Follow Class 9 English Chapter 8 of the NCERT Kaveri textbook is the unit titled ‘Follow’ — two reading texts, Irene Chua’s letter ‘Follow That Dream’ and the poem section ‘Believe in Yourself’. The official chapter PDF is right here, and the walkthrough below maps what the unit contains.
Use the links below to jump straight to the letter, the poem, the devices or the grammar — whichever part you need tonight.
Download the Follow Class 9 English Chapter 8 NCERT PDF
Open the official NCERT Class 9 English Kaveri Chapter 8 Follow PDF to read the complete printed unit — the letter, the poem, the chapter figure and every activity block — exactly as NCERT publishes it.
If the file does not open, find the same chapter through NCERT’s official textbook gateway.
Chapter at a Glance: What This File Contains
This table lists the chapter’s activity sections, its captioned figure and its in-text questions, exactly as they are printed in the unit.
Two Texts, One Theme: A Mother’s Letter and a Poem
This is not one long text. The chapter is a complete unit with two reading texts, and the same chain of activities — Reflect and Respond, Check Your Understanding, Critical Reflection, Vocabulary, Listen and Respond, Speaking, Writing, Learning Beyond the Text — follows each of them.
The title ‘Follow’ comes from the letter’s opening line: ‘By all means follow that dream.’ Nearly every activity in the chapter sends you back to that line.
- Unit one — ‘Follow That Dream’ (NCERT, pp. 232-243): the letter, dated 19 June 1995, with margin definitions; then Check Your Understanding, Critical Reflection, Vocabulary and Structures, a listening task, a role-play, the email-writing task and the vision-board activity.
- Unit two — ‘Believe in Yourself’ (NCERT, pp. 245-255): the poem ‘Step up to the challenge’ by Robert Langley, then device work, Critical Reflection, Latin expressions, a listening task, sayings role-play and the speech-writing task.
- Closing poem — ‘Always Believe in Yourself’ by Dorothy Hewitt closes the chapter (NCERT, p. 258).
The mini-biographies that end the chapter — Dr B. R. Ambedkar, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam — read as evidence for the letter’s argument rather than separate stories: each man converted hardship into sustained effort.
The Big Ideas: What the Letter and the Poem Are Really Saying
Both texts answer the same question: what does it actually take to follow a dream? The letter answers as a mother; the poem answers as a guide.
What the Letter Tells Ming
The letter’s argument runs in a fixed order, and the Critical Reflection questions on page 236 expect you to reproduce that order.
- Greatness is effort and sacrifice, and world-class standard in any field demands about ten years of single-minded, intensive pursuit (NCERT, p. 232).
- The sequence is passion, then conviction, then counting the cost in years, money and sacrifice, and then the plunge — into sports, science, arts, business or design (NCERT, p. 232).
- The road is uphill most of the way, and what keeps you buoyed up is the knowledge that you are doing what you love (NCERT, p. 232).
- No one achieves alone: Award winners thank the support network that stood by them (NCERT, p. 233).
- Most people never move past wishful thinking — they trade the dream for security, or circumstances such as war and family duty change their path (NCERT, p. 233).
- Dreams can change, and later hopes are no less real than the original: the mother’s own book, chased for ten years, was not her childhood dream (NCERT, p. 233).
These claims answer page 236’s core questions. What differentiates dreamers from achievers? Achievers carry conviction past the point where wishful thinking stops — they count the cost and commit.
How does the mother balance encouragement with caution? She says ‘By all means follow that dream’, then makes Ming check the cost honestly before the plunge.
What the Poem Tells the Reader
‘Step up to the challenge’ (NCERT, p. 246) builds one idea over four stanzas, and the task on page 247 tests each stanza’s central idea.
- Stanza 1: the challenge is solitary — no crowd, just you, the future and where you want to be.
- Stanza 2: the future either pulls you forward or fear pushes you back; near the future, choices feel difficult.
- Stanza 3: comfort and the status quo are easy, but they are not what we are made for, and not how we grow.
- Stanza 4: the first step is the hardest; there is no turning back; self-belief keeps the future on track.
The exercises that follow treat the poem as a craft object. Page 248 reads the speaker as a guide who uses direct address — ‘You’ — to talk straight to the reader, and tests imagery, symbolism and metaphor; page 249 defines antithesis and asks you to find the poem’s own contrasts.
