Class 11 English · Original EZT practice
Silk Road - Nick Middleton (Class 11 English, Hornbill, Chapter 6)
Silk Road is Chapter 6 of Class 11 Hornbill (pp. 57-67), Nick Middleton's account of driving from Ravu toward Mount Kailash to complete the kora. With the driver Tsetan and the translator Daniel, he crosses the Changtang past gazelles and 'a great herd of wild ass', nurses a cold through a sleepless night at 4760 metres in Darchen, and finally meets Norbu, who proposes they team up - 'Two academics who have escaped from the library.' This page follows the high passes, the salt lake and the Tibetan doctor, 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 25 October 2026:
1. The chapter at a glance
The farewell: 'A flawless half-moon floated in a perfect blue sky on the morning we said our goodbyes', and Lhamo's parting gift is one of the long-sleeved sheepskin coats all the men wear - the narrator is 'heading towards Mount Kailash to complete the kora'. Tsetan's terms: the short cut crosses 'several fairly high mountain passes' - 'But no problem, sir', he assures him, 'if there is no snow'; asked how likely that is, he answers, 'Not knowing, sir, until we get there.' The wildlife: gazelles that frown 'before bounding away into the void', then 'a great herd of wild ass came into view', the kyang 'wheeling and turning in tight formation as if they were practising manoeuvres on some predetermined course.' The mastiffs: nomad tents guarded by Tibetan mastiffs that 'explode into action, speeding directly towards us, like a bullet from a gun' - 'These shaggy monsters, blacker than the darkest night' were once 'brought along the Silk Road in ancient times as tribute from Tibet.' The snow patch: at 5210 metres 'a swathe of the white stuff lay across the track in front of us'; the danger is not depth but 'its icy top layer' - 'If we slip off, the car could turn over' - so they fling dirt across the frozen surface and walk alongside to lighten Tsetan's load. The pass: the top at 5515 metres is 'marked by a large cairn of rocks festooned with white silk scarves and ragged prayer flags'; Tsetan unscrews the petrol cap and it hisses - 'The lower atmospheric pressure was allowing the fuel to expand' - 'Maybe, sir', he laughs, 'but no smoking.' The salt lake: lunch at 'a workcamp erected beside a dry salt lake', men with pickaxes and 'salt-encrusted boots' loading 'a steady stream of blue trucks'; the flats are 'vestiges of the Tethys Ocean which bordered Tibet before the great continental collision that lifted it skyward.' Hor and the lake: 'Hor was a grim, miserable place' - dust, rocks and refuse on the shore of Lake Manasarovar, 'Tibet's most venerated stretch of water', named by ancient cosmology as the source of 'the Indus, the Ganges, the Sutlej and the Brahmaputra.' Earlier travellers: Ekai Kawaguchi, 'a Japanese monk who had arrived there in 1900', was 'moved by the sanctity of the lake that he burst into tears'; Sven Hedin, 'a Swede who wasn't prone to sentimental outbursts', was similarly affected - the narrator gets a cafe with three broken windows. The bad night: at 4760 metres in Darchen, lying down fills his sinuses and sitting up clears them; 'A little voice inside me was saying that if I did I might never wake up again. So I stayed awake all night.' The doctor: at the Darchen medical college a Tibetan doctor in 'a thick pullover and a woolly hat' diagnoses 'a cold and the effects of altitude' and prescribes a five-day course - 'fifteen screws of paper' whose breakfast powder 'tasted just like cinnamon'; after the first full day, 'I slept very soundly. Like a log, not a dead man.' Tsetan's farewell: once the narrator will clearly live, Tsetan leaves for Lhasa - 'As a Buddhist, he told me, he knew that it didn't really matter if I passed away, but he thought it would be bad for business.' Darchen without pilgrims: the town is 'dusty, partially derelict and punctuated by heaps of rubble and refuse', men play pool in the open air, women wash their hair in the icy brook - 'but, for me, it came with a significant drawback. There were no pilgrims.' Norbu: a Tibetan in a windcheater and metal-rimmed spectacles who works 'in Beijing at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in the Institute of Ethnic Literature', has written papers about the Kailash kora for years but never done it - 'We could be a team', he says, and suggests hiring yaks.
