Deep Water NCERT Solutions Class 12 English

NCERT Solutions for Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 3 “Deep Water” offer complete, detailed, and accurate answers to all textbook questions. This comprehensive guide includes step-by-step solutions for Think as You Read, Understanding the Text, Talking About the Text, Thinking About Language (narration perspectives), Writing Tasks (including sample essays and letters), and Things to Do (water sports in India). Be sure to read Deep Water Summary to grasp the core story and answer these questions more effectively!

Deep Water Class 12 Question Answers

Think as you read (page 27)

Q.1. What is the “misadventure” that William Douglas speaks about?
Ans. When Douglas was ten or eleven, he went to the Y.M.C.A. pool in Yakima to learn swimming. One day, when he was alone at the pool, a big eighteen-year-old boy picked him up and threw him into the deep end as a joke. Douglas sank to the bottom, nearly drowned and lost consciousness. This is the misadventure.

Q.2. What were the series of emotions and fears that Douglas experienced when he was thrown into the pool? What plans did he make to come to the surface?
Ans. Emotions and fears:

• He was frightened as he went down, but not “frightened out of his wits”.
• Panic grew when he came up slowly and saw only dirty yellow water around him.
• He felt suffocating and helpless, and he could not scream.
• Sheer terror seized him. His legs were paralysed and his body went stiff.
• Stark terror gripped him even more deeply when the jump made no difference.
• At last he felt a false peace, drowsiness and relaxation, and then he lost consciousness.

Plan: When his feet hit the bottom, he would make a big jump, come to the surface like a cork, lie flat on the water, and paddle with his hands and legs to the edge of the pool.

Q.3. How did this experience affect him?
Ans. The experience left him with a deep fear of water. He was weak, shaky and could not eat that night. A haunting fear stayed with him for days. He never went back to the pool and avoided water. Whenever he later tried to enter rivers or lakes, the terror returned and paralysed his legs. This fear ruined his fishing trips and deprived him of the joy of canoeing, boating and swimming for years.

Think as you read (page 29)

Q.1. Why was Douglas determined to get over his fear of water?
Ans. The fear had become a handicap that stayed with him for years. It ruined his fishing trips and took away the joy of canoeing, boating and swimming. He loved the outdoors and wanted to be free to enjoy nature, so he decided to overcome the fear and hired an instructor.

Q.2. How did the instructor “build a swimmer” out of Douglas?
Ans. The instructor trained him piece by piece:

• He put a belt around Douglas, attached to a rope running through a pulley, and took him back and forth across the pool for hours, days and weeks. This lasted for three months.
• He taught Douglas to put his face under water and exhale, and to raise his nose and inhale. Douglas repeated this hundreds of times.
• He made Douglas kick with his legs, holding him at the side of the pool, until the legs relaxed and obeyed.
• When each part was perfected, he put them together into an integrated whole. In April he told Douglas to dive and swim the length of the pool.

Q.3. How did Douglas make sure that he conquered the old terror?
Ans. He tested himself repeatedly:

• He swam alone up and down the pool, and when traces of terror returned, he challenged it.
• In July he swam two miles across Lake Wentworth in New Hampshire, using different strokes. When the terror came back in the middle of the lake, he laughed at it and “Mr Terror” fled.
• Finally he went to Warm Lake in the Cascades, where the fear had earlier gripped him, dived in and swam across and back. He shouted with joy, and he knew he had conquered his fear.

Understanding the text

Q.1. How does Douglas make clear to the reader the sense of panic that gripped him as he almost drowned? Describe the details that have made the description vivid.
Ans. Douglas uses a first-person narration and describes his physical and mental state step by step, which makes the panic real:

• Physical details: His lungs were “ready to burst”, his head throbbed, he was dizzy, and his legs hung “as dead weights, paralysed and rigid”.
• Sensory details: He saw only “dirty yellow” water that he could not see through, and his hands “clutched only at water”.
• Exaggeration: The nine feet seemed “more like ninety”.
• Helplessness: He screamed, but “only the water heard me”; he tried to call for help, but nothing happened.
• Comparisons: The terror was like “a great charge of electricity”, and his struggle was like “one in a nightmare” fighting an irresistible force.
• Repetition and short sentences: “I went down, down, endlessly” and “terror that knows no understanding, terror that knows no control” create the sense of rising panic.
• The false calm at the end: His thoughts become broken (“to be drowsy… to go to sleep…”) as he loses consciousness, which makes the near-death feeling real.

Q.2. How did Douglas overcome his fear of water?
Ans. He hired an instructor and practised five days a week, an hour each day, for months. The instructor taught him in stages (the rope and pulley, breathing with the face under water, and kicking with the legs) and then combined these into swimming. Douglas then kept testing himself. He swam alone in the pool, swam two miles across Lake Wentworth, and finally swam across Warm Lake in the Cascades. With determination and repeated practice, he faced the terror and defeated it.

Q.3. Why does Douglas as an adult recount a childhood experience of terror and his conquering of it? What larger meaning does he draw from this experience?
Ans. Douglas recounts it to show that fear can be overcome by determination and practice. His own experience supports his discussion of fear. The larger meaning is:

• Terror comes from the fear of death, not from death itself. “In death there is peace.”
• He agrees with Roosevelt: “All we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear paralyses us more than the danger does.
• Having felt both the sensation of dying and the terror of fear, his will to live grew stronger.
• Conquering fear gives freedom, and he felt free to “walk the trails and climb the peaks and to brush aside fear.”