The Poem’s Opening Image: ‘And Where You Want to Be’
The chapter gives the poem exactly one opening illustration, and most readers skip it because its caption is just a line of the poem. That line is the point.
The caption, ‘And where you want to be’, is the final line of stanza 1: ‘It’s just you and the future / And where you want to be.’ The image sits exactly where the poem declares the journey solitary — the same moment ‘There is no crowd to see’ sets the mood (NCERT, p. 246).
Read the pairing as the book’s visual answer to the stanza: the future is a place you walk toward, ahead of you and reached alone. That is why page 247’s central-idea task gives stanza 1 the option about personal responsibility and a clear focus on one’s future — this image is that option drawn.
Words and Devices the Chapter Teaches
This is a vocabulary-and-grammar chapter as much as a reading chapter: the book defines its terms in margins, boxes and tables. The four blocks below collect every term the exercises test.
The Letter’s Margin Words
Seven words carry margin definitions beside the letter (NCERT, pp. 232-233). Each row below gives the meaning the book prints, with an example sentence of our own.
| Word | Meaning (as the book gives it) | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| insight | clear and deep understanding | Her insight into the problem helped us fix the plan quickly. |
| singularly | exclusively | He was singularly focused on finishing the marathon. |
| imperative | necessary | It is imperative that we submit the form before Friday. |
| plunge | throw oneself into the activity | After months of practice, she plunged into the competition. |
| buoyed up | kept afloat | The early results buoyed up the team’s confidence. |
| wistfully | longingly | She looked wistfully at the photo of her hometown. |
| dreamscape | a world of dreams | In his dreamscape, the city floated among the clouds. |
Literary Devices in the Poem
The device exercises on pages 248-249 mix four techniques. Imagery is the picture the words create; symbolism is a thing standing for an idea; a metaphor compares without ‘like’ or ‘as’; antithesis pairs opposite ideas in parallel structure.
| Phrase from the poem | What its imagery does |
|---|---|
| ‘There is no crowd to see…’ | Suggests a solitary journey, stressing individual effort. |
| ‘push you back in fear?’ | Evokes the mental barrier that prevents growth. |
The third option in the matching task — the difficulty of beginning a new challenge — is the extra one and matches nothing.
| Symbol | What it stands for |
|---|---|
| Comfort and the status quo | Stagnation and fear of change — the comfort zone that holds one back. |
| The future | The unknown — potential that requires courage to step into. |
| The first step | A leap of faith that begins self-improvement. |
The metaphor ‘The first step is the hardest’ (NCERT, p. 248) works because beginning a change is not literally a step — the poem treats a decision as a physical movement. The book asks you to explain exactly that.
Antithesis is defined on page 249 with Neil Armstrong’s ‘small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind’. The poem’s own contrasts are comfort against growth in stanza 3, and ‘pull you forward’ against ‘push you back in fear’ in stanza 2.
A rhetorical question needs no answer because it makes the reader think — page 252 defines it. ‘Will it pull you forward / or push you back in fear?’ is the poem’s example.
Latin Expressions Used in English
Page 251 prints six Latin expressions used in everyday English and tests them with a gap-fill. The table gives the phrase, its meaning, and a new sentence using it.
| Latin expression | Meaning | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| et cetera (etc.) | and other things; and so on | The hostel kit list includes bedsheets, towels, a mug, et cetera. |
| exempli gratia (e.g.) | for example | She can play several instruments, e.g. the flute and the keyboard. |
| ad hoc | for a specific purpose or situation, often temporary | The college formed an ad hoc committee to handle the fog delay. |
| in medias res | into the middle of things; starting at a crucial point | The film opens in medias res, with the chase already underway. |
| per se | by itself; fundamentally | The colour isn’t a problem per se; the font size hurts readability. |
| quid pro quo | a favour or advantage given in return for something | Helping you revise is not a quid pro quo for your notes. |
Grammar Points: The First Conditional and ‘Could’
The grammar work on page 239 is built from the letter’s own sentences. Two items matter: the first conditional with an imperative, and the four uses of ‘could’.
The pattern is If + present tense, imperative. The book’s example is the letter line ‘if the burning conviction is still coursing through your veins, then go ahead and do something about it’ (NCERT, p. 239). Notice the main clause is a command, not ‘will + verb’.
