succeed when most people expect failure. A new lease of life is an occasion when you become more energetic and active than before. In hindsight is the ability to understand something after it has happened. A breakthrough moment is a time of significant development or discovery. To turn obstacles into stepping stones is to overcome challenges and achieve goals. What they have in common is that every one is used by Dr. Malik about her own life, so the exercise doubles as a summary of the chapter.

A cline arranges words of similar meaning along a scale so the differences between them become visible. Here the order runs creep, crawl, plod, amble, saunter, stroll, walk, jog, run, sprint, dart. What it reveals is that pace is not the only thing these words carry. Plod is heavy where amble is easy, saunter and stroll add leisure rather than effort, jog implies deliberate exercise, and dart implies suddenness over a short distance. Effort, purpose and duration are all hiding inside what looks like a single scale.

A modal auxiliary is a helping verb whose function changes according to the situation it appears in, so the same word can carry quite different work. In the lesson's four sentences: could hear the audience clapping expresses past ability; it couldn't be helped expresses impossibility; I should give it my best shot expresses obligation; and I knew if I tried, I would win expresses prediction. Six functions are offered for four sentences, so promise and possibility are left over.

Use a reporting verb — said, told or says; remove the quotation marks; and add the linking word that after the reporting verb. Tenses then shift back a step and pronouns change person, so have been becomes had been and I becomes she. In one worked example, however, the tense stays put, because the reporting verb there is says rather than said. The shift exists to record the gap between speaking and reporting, and with a present-tense reporting verb there is no gap to record.

Distance rather than politeness — both versions are perfectly courteous. The formal version uses modals, asking whether the interviewee could tell the questioner something rather than simply telling them. It prefers longer noun phrases, using accolades and accomplishments where the informal says achievements. It asks what those accomplishments mean rather than how they feel. And it names a role, addressing advice to aspiring athletes, where the informal names people — peers and juniors. In short, the formal register treats the interviewee as a position and the informal treats them as a person.

The origin traces to 1948, when Sir Ludwig Guttmann organised a sports competition in England for war veterans with spinal cord-related injuries. The Stoke Mandeville Games, the Olympic-style games for differently-abled athletes, were first organised in Rome in 1960. Today the Paralympics are split into Winter and Summer Games alternating every two years, and since the late twentieth century they have been held in the same host city as the corresponding Olympics, following shortly after them. The origin matters because the movement began as rehabilitation for injured soldiers — something done for people before it became something done by them, which is exactly the shift Dr. Malik's interview describes.

The first exercise matches five phrases to their meanings. To defy the odds is to succeed in doing something when most people think it would end in failure. A new lease of life is an occasion when you become more energetic and active than earlier. In hindsight is the ability to understand something after it has happened. A breakthrough moment is a time of significant development or discovery. And to turn obstacles into stepping stones is to overcome challenges and achieve goals.

What makes the exercise more than a vocabulary drill is that every one of the five is spoken by Dr. Malik about her own life. The chapter opens by asking what happens when athletes defy the odds; the Paralympics gave her a new lease of life; in hindsight the Rio silver was a personal victory; Rio was her breakthrough moment; and family support with her own fortitude let her turn obstacles into stepping stones. Learning the phrases is therefore also revising the interview.

The second exercise is a cline — an arrangement of words of similar meaning along a scale, so that the differences between them become visible. It starts from sprinting, a word the chapter itself uses, and asks for the whole set from slowest to fastest: creep, crawl, plod, amble, saunter, stroll, walk, jog, run, sprint, dart.

The ends of that scale are straightforward. The value of the exercise lies in the middle, where several words would receive the same one-line gloss in a dictionary. Plod is slow and heavy and implies effort; amble is slow and easy and implies none. Saunter and stroll are leisurely rather than effortful, with saunter carrying a touch of confidence. Jog is steady and usually deliberate exercise. Dart is fast and sudden and covers a short distance.

So the cline teaches something a synonym list cannot: that effort, purpose and duration are riding inside what appears to be a single scale of speed, and that choosing between near-synonyms is choosing between all of those at once.

A modal auxiliary is a helping verb whose function changes with the situation in which it is used, and the lesson makes that its whole point. Four sentences are given. In the first, somebody could hear the audience clapping, which expresses past ability. In the second, it couldn't be helped, which expresses impossibility. In the third, the speaker should give it their best shot, which expresses obligation. In the fourth, the speaker knew that if they tried they would win, which is a prediction. Six functions are offered against these four sentences, so two — promise and possibility — are deliberately left over, which prevents the last answer being reached by elimination.

The same four verbs are then shown doing other work. Could also carries possibility, unreal ability, request and suggestion. Couldn't carries inability. Should carries probability and advice. Would carries request and past habit. The lesson a student should draw is that a modal cannot be learned as a meaning; it can only be read as a function in the sentence in front of them.

The second piece of grammar is reported speech. The interview lines used are in direct speech and are declarative sentences — statements rather than questions or commands — and reporting them takes three steps. Use a reporting verb, said or told or says. Remove the quotation marks. Add the linking word that after the reporting verb.