Talking about the text

(Discussion questions, so here are sample points.)

Q.1. “All we have to fear is fear itself.” Have you ever had a fear that you have now overcome?
Ans. Sample answer:

I was once very afraid of speaking on stage. In Class IX, when I was chosen for a school debate, my hands shook, my voice trembled and I forgot my lines. Some classmates laughed, and I decided never to try again. But my English teacher encouraged me and made me practise in front of the mirror, and then in front of my family. Slowly I began taking part in small class discussions and finally in the assembly. Now I realise the audience was never the problem. My fear of failing was. Like Douglas, I learnt that fear weakens us only if we let it.

(You can speak about any real fear of your own: exams, heights, dogs, dark, cycling, public speaking.)

Q.2. Stories about conquest of fear and what people have said about courage

• Nelson Mandela: He spent 27 years in prison for opposing apartheid, but he never gave up. In Long Walk to Freedom he said that courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. He wanted to free both the oppressed and the oppressor.
• We’re Not Afraid to Die (Class XI): The family faced a terrible storm at sea with their small children. Their courage, teamwork and optimism helped them survive.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt: “All we have to fear is fear itself.” He led the USA through the Great Depression and the Second World War, though he himself was paralysed by polio.
• Malala Yousafzai: She was shot by the Taliban for demanding girls’ education. She recovered and continued to speak for education, becoming the youngest Nobel Peace laureate.
• Mahatma Gandhi: He taught that fearlessness is the first requirement of spirituality and led India’s non-violent freedom movement against a powerful empire.

Thinking about language

If someone else had narrated Douglas’s experience, how would it have differed? Write a sample paragraph from the point of view of a third person or observer. Which style is more effective?

Third-person version (sample):

The boy had been sitting quietly at the edge of the pool when a big, strong youth entered and shouted, “Hi, Skinny! How’d you like to be ducked?” Before the boy could answer, he was lifted up and thrown into the deep end. He sank to the bottom. After a while his head came up for a moment, and his hands flailed at the water, but he sank again. Nobody noticed that he was drowning. When he came up the third time, he was limp and lifeless. The bully, realising it was no longer a joke, pulled him out. The boy lay beside the pool, vomiting, while the others said, “The kid nearly died.”

Which is more effective: The first-person narration is more effective because:

• It lets us feel the boy’s inner terror, thoughts and sensations, which an observer could never know. The details of paralysed legs, the yellow water, the plan to jump and the false peace are only possible from inside.
• It sounds honest and personal, which makes the reader sympathise with him.
• The observer’s version shows only the outer event, and the emotional force is lost.
• It supports the writer’s point about fear, because we see how fear works in the mind.

Writing

1. Essay (about five paragraphs): overcoming fear in an activity (sample: learning to ride a bicycle)

At Last I Felt Released

“At last I felt released, free to walk the trails and climb the peaks and to brush aside fear.” These words of William Douglas remind me of the day I finally learnt to ride a bicycle without falling.

I was nine years old when my father bought me a red bicycle. All my friends already rode theirs, and I was the only one who still depended on training wheels. I was afraid of falling. Once, when my cousin took off the support wheels, I had crashed into a wall and scraped both my knees. After that, I refused to sit on the cycle at all. My friends teased me and called me “baby”, which made me feel worse.

My elder sister decided to help me. Every evening she took me to the park and held the back of the seat while I pedalled. My hands shook and my legs felt stiff, just like Douglas’s in the pool. Whenever I felt the cycle wobble, I braked and put my feet down. My father also encouraged me, saying, “Everyone falls before they ride.” Their patience gave me courage.

After two weeks, my sister let go of the seat without telling me. I rode a few metres alone before I realised it. I got scared and fell, but this time I was not hurt, and I laughed. I got up and tried again, and again. By the end of that week, I was riding round the park without anyone’s help, with the wind on my face.

That day I understood that I was never afraid of the cycle but of falling. Once I stopped fearing the fall, the cycle obeyed me. Now I ride to school every day, and I feel free and proud. I learnt that fear is conquered only by facing it, one step at a time.

(Use your own experience: swimming, dance, driving, stage, sports. Follow this structure: cause of fear → feelings → encouragement or criticism → practice → success → lesson learnt.)

2. Short letter to someone about having learnt to do something new (sample)

24, Green Park
New Delhi
12 October 2026

Dear Rohan,

I hope you are doing well. I am writing to share some happy news. You know how I was always afraid of water and never learnt to swim. This summer I finally learnt, and I can now swim a full length of the pool!

I joined a coaching class near my house. At first I was nervous, and my legs would freeze whenever my face went under water. But my instructor was very patient. He taught me breathing, kicking and strokes step by step. After a month, I could float, and after two months, I could swim the crawl stroke. The first time I crossed the pool without help, I felt so proud!

Now I feel more confident and enjoy swimming every morning. When you visit us in December, I will take you to the pool, and you will be surprised to see me in the water.

Please give my regards to Uncle and Aunty.

Yours affectionately,
Arjun

Things to do

Are there any water sports in India? Find out about the areas or places known for water sports.

Yes, India has many water sports. Some well-known places are: