The Thief’s Story Class 10 Worksheet with Answers
What makes a young thief reconsider a successful theft? Explore the choices and relationships in Ruskin Bond’s story through WitKnowLearn’s The Thief’s Story Class 10 worksheet with answers.
Practise interpreting motives, explaining character development and supporting answers with textual evidence. Attempt the questions independently, then review how clearly your responses connect actions, thoughts and consequences.
Read for Decisions, Motives and Change
This chapter rewards attention to what a character thinks as well as what he does. When answering a question, identify the decision involved and explain the reasoning that helps the reader understand it.
Use the question-and-answer approach followed across WitKnowLearn’s English worksheets. Complete factual tasks, extract-based activities, vocabulary questions and written responses before consulting the answers.
During the first attempt, locate supporting details in your textbook. On a later attempt, answer selected questions without looking at the chapter. Check whether you can recall the evidence accurately and explain its significance in your own words.
The Thief’s Story Questions: Skills to Develop
Distinguish the Narrator’s Claims from His Actions
The story is told through Hari Singh’s perspective. Pay attention to how he describes himself, interprets others and explains his choices. Compare these statements with what happens in the narrative.
For a narrator-based question, separate the information he gives from your interpretation of it. A careful answer makes clear whether you are reporting his view or evaluating his behaviour.
Trace the Change in His Priorities
To answer a question about character development, choose details from different stages of the story. Identify an earlier motive, a later thought and the action that shows a change.
Explain the connection between these details. A sequence of events becomes an analytical answer when you show how the character’s priorities develop.
Examine Anil’s Influence
Questions about Anil invite you to consider how his behaviour affects the narrator. Select a relevant action and explain the response it produces.
For a character sketch, support each quality with evidence. If you describe Anil as trusting or generous, identify the detail that makes the description convincing rather than relying on the adjective alone.
Interpret the Conflict before the Return
When a question asks why Hari changes his decision, examine the competing possibilities he considers. Organise your rough work around immediate gain and what he risks losing.
Keep the explanation focused on the narrator’s thoughts in the chapter. Avoid reducing a complex decision to a single general statement when the question requires several reasons.
Explain the Ending through Small Details
The ending relies on actions and observations rather than a long spoken explanation. For an inference question, identify the detail that supports your conclusion and explain why it matters.
Use precise phrases such as “suggests” or “indicates” when interpreting unspoken knowledge. This helps distinguish a supported inference from an explicitly stated fact.
Original Practice Prompt
Question: How does the possibility of a better future influence Hari Singh’s decision?
Answer approach: Identify what he stands to gain beyond the stolen money. Select a relevant thought or promise from the story and explain how it affects his choice.
After writing, underline the sentence that connects the future opportunity with the decision. If that connection is missing, add an explanation rather than another event.
The Thief’s Story Extract-Based Questions
For The Thief’s Story extract-based questions, establish the moment described and the narrator’s state of mind. Then examine the particular phrase or action required by the task.
An extract may test vocabulary, inference, reference or character understanding. Read the question carefully before deciding which details to include. Your knowledge of the chapter provides context, while the passage supplies immediate evidence.
A Four-Step Extract Strategy
- Locate the moment: Decide whether it occurs before the theft, during the escape or after the return.
- Identify the task: Check whether you need to recall, explain, infer or select an answer.
- Find the supporting detail: Choose the expression that directly relates to the question.
- Review your reasoning: Confirm that your explanation follows from the passage.
For MCQs, compare all options with the extract. For True or False statements, find the detail that confirms the statement or shows what requires correction.
Organise Your Worksheet Practice
| Practice Area | Skill to Develop | Self-Check |
|---|---|---|
| Factual questions | Accurate recall | Have you supplied the precise information requested? |
| Character development | Comparing stages | Have you explained what changes and how you know? |
| Motives and decisions | Tracing reasoning | Does your evidence explain the choice? |
| Extract-based questions | Close reading | Does the supplied passage support your answer? |
| Vocabulary activities | Understanding context | Does the meaning fit the narrator’s sentence? |
| Ending and theme | Developing an interpretation | Have you distinguished observation from inference? |
Connect Trust, Education and Responsibility
Theme-based questions often require you to connect several details. Choose a clear main idea, then show how a relationship, opportunity or decision develops it.
For a response about education, explain its importance to the narrator’s imagined future. For a response about trust, consider both the relationship and the effect of betraying it. Keep the discussion anchored in the chapter.
If a question asks for your opinion about forgiveness, begin with the situation in the story and develop a reasoned response. Make your own judgement clear while accurately representing the characters’ actions.
Write Focused Short and Extended Answers
For The Thief’s Story short questions and answers, begin with a direct response. Add the relevant evidence and a brief explanation. Follow any word limit given in the task.
For The Thief’s Story long-answer questions, plan a main claim and two supporting points. Develop each point through the narrator’s thoughts or actions. Remove details that repeat the plot without advancing your explanation.
Check questions with more than one part carefully. If you are asked what a character does and why, your response needs both the action and its motivation.
Use the Answers to Improve Your Explanation
Compare your response with the provided answer for accuracy, relevance and reasoning. Your wording can differ while communicating the same supported meaning.
Choose one correction for each weak response: stronger evidence, a clearer motive or a more direct opening. Rewrite that part, then apply the improvement to a similar question.
Related Class 10 English Practice
Explore the A Letter to God worksheet with answers to practise explaining trust and the difference between a character’s assumptions and the reader’s knowledge.
Use the A Triumph of Surgery worksheet for further practice in interpreting motives and connecting intentions with consequences.
FAQs about The Thief’s Story Class 10
Who wrote The Thief’s Story?
Ruskin Bond wrote the story. It is studied in the Class 10 supplementary reader Footprints Without Feet.
Who is Hari Singh?
He is the young thief who narrates the story. Hari Singh is the name he gives Anil, and he explains that he regularly changes names to avoid detection.
Why does Hari approach Anil?
He initially considers Anil an easy person to deceive and hopes to gain his confidence before stealing from him.
What does Anil offer to teach Hari?
Anil offers to teach him to read, write and work with numbers, giving him the prospect of a different future.
How much money does Hari steal?
He steals six hundred rupees from beneath Anil’s mattress.
Why does Hari return the money?
He recognises the value of Anil’s trust and the opportunity to learn. These outweigh the immediate benefit of keeping the stolen money.
How does the ending suggest that Anil knows about the theft?
The damp banknote Anil gives Hari suggests awareness of the money’s removal and return in the rain. Anil does not openly confront him.
What is a central message of the story?
The story suggests that trust, kindness and an opportunity for education can encourage a person to reconsider dishonest behaviour.
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