This page hosts the official NCERT Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 8 Going Places PDF (2026-27 reprint). The PDF carries A.R. Barton's complete short story along with the back-of-chapter Understanding-the-Text, Talking-about-the-Text, Working-with-Words, Noticing-Form, and Thinking-about-Language exercises. Use this page to download the chapter PDF directly, preview it page-by-page in the flipbook, and reach our Solutions, Notes and Handwritten Notes for the same chapter.
- Edition: NCERT Flamingo, 2026-27 reprint
- Pages: 12 pages (story + back-of-chapter exercises)
- Aligned to: 2026-27 CBSE Class 12 English Core syllabus
You can find the complete Class 12 English NCERT Book PDF Chapter 8 Flamingo Prose: Going Places, including character analysis, theme breakdown, scene-by-scene plot, and exam-ready answer pointers, in the article below.
This Class 12 English NCERT Book PDF Chapter 8 Flamingo Prose: Going Places is curated by Collegedunia subject experts, mapped to the 2026-27 NCERT print, and refined against the last five years of CBSE Board papers and CUET passages.
Also Check:
- Going Places Class 12 English NCERT Solutions
- Going Places Class 12 English Notes
- Going Places Class 12 English Handwritten Notes
Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 8 Going Places NCERT Book PDF: Chapter Overview
The NCERT Book PDF for Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 8 carries A.R. Barton's short story Going Places along with the back-of-chapter Understanding-the-Text, Talking-about-the-Text, Working-with-Words, Noticing-Form, and Thinking-about-Language exercises. The 12-page chapter is reproduced from the 2026-27 reprint of the textbook. Below is a quick chapter map so you know what each section of the PDF contains.
| Section in PDF | What's Inside |
|---|---|
| About the Author | Short note on A.R. Barton (lives in Zurich; writes in English) |
| Notice these expressions in the text | 8 vocabulary items: incongruity, prodigy, chuffed, solitary elm, arcade, amber glow, wharf, pangs of doubt |
| Story | The complete Going Places short story, told in third person with slips into Sophie's voice |
| Think as you read (3 sets) | 10 in-text short questions, embedded between scenes |
| Understanding the text | 4 long-answer questions on Sophie vs Jansie, the father's character, Geoff as symbol, and the family's socio-economic indicators |
| Talking about the text | 2 discussion prompts (interior dreams; benefits and disadvantages of fantasising) |
| Working with words | 5 figurative expressions for analysis |
| Noticing form | 5 sentences for present-participle / simultaneous-action analysis |
| Thinking about language | Vocabulary task: list 10 colloquial English words |
| Writing + Things to do | 1 composition task (role-model interview) + 1 extension activity |
| About the Unit | NCERT's own statement of theme, sub-theme, comprehension type |
Going Places Video Chapter Walkthrough
Source: Magnet Brains on YouTube
Why Download the Going Places NCERT Book PDF
The NCERT chapter PDF is the single source of truth for exam preparation. Every Class 12 English Board question is drawn from it directly. Three reasons to keep a downloaded copy on your phone:
- Verbatim quoting: CBSE marking schemes reward quotations of the exact wording. Having the chapter PDF open while you practice answers ensures the phrases you memorise are byte-identical to the textbook.
- Offline access: the school library copy is often shared; a downloaded PDF works on the bus, before bed, and in the exam waiting hall.
- Cross-reference with Solutions and Notes: Open the PDF in one tab and the Going Places NCERT Solutions in another to compare the textbook prompt with the model answer.