The changes then noted are the ordinary ones. Tense moves back a step, so have been becomes had been and decided becomes had decided. Pronouns change person, so you becomes she and I becomes she.

One worked example is worth attention because its tense does not move at all: where the reporting verb is says rather than said, the inner verb stays in the present. This is the rule behind the rule. Tense shifts backwards to record the gap between the speaking and the reporting, and where the reporting is happening now there is no gap to record.

The listening passage is an announcement for a special assembly on World Inclusion Day. It is to be held in the school auditorium and opens with a welcome speech by the Principal. The Interact Club will make a presentation on inclusion; the school dance team will perform on the themes of diversity and acceptance; a panel discussion will follow, conducted by experts who advocate inclusion in various fields; and the celebration ends with a song. Answers are limited to one or two exact words heard, so what is being trained is precise catching rather than summary — a student who grasps the sense and puts it in their own words will lose the mark.

The speaking task interviews two people, the Sports Captain informally and the Sports Coach formally, using the same five questions in two versions set side by side. What actually differs is not politeness, since both are courteous, but distance. The formal version uses modals, asking whether the coach could tell the interviewer something rather than simply telling them. It prefers longer noun phrases, saying accolades and accomplishments where the informal says achievements. It asks what those accomplishments mean instead of how they feel. And it addresses a role — aspiring athletes — where the informal addresses people, peers and juniors. The formal register treats the interviewee as a position; the informal treats them as a person, and both are right in their place.

The writing task is a notice. A notice conveys information to students or to a specific group, and may concern an event, a celebration, a competition, important information or a lost article. Its format is fixed: the name of the organisation, the word NOTICE, the date, a heading, the details, and then a signature with name and designation. The particular task is to draft one as Sports Captain, in not more than fifty words, inviting students to register for selection in the events of an Inter-school Athletic Meet, and to draw it inside a box. The discipline here is compression into a fixed shape — a notice is a form as much as a message.

They are a celebration of resilience and of the extraordinary talent of athletes with locomotor, sensory or intellectual disabilities. Beyond the competition itself, the chapter says they exist to quell stereotypes and to redefine possibilities. The choice of verb is pointed: quell is normally used of riots, so a stereotype is presented as something to be put down rather than debated.

At twenty-nine she was diagnosed with a spine tumour. She underwent surgery, and the doctors then declared that she would be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, paralysed waist down. She says she had two choices: to squander her life in remorse, or to transform it into a world of limitless possibilities. She chose the second, and that phrase became the title of the chapter.

She had always loved sports and had been a swimmer, so switching to para-athletics came comfortably — the discipline was already hers and only its form changed. Her breakthrough came at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, where she secured the silver medal in the shot-put. Looking back, she calls it both a private triumph, and a step towards shifting the way people see things.

A fact is evidence or factual information that can be proved to be true; an opinion is the writer's belief or perception. The worked pair puts them side by side. Securing the silver medal in the shot-put at Rio in 2016 is a fact, since a record can confirm it. Feeling that it was a private triumph, and a step towards shifting the way people see things is an opinion. The verb settles it: secured describes an event, while I feel announces a perception.

The sentence is indeed true, but truth is not the test. An accurate report of what somebody believes is a fact about the speaker, not about the event described. The question asks whether the thing described can be proved, and a feeling about a medal's significance cannot be checked in the way the medal itself can. Sincerity makes a sentence honest; it does not make the content verifiable.

A cause is the action or event and an effect is the outcome. In the worked pair the cause is being diagnosed with a tumour in the spine, and the effect is the surgery together with the news that she would be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. The test is to ask which sentence could stand alone. A diagnosis makes sense by itself; surgery and a verdict about a wheelchair need the diagnosis behind them before they mean anything at all.

To defy the odds is to succeed when most people expect failure. A new lease of life is an occasion when you become more energetic and active than before. In hindsight is the ability to understand something after it has happened. A breakthrough moment is a time of significant development or discovery. To turn obstacles into stepping stones is to overcome challenges and achieve goals. What they have in common is that every one is used by Dr. Malik about her own life, so the exercise doubles as a summary of the chapter.

A cline arranges words of similar meaning along a scale so the differences between them become visible. Here the order runs creep, crawl, plod, amble, saunter, stroll, walk, jog, run, sprint, dart. What it reveals is that pace is not the only thing these words carry. Plod is heavy where amble is easy, saunter and stroll add leisure rather than effort, jog implies deliberate exercise, and dart implies suddenness over a short distance. Effort, purpose and duration are all hiding inside what looks like a single scale.

A modal auxiliary is a helping verb whose function changes according to the situation it appears in, so the same word can carry quite different work. In the lesson's four sentences: could hear the audience clapping expresses past ability; it couldn't be helped expresses impossibility; I should give it my best shot expresses obligation; and I knew if I tried, I would win expresses prediction. Six functions are offered for four sentences, so promise and possibility are left over.