Class 10 English · Original EZT practice
From the Diary of Anne Frank (Class 10 English, First Flight, Chapter 4)
From the Diary of Anne Frank is Chapter 4 of Class 10 First Flight in the Reprint 2026-27 printing (pp. 48-62), an adapted extract from The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne, thirteen and certain no one will care for 'the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl', starts a diary because she has no true friend - she names it Kitty. Her entries race from a class 'quaking in its boots' over exam results to Mr Keesing, the maths teacher who punishes her chatter with essays until her verse about a quacking duckling family turns the joke around. This page retells the entries with fresh practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 26 October 2026:
1. About the author
The chapter's Before You Read section carries a full note: Anneliese Marie 'Anne' Frank (12 June 1929 - February/March 1945) was a German-born Jewish girl who wrote while in hiding with her family and four friends in Amsterdam during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. After two years the group was betrayed and transported; Anne died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen. Her father Otto, the only survivor, found the diary saved and had it published in English as The Diary of a Young Girl - translated from Dutch into many languages, it became one of the world's most widely read books.
2. The entries at a glance
The strange start: writing a diary feels odd because 'neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl' - but 'I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.' The saying: 'Paper has more patience than people.' The real reason: 'I don't have a friend' - despite 'loving parents and a sixteen-year-old sister, and there are about thirty people I can call friends'. The invention: 'I don't want to jot down the facts in this diary the way most people would do, but I want the diary to be my friend, and I'm going to call this friend Kitty.' The class suspense: 'Our entire class is quaking in its boots' over the meeting that decides who moves up - 'teachers are the most unpredictable creatures on earth'. The punishment: 'Mr Keesing, the old fogey who teaches maths, was annoyed with me for ages because I talked so much' - an essay, 'A Chatterbox'. The defence: 'I argued that talking is a student's trait' and 'there's not much you can do about inherited traits', since her mother talked as much. The escalation: a second essay, 'An Incorrigible Chatterbox', then 'Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Mistress Chatterbox'. The counter-joke: with Sanne's help, a poem 'about a mother duck and a father swan with three baby ducklings who were bitten to death by the father because they quacked too much'. The truce: 'Since then I've been allowed to talk and haven't been assigned any extra homework. On the contrary, Mr Keesing's always making jokes these days.'
3. Key details and what they signal
Loneliness inside a full life: 'on the surface I seem to have everything, except my one true friend' - friends stay at 'ordinary everyday things', and 'We don't seem to be able to get any closer'. Writing as need, not hobby: 'I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.' The diary as person: naming the notebook Kitty turns a private habit into a relationship - 'Dearest Kitty' opens the school entries. Humour as armour: bets on results, laughing 'ourselves silly' at classmates - the jokes run right beside the fear of being 'kept back'. Wit beating punishment: each essay answers the last penalty - arguments about inherited traits, then a poem that turns the tables until 'the joke was on him'. A teacher who can laugh: 'Mr Keesing took the joke the right way' - he read the poem to the class, 'adding his own comments', and 'to several other classes as well'.
4. Theme
The need to be heard: the diary is born because paper 'has more patience than people' - a listener that never interrupts. Self-expression as survival: essays and verse are Anne's way of staying herself under correction; the chatterbox out-writes every penalty. Judging by surfaces: the 'old fogey' turns out to be a teacher who reads her poem to other classes - first impressions of people can be wrong. Ordinary days, extraordinary record: classroom bets and maths homework, written without an audience in mind, became one of the world's most widely read books.
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Name the diary
Choose the method: No friend, then Kitty.
EZT practice question
What does Anne call her diary, and why does she give it a name?
Show the worked solution
- The lack: 'I don't have a friend' - her friendships stay at 'ordinary everyday things'.
- The decision: 'I don't want to jot down the facts in this diary the way most people would do, but I want the diary to be my friend.'
- The name: 'I'm going to call this friend Kitty.'
Answer: She calls it Kitty - she wants 'the diary to be my friend', a true confidante rather than a notebook of jotted facts, and naming it makes the notebook a person she can address.