- If the idea excites you, start writing it down today.
- If you hear strange noises, check the windows first.
- If this seems too hard, break the task into smaller steps.
- If you care about the issue, speak up about it.
- If you finish early, review your answers once more.
Each answer must be a command or piece of advice — a prediction like ‘you will be happy’ is the pattern the exercise is training you against.
| Sentence from the letter | Function of ‘could’ |
|---|---|
| ‘It could be in any field — sports, science, arts, business, or design.’ | Possibility |
| ‘I wish I could be this or the other.’ | Unreal or hypothetical situation |
| ‘They could have preferred to trade their dream for security.’ | Past possibility or speculation |
| ‘…so that they could support their siblings through school.’ | Past ability or purpose |
The practice items on page 240 add a fifth function — a formal, polite request (‘Could you repeat the question?’) — so keep five uses in mind, not four.
Mistakes Students Make in This Chapter
These are the traps in the printed exercises that skim-readers fall into. Check your answer against the right column before you submit.
| The mistake | The correct rule | How to check your answer |
|---|---|---|
| Marking ‘Having a strong network of individuals can be a hurdle in pursuing one’s ambition’ as true (p. 234). | A support network is help, not a hurdle — winners thank the people who stood by them. | Re-read the Awards paragraph on p. 233; the statement contradicts it, so it is false. |
| Choosing ‘a plan to make things more exciting’ for status quo (p. 245). | Status quo means the existing state of affairs — keeping things the same. | The sentence says the children ‘didn’t want any changes’; only that option matches. |
| Reading ‘wet blanket’ as daydreamer (p. 238). | A wet blanket is a spoil-sport who dampens the fun. | The speaker says ‘we’re trying to have fun!’ — the complaint is about spoiling fun, not dreaming. |
| Assigning ‘They could have preferred to trade their dream for security’ to past ability (p. 239). | ‘Could have + participle’ here is past possibility or speculation about what people might have done. | Match all four: 1 possibility, 2 unreal, 3 past possibility or speculation, 4 past ability or purpose. |
| Completing the first-conditional stems with ‘will + verb’. | The pattern is If + present tense, imperative — the main clause is a command or advice. | The textbook’s own line ends ‘…then go ahead and do something about it’ — an instruction, not a prediction. |
| Treating imagery as symbolism and vice versa (p. 248). | Imagery is the picture words create; symbolism is a thing standing for an idea. | ‘No crowd to see’ paints a lonely walk (imagery); the future standing for the unknown is symbolism. |
| Dropping Cc, Bcc or the sign-off in the email (p. 242). | The format box lists From, To, Cc, Bcc, Subject and Message; the guidelines require ‘Yours sincerely,’ plus name and contact details. | Tick every header field against the box before sending. |
How This Chapter’s Exercises Prepare You for Board Work
Nothing here promises a specific exam question. The point is the shapes the chapter trains you in — what transfers to board-style work, and what stays inside the textbook.
- Extract-based question sets on pages 235-236 (the letter) and page 250 (the poem) follow the passage-plus-questions format: short answers, vocabulary in context, tone, analogy, central idea. A full answer names the point, quotes the line asked for, and states the reason.
- The email task on page 242 and the speech task on page 255 drill formal formats — header fields, opening, body, conclusion and sign-off — the parts examiners check first.
- The ‘could’ matching and the first-conditional imperatives on pages 239-240 test whether you can apply a grammar rule to a new sentence.
- The margin words and Latin expressions (pages 237-238 and 251) train meaning-in-context, the same skill extract questions use.
For condensed revision, the CBSE notes for Class 9 English hub covers this book chapter by chapter, including the earlier Carrier of Words chapter.
One honest warning: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical. CBSE sets the examination syllabus separately from NCERT’s printed chapters, so check the current official syllabus before deciding what to revise.
Key Takeaways From Both Texts
The chapter prints no closing summary, so this recap collects both texts’ claims in our words. Skim it the night before, then go back to any bullet you cannot explain.
| Stanza | Central idea |
|---|---|
| 1 | Facing a challenge means taking personal responsibility and keeping a clear focus on the future. |
| 2 | Fear and uncertainty make the choice harder as the future approaches. |
| 3 | Growth demands leaving comfort behind and embracing change. |
| 4 | The first step is difficult, but self-belief keeps you on track. |
From the letter, the claims to carry forward:
- World-class skill takes about ten years of singular pursuit.