2. Key details and what they signal
The wristwatch altitudes: 5210 metres at the snow patch, past 5400 metres as his head throbs, 5515 at the pass, 4760 at Darchen - the journey is measured in numbers, and each number carries a symptom. The translation chain: the narrator speaks to Lhamo 'through Daniel', and the doctor speaks to him 'finally through Tsetan' - every exchange in this world is mediated, which is why the English-speaking Norbu matters so much when he appears. The mastiffs as history: hunting dogs 'brought along the Silk Road in ancient times as tribute from Tibet' - the old trade route is not backdrop; it is the reason the road, the town and even the dogs are here. Hor against its own shore: the town 'sat on the shore of Lake Manasarovar, Tibet's most venerated stretch of water', yet it is 'liberally scattered with years of accumulated refuse' - sanctity and squalor share one address, which is exactly what earlier travellers' tearful accounts left out. The medicine on trust: pellets that 'looked suspiciously like sheep dung, but of course I took them' - the traveller's real passport is his willingness to accept what a place offers. Plastic as the new cargo: the cafe walls are wreathed in striped plastic sheeting that 'must rate as one of China's most successful exports along the Silk Road today' - the ancient route still moves goods, just different ones. Norbu's paradox: he 'had been writing academic papers about the Kailash kora and its importance in various works of Buddhist literature for many years', but had never walked it - book knowledge meeting the road at last, for both of them.
3. Theme
Pilgrimage versus tourism: the narrator wants to complete the kora and hopes for 'devout believers' as companions; he gets Norbu, not 'a practising Buddhist' but full of enthusiasm - the journey is religious, bodily and comic at once. The body at altitude: throbbing head, gasping nights, a cold that will not shift, and the terror of a sleep that might be endless - the mountain is experienced as physiology before it is scenery. The old route's long shadow: tribute mastiffs, the Lhasa-to-Kashmir trade road, Lake Manasarovar's four-river cosmology - and today's trucks, cigarettes and striped plastic moving along the same corridor. Hospitality and competence: Lhamo's coat, Tsetan's driving and frankness, the doctor's fifteen paper screws - the traveller survives on other people's skill. Expectation versus reality: Kawaguchi and Hedin wept at first sight of the lake; the narrator gets refuse heaps and a draughty cafe, and the account is honest enough to keep both.
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.
Hear Tsetan's terms
Choose the method: Passes, then snow.
EZT practice question
What does Tsetan promise about the short cut, and what honest answer does he give about the snow?
Show the worked solution
- The route: a short cut south-west, 'almost directly towards Mount Kailash', crossing 'several fairly high mountain passes'.
- The assurance: 'But no problem, sir', if there is no snow.
- The odds, asked directly: 'Not knowing, sir, until we get there.'
Answer: Tsetan promises 'no problem, sir' if there is no snow; asked how likely snow is, he admits, 'Not knowing, sir, until we get there.'
Check: The high passes, the no-snow condition, the not-knowing answer.
Watch for this: Do not read the assurance as a guarantee - Tsetan's honesty is the point: the mountain decides, and he says so.
Now try it yourself
Why does the narrator keep a driver who cannot promise the road is open?
Check your answer
Because Tsetan's frankness is worth more than a false promise - he says exactly what he knows and nothing more.
Trust on this road is built from honesty, not certainty.
Watch the Changtang animals
Choose the method: Gazelles, then kyang.
EZT practice question
Which animals mark the climb onto the plateau, and how does the narrator describe them?
Show the worked solution
- The gazelles: a few of them 'look up from nibbling the arid pastures and frown before bounding away into the void'.
- The wild ass: 'a great herd of wild ass came into view'.