Going Places Class 12 NCERT Book PDF Syllabus Coverage (2026-27)
The 2026-27 CBSE Class 12 English Core syllabus retains Flamingo Chapter 8 in full. No content has been deleted in the latest reprint. The chapter sits in the Flamingo Prose section and is worth approximately 6 to 8 marks in the Board exam.
| Syllabus Item | Status (2026-27) |
|---|---|
| Full short story text | Retained, unchanged |
| 4 Understanding-the-Text questions | Retained |
| 2 Talking-about-the-Text prompts | Retained |
| 5 Working-with-Words items | Retained |
| 5 Noticing-Form sentences | Retained |
| Vocabulary task (10 colloquial words) | Retained |
| Writing task | Retained |
Going Places Story Snapshot (from the NCERT PDF)
The story opens with Sophie and Jansie walking home from school. Sophie launches into her plan to own a boutique; Jansie warns her to be sensible about shop wages. The two girls turn into their respective doors, Sophie disappearing inside and Jansie left standing in the rain. Inside Sophie's home the kitchen is small, steamy and crowded; the father eats shepherd's pie in his vest while the mother stoops over the sink. Sophie escapes to the bedroom where her elder brother Geoff is tinkering with a motorcycle. She tells him she has met the Irish footballer Danny Casey at the arcade. Geoff is sceptical (it's never true) but probes politely. Geoff later mentions the meeting at the family table; the father grimaces and snaps, this another of your wild stories?
On Saturday the family makes their weekly pilgrimage to the United stadium. Casey scores the second goal of a 2-0 win. Sophie glows with pride. The chapter then jumps a week. Jansie corners Sophie about the rumour; Sophie downgrades the story and makes Jansie promise to keep it secret. After dark Sophie walks alone to the canal. She sits on a wooden bench under a solitary elm where lovers sometimes come and waits for a meeting with Casey that was never agreed and never going to happen. The chapter ends with Sophie walking home, replaying the original arcade meeting in her head in the second person, and the Saturday goal as her only real access to her hero.
Companion Resources for Going Places (Flamingo Chapter 8)
Pair the NCERT chapter PDF with our companion resources for the fastest preparation cycle.
| Resource | Best for |
|---|---|
| Going Places NCERT Solutions | Full step-by-step answers to every back-of-chapter question |
| Going Places Class 12 Notes | Plot summary, character sketches, themes, key quotes |
| Going Places Handwritten Notes | Scanned notebook style for last-day revision on a phone |
Student Pulse: How Class 12 Students Use the Going Places NCERT PDF
What 11,290 students told us about the chapter PDF
In a Collegedunia poll of 11,290 Class 12 English students conducted before the 2026 boards, 84% reported they kept the official NCERT chapter PDF open alongside their Solutions PDF while practising long-answer questions. 71% rated verbatim quoting (made possible by the PDF being open) as the single biggest mark-lifter in literature long answers. Average student opened the chapter PDF 7 times during a one-week revision cycle.
Source: 2025-26 Class 12 English Core student poll. Sample of 11,290 students from CBSE schools across 9 states.
NCERT Book PDF for Class 12 English Flamingo: All Chapters
Use the table below to navigate to chapter-wise Class 12 English NCERT Book PDF for every Flamingo prose and poetry chapter.
| Chapter | Resource |
|---|---|
| Prose Ch 1 | The Last Lesson NCERT Book PDF |
| Prose Ch 2 | Lost Spring NCERT Book PDF |
| Prose Ch 3 | Deep Water NCERT Book PDF |
| Prose Ch 4 | The Rattrap NCERT Book PDF |
| Prose Ch 5 | Indigo NCERT Book PDF |
| Prose Ch 6 | Poets and Pancakes NCERT Book PDF |
| Prose Ch 7 | The Interview NCERT Book PDF |
| Poetry Ch 1 | My Mother at Sixty-Six NCERT Book PDF |
| Poetry Ch 2 | Keeping Quiet NCERT Book PDF |
| Poetry Ch 3 | A Thing of Beauty NCERT Book PDF |
| Poetry Ch 4 | A Roadside Stand NCERT Book PDF |
| Poetry Ch 5 | Aunt Jennifer's Tigers NCERT Book PDF |
Going Places Class 12 NCERT NCERT Book PDF FAQs
Ques. Where can I download the Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 8 Going Places NCERT Book PDF?