- Passion must become conviction, then a counted cost, then commitment.
- The road is uphill; knowing you are doing what you love keeps you buoyed up.
- Winners are lifted by a support network.
- Most dreams die as wishful thinking or get traded for security.
- Dreams can change — later hopes are no less real.
From the poem:
- The challenge is yours alone.
- Fear pushes back, but the future pulls forward.
- Comfort and the status quo are ease without growth.
- The first step is the hardest.
- Self-belief keeps the future on track.
The chapter ends with Dorothy Hewitt’s ‘Always Believe in Yourself’ (NCERT, p. 258): believe in yourself, do not limit yourself, persist when tested beyond endurance, and keep your hands and heart open.
Related NCERT Pages for Class 9 English
Jump between this chapter and the rest of the Kaveri book, all on the official edition.
- NCERT Class 9 English book pages — the full Kaveri index.
- Class 9 NCERT books — the Class 9 subjects listed on this site.
- Previous chapter (Chapter 7) of Kaveri.
- Next chapter (Chapter 9) of Kaveri.
- Verify the current edition on NCERT’s official textbook gateway.
For study support beyond the book, the Class 9 notes hub and the main CBSE notes index sit alongside these pages.
Sources and Data Verification
This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.
- This page describes the NCERT Class 9 English textbook Kaveri, Chapter 8 ‘Follow’, in the official edition published on ncert.nic.in.
- It covers this chapter’s two reading texts and their activity blocks; it does not cover other chapters of the book.
- The listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT information available to us.
- NCERT settles textbooks, editions and PDFs; CBSE settles the curriculum, syllabus and examinations. Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official syllabus.
| What the chapter holds | Count | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Printed pages | 28 | |
| Figures with NCERT captions | 1 | |
| Tables | 6 | |
| In-text questions | 9 | |
| Activities | 1 | |
| Official NCERT PDF | Download the chapter PDF | the chapter exactly as NCERT publishes it |
Reference: NCERT Class 9 English textbook (Kaveri), chapter 8, official edition on ncert.nic.in.
Questions Students Ask About This Chapter
Quick answers to the questions students actually search for about this chapter.
What is the NCERT Class 9 English chapter ‘Follow’ about?
It is a unit built around two reading texts: Irene Chua’s letter ‘Follow That Dream’ to her daughter Ming, and Robert Langley’s poem ‘Step up to the challenge’. Both argue that following a dream takes conviction, hard work and self-belief, and each is followed by the same chain of comprehension, language and writing activities.
The chapter closes with Dorothy Hewitt’s poem ‘Always Believe in Yourself’.
Who wrote ‘Follow That Dream’, and who is the letter for?
Irene Chua wrote it for her teenage daughter Ming, dated 19 June 1995, from the collection ‘My Daughter, My Friend’. The letter is her answer to whatever Ming wrote about chasing a dream — the activity on page 236 asks you to imagine that.
Who wrote the poem ‘Step up to the challenge’?
Robert Langley wrote ‘Step up to the challenge’. It is printed on page 246 of the Kaveri textbook, and the exercises on pages 247-250 test its structure and meaning.
What does ‘status quo’ mean in this chapter?
It means the existing state of affairs — keeping things the same. On page 245, the correct option is ‘a situation to keep things the same’, because the children ‘were happy with the status quo and didn’t want any changes’.
What are the four uses of ‘could’ the chapter teaches?
The four functions are past ability or purpose, possibility, past possibility or speculation, and unreal or hypothetical situation.
Match them to the letter’s sentences: ‘It could be in any field’ = possibility; ‘I wish I could be this or the other’ = unreal; ‘They could have preferred to trade their dream for security’ = past possibility or speculation; ‘so that they could support their siblings through school’ = past ability or purpose.
What is the rhyme scheme of the poem ‘Step up to the challenge’?
Each four-line stanza follows ABCB — the second and fourth lines rhyme (fear/near, quo/grow, back/track) — which creates the steady flow the exercise on page 247 mentions. The opening three-line stanza rhymes its first and third lines: see/be.
Explore Class 9 English Books
- Previous: Carrier of Words
Related chapters:
- How I Taught My Grandmother to Read
- The Pot Maker
- Winds of Change