Read the poem and answer the questions given below it.
The Clock Above the Blackboard
I sit at desk fourteen, beside the door,
two pens, a ruler, my admit card in line.
The papers lie face down on the teacher’s desk.
The clock above the blackboard says half past nine.
Ten minutes before the first bell rings,
and every minute lasts a year. I stare
up at the long hand above the board.
I look away, look back: it is still there.
The bell. The papers. I turn mine and read,
and soon my pen is moving at full speed.
Four answers done. I glance up at the wall:
an hour has gone, and I never felt it at all.
The sun lies in a yellow strip on my desk,
gold chalk dust drifts in the window light,
and the thin red second hand goes round and round,
sweeping the last ten minutes out of sight.
“Pens down,” the teacher says. The sheets are gone.
I look up at the clock above the board:
a dusty face, three minutes slow, as always,
the clock that all year we had ignored.
Which of the following best describes the theme of the poem?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → how an exam makes the same clock seem slow, then fast
The poem follows one clock through one exam and shows how differently the time seems to pass.
- While the speaker waits for the bell, “every minute lasts a year”. The long hand seems not to move.
- Once the writing starts, “an hour has gone” without the speaker noticing, and the second hand sweeps the last minutes “out of sight”.
- At the end the clock is just “a dusty face, three minutes slow, as always”. The clock never changed. Only the speaker’s feelings made it seem slow, then fast.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: the need to plan one’s time carefully in an exam — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The poem gives no advice about planning time. It shows how time feels, not how to use it.
Option 2: the tense silence of a classroom on exam day — Incorrect. Too narrow: The waiting before the bell is tense. But the poem is about the clock and the speed of time, not the silence of the room.
Option 3: an old clock that no one in the class looks at — Incorrect. Misread: The class “ignored” the clock all year. But on exam day the speaker looks at it again and again.