Check: The missing friend, the diary-as-friend decision, the name Kitty.
Watch for this: Do not say Anne had no company - she counts loving parents, a sister and about thirty friends; what she lacks is one person for everything, which is why the friend has to be invented.
Now try it yourself
How does the naming show up in the entries themselves?
Check your answer
The entries open with the greeting 'Dearest Kitty' - Anne writes to a named listener from the first line, not to herself.
The salutation proves the diary is a relationship, not a record.
Read the famous line
Choose the method: Paper waits, people tire.
EZT practice question
What saying does Anne recall on a depressed day, and what does she mean by it?
Show the worked solution
- The mood: on one of her 'slightly depressed days' she broods over whether anyone will care what she writes.
- The saying: 'Paper has more patience than people.'
- The meaning: paper listens without interrupting, judging or tiring - so writing can hold what she cannot say aloud.
Answer: She recalls 'Paper has more patience than people' - writing is a listener that never interrupts or judges, which is why it can carry 'all kinds of things off my chest'.
Check: The depressed day, the saying, the patient-listener meaning.
Watch for this: Do not read the saying as a complaint against her family - it explains why writing works as an outlet, not that the people around her are unkind.
Now try it yourself
Why does Anne doubt anyone will read her diary?
Check your answer
Because she thinks 'neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl' - she writes for need, not for an audience.
The doubt makes the later fame of the diary the chapter's quiet irony.
Sit with the nervous class
Choose the method: Bets placed, boots quaking.
EZT practice question
Why is the whole class nervous in the school entry?
Show the worked solution
- The meeting: teachers are about to decide 'who'll move up to the next form and who'll be kept back'.
- The mood: 'Our entire class is quaking in its boots.'
- The verdict on teachers: 'teachers are the most unpredictable creatures on earth' - so half the class is making bets.
Answer: Teachers are meeting to decide 'who'll move up to the next form and who'll be kept back', and since 'teachers are the most unpredictable creatures on earth', 'Our entire class is quaking in its boots'.
Check: The promotion meeting, the quaking class, the unpredictable teachers.
Watch for this: Do not let the jokes hide the stakes - the bets and the laughing 'ourselves silly' sit right beside a real fear of being 'kept back'.
Now try it yourself
Who does Anne think should not worry, and who might be kept back?
Check your answer
She is sure she and her friends will move up; the two boys the class laughs at are the ones she half-expects to be kept back - her guesses show how lightly the class carries its fear.
Her predictions make the suspense social rather than tragic.
List the punishments
Choose the method: Talk, essay, repeat.
EZT practice question
What three essays does Mr Keesing assign Anne?
Show the worked solution
- The offence: 'Mr Keesing, the old fogey who teaches maths, was annoyed with me for ages because I talked so much.'
- The essays: first 'A Chatterbox', then 'An Incorrigible Chatterbox', and finally 'Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Mistress Chatterbox'.
- The escalation: each new burst of talking in class earns the next, stranger topic.
Answer: 'A Chatterbox', then 'An Incorrigible Chatterbox', and finally 'Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Mistress Chatterbox' - each assigned after another round of talking in his maths lessons.
Check: All three titles, in order, and the reason for each.
Watch for this: Do not present the essays as one punishment repeated - the topics escalate deliberately, and the third one invites the poem that ends the war between them.
Now try it yourself
How does Anne defend herself in the first essay?
Check your answer
She writes three pages of arguments: 'talking is a student's trait', and her own case is beyond cure because it is inherited - 'there's not much you can do about inherited traits' - her mother talks as much as she does.
Her defence turns the punishment into another performance of the fault.
Use the inherited excuse
Choose the method: Trait traced to mother.
EZT practice question
How is Anne's diary different from the way most people keep one?
Show the worked solution
- Most diaries: people 'jot down the facts' - a record of what happened.
- Anne's refusal: 'I don't want to jot down the facts in this diary the way most people would do.'
- Anne's version: 'I want the diary to be my friend' - a listener to confide in, addressed by name.