- The kyang: 'wheeling and turning in tight formation as if they were practising manoeuvres on some predetermined course'.
Answer: Gazelles that frown before bounding 'away into the void', 'a great herd of wild ass', and kyang 'wheeling and turning in tight formation as if they were practising manoeuvres'.
Check: Gazelles, wild ass, kyang, the tight formation.
Watch for this: Do not skim the animals as scenery - they are the sign the party has left the farmland and entered the high plateau's own country.
Now try it yourself
Why compare the kyang to troops on a predetermined course?
Check your answer
The military image makes the wild herd read as drill - order inside apparent chaos, the plateau running to its own discipline.
The simile hands the animals the land's authority.
Cross the snow patch
Choose the method: Dirt, then footsteps.
EZT practice question
At 5210 metres, what blocks the track, why is it dangerous, and how does the party get across?
Show the worked solution
- The obstacle: 'a swathe of the white stuff lay across the track in front of us'.
- The danger: not depth but 'its icy top layer' - 'If we slip off, the car could turn over.'
- The method: they fling dirt across the frozen surface, then walk alongside to lighten the load while Tsetan drives it through.
Answer: A swathe of snow whose danger is 'its icy top layer' - 'If we slip off, the car could turn over'; they spread dirt on the ice and walk alongside to lighten Tsetan's load.
Check: The icy top layer, the dirt, the walking passengers.
Watch for this: Do not credit engine power - the crossing is done with handfuls of dirt and the passengers' own legs, competence over force.
Now try it yourself
Why does the narrator give the altitude of the snow patch?
Check your answer
The wristwatch number turns discomfort into data - at 5210 metres even a small obstacle is a high-altitude problem.
Each number in this journey carries a symptom.
Set Hor against its lake
Choose the method: Refuse, then reverence.
EZT practice question
How does the town of Hor sit against Lake Manasarovar, and why does the contrast matter?
Show the worked solution
- The town: 'Hor was a grim, miserable place' - dust, rocks, 'years of accumulated refuse'.
- The lake: Manasarovar, 'Tibet's most venerated stretch of water', source of 'the Indus, the Ganges, the Sutlej and the Brahmaputra'.
- The witnesses: Kawaguchi 'burst into tears' at the sanctity; Hedin, 'a Swede who wasn't prone to sentimental outbursts', was similarly affected - the narrator gets a cafe with three broken windows.
Answer: Hor is 'grim, miserable', scattered with refuse, yet it sits on the shore of 'Tibet's most venerated stretch of water' - sanctity and squalor at one address, which the tearful earlier accounts left out.
Check: The refuse, the four rivers, Kawaguchi's tears, the draughty cafe.
Watch for this: Do not flatten Hor into failure - the honesty is the point: the narrator reports what Kawaguchi and Hedin's reverence edited out.
Now try it yourself
Why name the four rivers at Manasarovar?
Check your answer
The cosmology explains the veneration - a lake that mothers the Indus, Ganges, Sutlej and Brahmaputra cannot be ordinary, whatever its shore town looks like.
The geography of faith outranks the geography of refuse.
Survive the Darchen night
Choose the method: Sinuses, then screws.
EZT practice question
What happens to the narrator on his first night in Darchen, and how is he put right?
Show the worked solution
- The night: at 4760 metres, lying down fills his sinuses and sitting up clears them; 'A little voice inside me was saying that if I did I might never wake up again. So I stayed awake all night.'
- The diagnosis: 'a cold and the effects of altitude' - the doctor wears 'a thick pullover and a woolly hat'.
- The cure: a five-day course in 'fifteen screws of paper', the breakfast powder tasting 'just like cinnamon' - then 'I slept very soundly. Like a log, not a dead man.'
Answer: A sleepless night at 4760 metres, fearing sleep itself; a Tibetan doctor diagnoses 'a cold and the effects of altitude' and prescribes fifteen paper screws of medicine - after the first full day, 'I slept very soundly. Like a log, not a dead man.'
