Pashto Language and Literature: Structure and Literary Knowledge
What the Kankor Pashto section rewards
The Pashto section tests grammar, orthography, vocabulary, sentence construction, comprehension, and knowledge of Pashto literature. Expect questions on parts of speech, verb forms and tenses, noun and adjective agreement, correct spelling and diacritics, synonyms and antonyms, proverbs, and major poets and writers.
Concepts you must own
- Grammar: noun classes and plural formation, adjective agreement, pronoun forms, and the verb system (tense, person, aspect).
- Ergative-like constructions in past tenses, where the subject and object marking differs from present-tense patterns - a frequent source of errors.
- Orthography: correct letters, diacritics, and word boundaries.
- Vocabulary and proverbs: meaning and appropriate use.
- Sentence structure: word order and the placement of the verb.
- Literature: classical and modern figures, poetic forms, and notable works.
- Comprehension: main idea, detail, and inference.
Traps that appear
- Past-tense agreement in transitive constructions.
- Plural formation of nouns with irregular patterns.
- Proverbs used out of context or paraphrased incorrectly.
- Spelling variants where only one is standard.
- Author–work confusion between similarly named poets.
Rule of thumb
For verb and agreement items, first identify the tense, then check which agreement pattern that tense requires - do not apply present-tense rules to past-tense transitive sentences. For comprehension, locate the sentence in the passage that supports your choice before selecting it; if you cannot point to it, the option is probably a distractor.