Answer: Most people 'jot down the facts' in a diary; Anne refuses - 'I want the diary to be my friend' - so hers is a conversation with a named confidante, not a record of events.
Check: The jotting habit, the refusal, the friend.
Watch for this: Do not confuse different in kind with different in content - Anne does record daily facts, but she writes them to Kitty as letters, which changes what a diary entry is.
Now try it yourself
Why does Anne call talking an inherited trait in her essay?
Check your answer
To out-argue the punishment: if chatter is a student's trait and hers comes from her mother, then 'there's not much you can do about inherited traits' - the essay makes the penalty look pointless.
The excuse is a joke with logic inside it, and Keesing reads it that way.
Turn the joke around
Choose the method: Poem ends the essays.
EZT practice question
How does Anne answer the third essay topic, and what changes afterwards?
Show the worked solution
- The help: her classmate Sanne, 'good at poetry', offers to write the essay in verse.
- The poem: 'a mother duck and a father swan with three baby ducklings who were bitten to death by the father because they quacked too much'.
- The change: Mr Keesing reads it to the class 'adding his own comments' and to other classes; 'Since then I've been allowed to talk and haven't been assigned any extra homework.'
Answer: With Sanne's help she writes it as a poem about ducklings 'bitten to death by the father because they quacked too much'; Mr Keesing takes the joke, reads it to classes, and 'Since then I've been allowed to talk' - 'Mr Keesing's always making jokes these days.'
Check: Sanne's verse, the quacking ducklings, the end of the essays.
Watch for this: Do not read the poem as defiance that got her expelled from favour - Keesing 'took the joke the right way'; the satire works because he can laugh at himself.
Now try it yourself
What does the ending say about Mr Keesing?
Check your answer
That the 'old fogey' was misjudged: he reads her satire aloud 'adding his own comments' and jokes with her afterwards - a teacher who answers wit with wit, not authority.
The last essay flips the chapter's first impression of him.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. Why is the diary named Kitty?
Show answer and reason
Anne wants 'the diary to be my friend', not a notebook of jotted facts.
Naming makes the notebook a person.
2. The saying Anne recalls?
Show answer and reason
'Paper has more patience than people.'
Writing listens without judging.
3. The three punishment essays?
Show answer and reason
'A Chatterbox', 'An Incorrigible Chatterbox', 'Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Mistress Chatterbox'.
Each burst of talking earns the next, stranger topic.
4. What ends the punishments?
Show answer and reason
A verse about ducklings 'bitten to death by the father because they quacked too much'.
The joke lands, and Keesing laughs.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- In two sentences, explain why Anne's loneliness survives a life full of family and friends.
- Show how each of the three essays answers the punishment before it, and what that pattern says about Anne.
- Explain in your own words why the Mr Keesing of the last entry is not the 'old fogey' of the first.
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Questions about this practice page
- Who wrote From the Diary of Anne Frank in Class 10 First Flight?
- The chapter is an adapted extract from Anne Frank's own diary, published in English as The Diary of a Young Girl. The textbook's Before You Read note tells her life story; no other author is credited.
- What made Anne Frank name her diary Kitty?
- She felt she had no true friend - people around her stayed at 'ordinary everyday things' and 'We don't seem to be able to get any closer' - so she decided the diary would be her friend and called it Kitty.
- Who was Mr Keesing in the Anne Frank chapter?
- The maths teacher - 'the old fogey who teaches maths' - who punished Anne's talking with three essays and, won over by her poem about the quacking ducklings, ended up reading it to other classes and joking with her.
- Is From the Diary of Anne Frank in the 2026-27 syllabus?
- Yes - it is on the CBSE Class 10 English (Language and Literature) curriculum for 2026-27, and it is Chapter 4 of First Flight in the Reprint 2026-27 printing (pp. 48-62). Check your own copy, as printings can differ.
- What is Kitty in the diary of Anne Frank?
- Kitty is the name Anne gives her diary - 'I'm going to call this friend Kitty' - turning the notebook into the true friend she felt she did not have.