Check: The little voice, the pullover, the cinnamon powder, the log line.
Watch for this: Do not miss the joke in the recovery line - 'like a log, not a dead man' measures the night before against the sleep after.
Now try it yourself
Why does the narrator take pellets that 'looked suspiciously like sheep dung'?
Check your answer
Because his real passport everywhere on this journey is trust - he accepts what the place offers, and the place delivers.
'Of course I took them' is the traveller's whole creed in five words.
Meet Norbu
Choose the method: Papers, then yaks.
EZT practice question
What is Norbu's relationship to the kora, and what does he propose?
Show the worked solution
- The scholar: he works 'in Beijing at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in the Institute of Ethnic Literature'.
- The paradox: he 'had been writing academic papers about the Kailash kora and its importance in various works of Buddhist literature for many years' - and had never done it.
- The proposal: 'We could be a team' - 'Two academics who have escaped from the library' - and he suggests hiring yaks.
Answer: Norbu has written about the Kailash kora for years without ever walking it; he proposes they team up - 'Two academics who have escaped from the library' - and hire yaks.
Check: The Institute, the unwritten kora, the team, the yaks.
Watch for this: Do not read Norbu as a pilgrim - he is not 'a practising Buddhist'; what he brings is enthusiasm and a library's worth of intention, which is exactly the narrator's own position.
Now try it yourself
Why is Norbu the right companion for this narrator?
Check your answer
Both are academics outside the library at last - book knowledge meeting the road; neither is the devout believer the narrator imagined, and both know it.
The kora pairs two men who studied it before they dared it.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. Tsetan's honest answer about snow?
Show answer and reason
'Not knowing, sir, until we get there.'
The mountain decides; he says so.
2. How the car crossed the snow?
Show answer and reason
Dirt flung on the icy top layer, passengers walking to lighten the load.
Competence over force.
3. Hor's contradiction?
Show answer and reason
Refuse-heaped town on the shore of 'Tibet's most venerated stretch of water'.
Sanctity and squalor share one address.
4. Norbu's proposal?
Show answer and reason
'We could be a team' - two academics escaped from the library, with yaks.
Book knowledge meets the road.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- In two sentences, explain how the wristwatch altitudes structure the journey from Ravu to Darchen.
- Contrast the narrator's Manasarovar with Kawaguchi's and Hedin's, and say what the difference claims about travel writing.
- Explain in your own words why the striped plastic sheeting belongs in a chapter called Silk Road.
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Questions about this practice page
- Who wrote Silk Road?
- Nick Middleton. The Hornbill text credits him under the chapter title and carries no biographical note, so this page describes only what the account itself shows - a traveller crossing the Changtang toward Mount Kailash with Tsetan and Daniel.
- What is Silk Road about?
- A drive from the high plateau settlement of Ravu to Darchen at the foot of Mount Kailash: snow patches, a 5515-metre pass, a salt-lake workcamp, the grim town of Hor beside sacred Lake Manasarovar, a sleepless altitude night, a Tibetan doctor, and the meeting with Norbu that turns a solo wait into a two-man kora plan.
- What is the kora the narrator wants to complete?
- The pilgrimage circuit of Mount Kailash. He tells Lhamo 'through Daniel' that he is 'heading towards Mount Kailash to complete the kora', Norbu has 'come to do the kora' too, and its route is seasonal - 'parts of the route were liable to blockage by snow.'
- Who is Tsetan in Silk Road?
- The narrator's driver and, after Daniel leaves at Hor, his interpreter. He sizes up the sheepskin coat ('drokba, sir'), gets the car over the icy snow with handfuls of dirt, checks the hissing petrol tank at the pass, and leaves for Lhasa once his passenger will live - it would be 'bad for business' otherwise.
- Where is Silk Road in the Class 11 book?
- Chapter 6 of Hornbill, the Class 11 English textbook (pp. 57-67 by the current NCERT contents page; page numbers can differ between printings, so check your own copy).