How to Live before You Die by Steve Jobs Exercise: Questions & Answers Class 11 English

 Understanding the text 

Answer the following questions.

a. What is the story about Steve Jobs’ birth?

➜ Steve Jobs was born to a single student. She decided to put her baby up for adoption while pregnant. She wanted her baby to be adopted by an educated family. Initially, a lawyer’s family was ready to adopt Steve Jobs. After Steve Jobs was born, the lawyer’s family changed their minds to adopt him. They wanted to adopt a girl, later a mechanic named Paul Jobs, and his wife, Clara Jobs, adopted Steve Jobs with the promise that one day they would send Steve to college to study.

b. What does he mean when he says, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards”?

➜ Here in his line he wants to make it clear to all of us that our successes and failures in the present depend on various points in the past, but not on points in our future. We are aware of our present life through various moments in our past life, such as our difficulties, the choices we made, the struggles, the mistakes we made, the desires we wanted, the choices we made, not what we did, etc. Realize that all of these points in our life are interrelated. Connect these dots as you look to the future. The determinant of our present and our future is our past as well as the various points in our life. We can’t predict the future, but life has meaning when we look at history.

c. What happened when Steve Jobs turned 30?

➜ When Steve Jobs turned 30, the board of directors fired him from his own company.

d. Jobs contends that you need to love to do what you do in order to be great at it. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

➜ Yes, I agree with his views because our love for our work can lead to success. In order to be great at our job, it is very important that we all love the work we do. When we can’t love what we do, we will not be successful in our work. In this situation, our work will not make sense to us.

e. Is death really life’s greatest invention?

➜ Yes, death is life’s greatest invention, death is inevitable and nobody lives forever. Nobody wants to die, but everyone shares this intellectual concept. Death is a life-changing factor. To overcome this concept, everyone must face this bitter reality.

 Reference to the context 

a. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.”

i. Who was the baby boy?

➜ Steve Jobs was the baby boy.

ii. What does ‘do you want him?’ mean?

➜ ‘Do you want him?’ It is a question related to the adoption of Steve Jobs to his parents Paul and Clara Jobs, who were on the waiting list to adopt the baby.

iii. Who does ‘they’ refer to?

➜ ‘They’ refer to Mr Paul Jobs and Mrs Clara Jobs.

b. Explain the following lines:

i. “You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

➜ This line was introduced by Apple Computer CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs in his speech at Stanford University. Here he advises everyone to believe and trust these important aspects of their life. According to Steve Jobs, these aspects go hand in hand with success. Confidence in these aspects can lead anyone to excellence.

ii. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

➜ Here on this line he is letting people know how important it is for time to flow so quickly. According to him, we must use our time, which is so limited that we should not waste our time living someone else’s life. We must use our time well to shed light on our future. Time waits for nothing. We have to move on without wasting time.

c. What does he mean by “don’t settle”?

➜ By “don’t settle”? He wants to suggest people not to look for the best and most satisfying tasks that they prefer. That means we have to keep looking for our best jobs that keep us happy. We have to do our best to find the right tasks. We shouldn’t bother with our desirable tasks until we have found the right tasks that satisfy us.

d. Which style of speech is used by the speaker to persuade the audience?

➜ In order to persuade the audience, the speaker uses a personal and informal style of expression that appears to be the narrative type in which he tries to motivate the audience with his real life stories.

e. It is not easy to motivate others. How do you think Steve Jobs’ speech is so inspiring?

➜ I find Steve Jobs’s speech very inspiring. Excellent is his act of delivering life-related stories in his speech to motivate his audience. In his speech he told his personal stories from his life that have inspired most people. The speech contains several facts about the life of ordinary people. His speech encourages people to continue on the path of progress regardless of the family background they belong to.

f. Why do you think Steve Jobs used the personal narrative story telling technique in his speech? What influence does it have on the audiences?

➜ I think Steve Jobs used the technique of personal storytelling in his speech to motivate his audience. His speech contains several facts about the difficulties and struggles of life. He has a very positive impact on the audience. His speech gives the audience a chance. to literally know the difficulties and struggles behind a successful life.

 Reference beyond the text 

a. One of Steve Jobs mottos was: ‘Think differently’. Can this make a person succeed in life? What challenges are there in thinking differently?

➜ Yes, this can make a person successful in life. To change the life we ​​have to think and act differently. There has to be a change in our thoughts. We have to try to do something different. Similar thoughts can never move forward properly. There are different challenges to thinking differently. Many legends, inventors, have been humiliated and cut off from societies because they naturally thought differently. You should be crazy. Thinking differently can isolate people from majorities, societies, etc. We have to think differently for change and development.

b. What does the slogan “Stay hungry; stay foolish” mean to you?

➜ The slogan “Stay hungry; stay foolish” means being ready and willing to try new things. We must always strive to know and achieve the important things in our life. We should try to do something new in our life with different thoughts.

c. What does it mean to be a visionary? What makes Steve Jobs different from a fortune teller?

➜ To be visionary means to have a positive vision or anticipation for the future. Steve Jobs is different from a fortune teller. The fortune-teller is not always right. His predictions could be wrong. But as a visionary, Steve Jobs’ positive prediction sets him apart from a fortune teller. With his view of the tech world, he managed to reach the top of the tech world. Various things played a key role behind his predictions: his curiosity, his intuition, his different thoughts, his activities, his difficulties and struggles, his experience, his belief in his fate etc.