Back to Subject

Unit 6: Mahesh Dattani: Tara - Practice Quiz

ENG112 — Indian Writing In English 60 Questions
0 Correct 0 Wrong 60 Left
0/60

1 Who wrote the play Tara?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Easy
A. Mahesh Dattani
B. R. K. Narayan
C. Vijay Tendulkar
D. Girish Karnad

2 How many acts does Tara have?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Easy
A. Four acts
B. One act
C. Three acts
D. Two acts

3 Who are Tara and Chandan?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Easy
A. Brother and sister
B. Teacher and student
C. Cousins
D. Husband and wife

4 What physical condition do Tara and Chandan have at birth?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Easy
A. They are conjoined twins
B. They are deaf twins
C. They are adopted twins
D. They are blind twins

5 What is Chandan's name after he moves to London?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Easy
A. Dilip
B. Dan
C. Dev
D. Derek

6 Mahesh Dattani is best known as an Indian ____.

Mahesh Dattani's contribution to English literature Easy
A. Playwright
B. Economist
C. Painter
D. Historian

7 In which language did Mahesh Dattani mainly write his plays?

Mahesh Dattani's contribution to English literature Easy
A. English
B. Bengali
C. Marathi
D. Tamil

8 What kind of subjects does Dattani often explore in his plays?

Mahesh Dattani's contribution to English literature Easy
A. Only scientific theories
B. Only ancient mythology
C. Social and personal issues
D. Only travel adventures

9 What major social issue is highlighted in Tara?

Thematic analysis Easy
A. Industrial development
B. Space exploration
C. Gender discrimination
D. Environmental pollution

10 What does Tara's unequal treatment mainly reveal?

Thematic analysis Easy
A. Patriarchal prejudice
B. Scientific progress
C. Religious harmony
D. Political freedom

11 Which theme is connected with Chandan's change of name to Dan?

Thematic analysis Easy
A. Identity
B. Agriculture
C. War
D. Tourism

12 What event forms the central conflict of the play?

Plot construction Easy
A. A village election
B. The separation of the twins
C. A journey across India
D. A business competition

13 How does the play present many events from the past?

Plot construction Easy
A. Through courtroom speeches only
B. Through songs only
C. Through flashbacks
D. Through newspaper reports only

14 What is the main purpose of the flashbacks in Tara?

Plot construction Easy
A. To explain scientific formulas
B. To reveal hidden family events
C. To describe foreign countries
D. To introduce comic characters

15 Who is Tara's mother?

Characterization Easy
A. Maya
B. Roopa
C. Nalini
D. Bharati

16 Which character is Tara's twin brother?

Characterization Easy
A. Chandan
B. Danesh
C. Patel
D. Mr Thakkar

17 Why is Tara denied the better chance of surviving the operation?

Gender equality Easy
A. Her family favors the boy
B. She refuses medical care
C. She is older than Chandan
D. She leaves the hospital

18 What ethical question does the operation raise?

Moral ethics Easy
A. Should schools teach music?
B. Is it right to value one child over another?
C. Can cities build hospitals?
D. Should families travel abroad?

19 What kind of family is mainly represented in Tara?

Class structure Easy
A. A royal family
B. An urban middle-class family
C. A rural farming family
D. A nomadic tribe

20 How does class structure influence the world of Tara?

Class structure Easy
A. It prevents the characters from living in a city
B. It removes all family conflict
C. It shapes access to doctors and social status
D. It makes every character equally powerful

21 What central event in the twins' medical history shapes the later conflict in Tara?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Medium
A. Chandan is given the stronger leg
B. The operation is cancelled by the doctor
C. Both twins receive artificial legs
D. Tara receives the stronger leg

22 Why does Chandan use the name Dan in the later part of the play?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Medium
A. To honor his father's profession
B. To hide his medical profession
C. To reject his family history
D. To create distance from his past

23 What is the dramatic effect of presenting Chandan as both a character and a narrator?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Medium
A. It makes the events entirely comic
B. It limits the story to Bharati's view
C. It removes all emotional distance
D. It combines personal memory with reflection

24 What is a significant feature of Dattani's contribution to Indian writing in English?

Mahesh Dattani's contribution to English literature Medium
A. He writes mainly historical romances
B. He presents urban social realities directly
C. He avoids controversial social subjects
D. He imitates only British dramatic conventions

25 Why is Dattani's use of English significant in the context of Indian drama?

Mahesh Dattani's contribution to English literature Medium
A. It separates drama from Indian society
B. It proves regional languages are inadequate
C. It adapts English to Indian social experience
D. It restricts his plays to foreign audiences

26 The unequal treatment of Tara and Chandan most clearly develops which theme?

Thematic analysis Medium
A. The conflict between rural communities
B. The value of economic competition
C. The triumph of scientific progress
D. The effects of patriarchal preference

27 How does Tara's physical disability function thematically in the play?

Thematic analysis Medium
A. It removes gender from the family conflict
B. It proves disability causes moral weakness
C. It makes Tara dependent on every character
D. It exposes society's treatment of difference

28 What does the play suggest through Bharati's guilt and attempts to care for Tara?

Thematic analysis Medium
A. Parental affection may coexist with harmful choices
B. Private love always defeats social pressure
C. Medical decisions are free from ethical concerns
D. Guilt can repair every injustice

29 How does the movement between past and present affect the structure of Tara?

Plot construction Medium
A. It presents events in strict chronology
B. It eliminates suspense from the family story
C. It reveals consequences before their causes
D. It changes the play into a historical chronicle

30 What is the dramatic purpose of delaying the full explanation of Tara's operation?

Plot construction Medium
A. To make the medical details humorous
B. To create curiosity about the tragedy
C. To shift attention away from Tara
D. To prove Patel acted without knowledge

31 Which structural feature most strongly links the personal and social dimensions of the play?

Plot construction Medium
A. The absence of a clearly defined conflict
B. The play's focus on one medical decision
C. The use of comic songs between scenes
D. The setting in several unrelated countries

32 Which description best captures Chandan's development in the play?

Characterization Medium
A. He moves from confidence to political leadership
B. He moves from poverty to material success
C. He moves from privilege to guilt and alienation
D. He moves from illness to complete recovery

33 What does Tara's response to her condition reveal about her character?

Characterization Medium
A. She accepts her parents' decisions without protest
B. She is primarily interested in social status
C. She is passive and unaware of injustice
D. She is perceptive, questioning, and resilient

34 What does Patel's role reveal about professional responsibility?

Characterization Medium
A. Scientific knowledge removes personal accountability
B. Doctors are powerless in family decisions
C. Expertise automatically guarantees ethical action
D. Professional authority can serve social prejudice

35 If the operation had been decided solely according to medical viability rather than sex, what would the play's central criticism emphasize?

Gender equality Medium
A. The damage caused by gender-based judgment
B. The neutrality of family traditions
C. The unavoidable power of fate
D. The superiority of private education

36 Which situation best reflects the gender ideology criticized in Tara?

Gender equality Medium
A. A son is favored despite weaker qualifications
B. A family shares domestic responsibilities
C. A daughter receives equal educational support
D. A patient makes an informed choice

37 Which ethical principle is most clearly violated by assigning the leg according to the child's sex?

Moral ethics Medium
A. Equal respect for persons
B. Freedom of artistic expression
C. Obedience to family customs
D. Confidentiality of medical records

38 Why is Bharati morally responsible even though Patel performs the operation?

Moral ethics Medium
A. She replaces Patel during the operation
B. She participates in accepting the biased choice
C. She personally designs the surgical procedure
D. She controls the hospital finances

39 How does the Patel family's social position influence the play's conflicts?

Class structure Medium
A. It eliminates differences within the household
B. It prevents them from accessing medical care
C. It gives them comfort without removing prejudice
D. It makes them members of a rural labor group

40 What does the family's access to advanced medical treatment suggest about class in Tara?

Class structure Medium
A. Economic privilege solves ethical problems
B. Class privilege can coexist with social injustice
C. Medical technology is equally available to all
D. Wealth makes family relationships transparent

41 What is the most significant dramatic effect of presenting Chandan as an adult writer who retrospectively reconstructs his childhood?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Hard
A. It establishes Chandan as an entirely reliable narrator
B. It turns the play into a linear domestic chronicle
C. It makes memory an unstable medium of guilt and interpretation
D. It removes the need for conflict between past and present

42 The surgical separation of the twins most powerfully functions as a metaphor for which larger conflict?

Thematic analysis Hard
A. The conflict between bodily difference and social discrimination
B. The conflict between private affection and public reputation
C. The conflict between science and religious faith
D. The conflict between rural tradition and urban migration

43 Why is Tara's case more accurately read as a critique of patriarchal value systems than as a simple mother-versus-daughter conflict?

Gender equality Hard
A. Patel's medical decision is unrelated to family expectations
B. Bharati alone invents the preference for Chandan
C. The family and medical systems convert gender preference into bodily consequences
D. Tara rejects education because she accepts traditional gender roles

44 Which interpretation best explains Bharati's characterization after Tara's operation?

Characterization Hard
A. She becomes a purely heroic opponent of patriarchy
B. She becomes a figure whose guilt mixes maternal love, complicity, and psychological collapse
C. She becomes a comic representative of modern medical progress
D. She becomes an emotionally detached observer of Tara's decline

45 What ethical problem is created by the decision concerning the twins' third leg?

Moral ethics Hard
A. A child's future is sacrificed through discriminatory allocation of bodily opportunity
B. The doctor refuses every possible surgical intervention
C. Aesthetic preference is allowed to override informed medical judgment
D. The parents conceal a harmless procedure from the children

46 How does the play's movement between the adult present and the remembered past affect the audience's understanding of causality?