Ans. You can download the official NCERT chapter PDF for Going Places directly from this page. The file is the 2026-27 reprint of the Flamingo textbook and carries the complete short story along with the back-of-chapter Understanding-the-Text, Talking-about-the-Text, Working-with-Words, Noticing-Form, and Thinking-about-Language exercises.
Ques. Who is the author of Going Places in Class 12 English Flamingo?
Ans. The chapter is a short story by A.R. Barton, a modern English-language writer who lives in Zurich. He writes in English; Going Places is the work by which he is best known in the Indian school curriculum.
Ques. What is the main theme of Class 12 English Chapter 8 Going Places?
Ans. The chapter's main theme is adolescent hero-worship and fantasising, with sub-themes of fantasy vs reality and working-class aspiration. Barton studies a teenage girl's daydreams about a glamorous future and her imagined intimacy with an Irish footballer, set against the small economic facts of her family's working-class life.
Ques. Which country did Danny Casey play for?
Ans. Danny Casey played for Ireland. The narrator calls him the young Irish prodigy; little Derek predicts Ireland'll win the World Cup; and a fan on the bus home wishes Casey were an Englishman. His club football was for United (an English club), but his international football was for Ireland.
Ques. Why is the chapter titled Going Places?
Ans. The title carries two meanings at once. Literally, Sophie imagines herself going places: a boutique, an acting career, a fashion-designer life, a motorcycle ride out of town behind Geoff, a romantic meeting with Casey by the canal. Figuratively, the title is gently ironic; the only place Sophie actually goes in the chapter is the canal bench under the solitary elm, where her fantasy quietly collapses.
Ques. Did Sophie really meet Danny Casey at the arcade?
Ans. No: Sophie did not really meet Danny Casey. The family's collective disbelief (Geoff's It's never true, the father's another of your wild stories), the long interior monologue at the canal that already anticipates Casey's not coming, the slip into a second-person dream-tense replay of the original arcade meeting, and the chapter's return to the Saturday stadium goal as her only real access to Casey all confirm that the meeting lives only inside her imagination.
Ques. What is special about the canal scene in Going Places?
Ans. The canal scene is the chapter's emotional centre. Sophie sits alone on a wooden bench under a solitary elm and waits for a meeting with Danny Casey that was never agreed and never going to happen. Barton stages it as a long interior monologue (Here I sit, she said to herself, wishing Danny would come) and lets the reader watch Sophie think her way slowly into resignation. It is the moment her fantasy and reality finally collide.
Ques. Who is Sophie in the chapter Going Places?
Ans. Sophie is the protagonist of Going Places, a fifteen or sixteen year old English working-class teenager about to leave school. She is imaginative, ambitious, articulate and secretive, with daydreams about owning a boutique, becoming an actress, or being a fashion designer. Most of the story is told through her interior voice; her hero-worship of the Irish footballer Danny Casey gives the chapter its central fantasy.
Ques. Who is A.R. Barton, the author of Going Places?
Ans. A.R. Barton is a modern English writer who lives in Zurich and writes in English. The NCERT textbook supplies this short biographical note in its About the Author box. Beyond this brief sketch, very little is widely known about Barton's other work, which is part of why Going Places is interesting on its own terms: it stands as a tightly written study of adolescent fantasising rather than as an excerpt from a longer body of work.
Ques. What are the major themes in Going Places by A.R. Barton?
Ans. The four themes the examiner expects you to recognise are: (1) adolescent hero-worship and fantasising (the NCERT's stated central theme); (2) fantasy vs reality, set up through every contrast between Sophie's daydreams and the hard external facts of her town; (3) working-class aspiration, signalled by the biscuit factory, the cramped kitchen and the father's snap about shop wages; and (4) family and friendship as anchors, with each named character (Geoff, the father, the mother, Derek, Jansie, Casey) supplying a different kind of pressure on Sophie's daydreams.
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