Plot construction Hard
A. It makes the final tragedy appear completely accidental
B. It confirms that Chandan has no connection with the events
C. It replaces family conflict with a purely historical narrative
D. It delays information so that earlier scenes acquire new moral significance

47 Which feature most distinctly represents Dattani's contribution to Indian writing in English through Tara?

Mahesh Dattani's contribution to English literature Hard
A. He uses English theatre to expose intimate Indian social contradictions
B. He avoids controversial questions in favor of mythological spectacle
C. He treats family life as separate from class, gender, and social power
D. He reproduces European domestic drama without local adaptation

48 What does the Patels' ability to approach a specialist and influence medical decisions reveal about class structure in the play?

Class structure Hard
A. Economic privilege can convert access into power over vulnerable lives
B. The family belongs to a completely powerless social group
C. Medical institutions operate independently of wealth
D. Class is presented only through servants' comic behavior

49 Why does the play's treatment of disability resist a purely medical interpretation?

Thematic analysis Hard
A. The play presents disability as an issue affecting only doctors
B. The disability becomes meaningful mainly through social attitudes and unequal treatment
C. Tara's body is never discussed by the other characters
D. The operation succeeds without producing any ethical consequence

50 Which contrast best captures the development of Chandan's relationship to Tara?

Characterization Hard
A. From medical expertise to religious devotion
B. From social confidence to political leadership
C. From childish dependence to adult guilt and self-imposed exile
D. From indifference to uncomplicated celebration

51 Which evidence most directly demonstrates that gender discrimination in Tara is structurally embedded rather than merely expressed in personal prejudice?

Gender equality Hard
A. Tara and Chandan share a childhood home
B. The medical decision privileges Chandan's future over Tara's survival
C. Bharati experiences emotional distress after the operation
D. Chandan later changes his name in England

52 What is the principal function of the revelation concerning the operation's altered medical arrangement?

Plot construction Hard
A. It proves that Tara's death was caused only by natural weakness
B. It eliminates Bharati's responsibility for the twins
C. It supplies comic relief during the final act
D. It converts a family secret into evidence of deliberate ethical compromise

53 Which ethical principle is most clearly violated when the children are treated differently because one is male?

Moral ethics Hard
A. The principle of artistic freedom
B. The principle of equal moral consideration
C. The principle of linguistic uniformity
D. The principle of national sovereignty

54 How does the two-act structure contribute to the play's thematic force?

Tara: A Play in Two Acts Hard
A. It allows the medical plot to conclude before the family plot begins
B. It places remembered domestic scenes against the later consequences of concealed decisions
C. It gives equal narrative importance to every minor character
D. It separates comedy from an unrelated historical episode

55 Why is Dattani's use of English significant in the dramatic representation of the Patel family?

Mahesh Dattani's contribution to English literature Hard
A. It restricts the play's audience to professional linguists
B. It proves that Indian drama must imitate British theatrical conventions
C. It enables an urban Indian family to speak within a global literary medium while retaining local tensions
D. It removes all regional cultural references from the dialogue

56 Which reading best explains the significance of the family's social position in the play?

Class structure Hard
A. Class identity disappears once the operation is completed
B. Privilege protects the family from every form of suffering
C. Poverty alone produces the twins' conflict
D. Middle-class respectability coexists with hidden violence and moral compromise

57 What is the most productive interpretation of Dr. Thakkar's role in the play?

Characterization Hard
A. He represents a morally neutral science untouched by society
B. He becomes the family's emotional caretaker after Tara's death
C. He functions only as a source of medical vocabulary
D. He embodies the danger of professional expertise being subordinated to privilege and bias

58 How does the play complicate the idea of victimhood?

Thematic analysis Hard
A. It argues that emotional suffering has no relation to social power
B. It identifies only Tara as affected and excludes the rest of the family
C. It shows that guilt, privilege, injury, and responsibility can coexist within one family
D. It presents every character as equally innocent of wrongdoing

59 Which judgment most accurately evaluates Bharati's later attempts to compensate for her earlier actions?

Moral ethics Hard
A. They reveal remorse but cannot restore Tara's lost life or equal moral status
B. They completely erase the consequences of the operation
C. They prove that her earlier decision was medically justified
D. They demonstrate that guilt is entirely socially imposed

60 Why does the play's gender critique remain relevant even though its central medical situation is unusual?

Gender equality Hard
A. The unusual case prevents comparison with ordinary social practices
B. The extreme situation magnifies everyday assumptions about the greater value of sons
C. The play argues that gender bias exists only in hospitals
D. The twins' condition makes cultural prejudice irrelevant
Previous MCQ
Unit 5