Armenian Language & Literature Unified Exam common mistakes
Armenian Language & Literature Unified Exam · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writes the Armenian full stop as a Latin colon and leaves subordinate clauses introduced by որ, եթե, երբ without a comma; also writes word-initial [u] as ո (ոսուցիչ, ոժ) instead of ու (ուսուցիչ, ուժ).
Keyboard defaults and habits from Russian/Latin punctuation make the Latin colon feel normal, while punctuation is memorised as a list of marks rather than as clause structure; the [u]/[vo] distinction is under-drilled because many word-initial forms are learned as whole words.
What to do instead
Type Armenian text with the Armenian keyboard layout and do a dedicated punctuation pass on every sentence containing a subordinate clause. Keep a two-column list of word-initial ու forms and test new words against it; when unsure, check a dictionary rather than guessing from pronunciation.
Explains idioms word by word, treating «ականջը ծակել» as a physical action, and uses phraseological units in the wrong register (colloquial idiom in a formal essay).
Idioms are stored as unanalysed chunks and often learned through isolated glosses without context; candidates then decode them literally or transfer a synonym from another language without checking style.
What to do instead
Maintain an idiom notebook with three columns: meaning, register (neutral/colloquial/literary), and an original example sentence. Practise paraphrasing each idiom into a neutral synonym and check whether the surrounding text is formal or informal before using it.
Forms the genitive-dative plural of irregular nouns by analogy with regular nouns, producing մարդերի for մարդկանց and կիների for կանանց, and attaches case endings after the definite article.
Regular declension paradigms are over-generalised because irregular nouns are memorised as isolated nominative forms; the case system is then applied mechanically without checking the noun’s declension class.
What to do instead
Drill a short list of high-frequency irregular nouns in all cases (մարդ, կին, տուն, ձեռք, ոտք) using substitution tables. Before writing, identify the noun’s declension class and test the form inside a full phrase, not in isolation.
Produces long chains of «որ» relative clauses and fails subject-verb agreement with quantified subjects, writing «շատերը գնաց» instead of «շատերը գնացին».
Armenian word order is flexible, so candidates translate clause structures from Russian or English and assume agreement will follow automatically; agreement with collective and quantified subjects is rarely practised in connected text.
What to do instead
Do sentence-combining and sentence-splitting exercises: combine short sentences with relative pronouns, then split long ones back into two. Underline every subject and verb in a draft and check person and number explicitly, especially after շատերը, ոմանք, բոլորը.
States that Armenian is a Slavic or Iranian language, dates the alphabet to the fourth century, and uses «գրաբար» and «միջին հայերեն» as interchangeable labels.
Survey courses compress chronology into names and dates without a timeline, so neighbouring language families and adjacent centuries bleed into one another; period labels are learned as vocabulary rather than as a sequence of texts.
What to do instead
Build a one-page timeline with fixed anchors: alphabet 405, fifth-century Golden Age, twelfth-century Narek, eighteenth-century Sayat-Nova. Add a separate branch diagram showing Armenian as an independent Indo-European branch, and classify three short text samples by period.
Attributes the epic «Սասնա ծռեր» to the fifth century and confuses Eghishe’s fifth-century «Վարդանի և Հայոց պատերազմի մասին» with Derenik Demirchyan’s twentieth-century novel «Վարդանանք».
The epic and the historical novel share heroic material, and period labels are attached to heroes rather than to texts and genres; the difference between an oral epic recorded in the nineteenth century and a modern historical novel is not made explicit.
What to do instead
Keep an author–text–date–genre grid for every major work and fill it in from the text’s own preface or a reliable handbook. For each work, write one line on its genre and one line on its historical setting, then compare Eghishe and Demirchyan side by side.
Places Abovyan’s «Վերք Հայաստանի» in the twentieth century or assigns it to Raffi, and treats nineteenth-century Western Armenian realism as identical with Eastern Armenian romanticism.
Nineteenth-century authors are grouped by reputation rather than by decade and language variant; the Western/Eastern split and the romanticism-to-realism shift are learned as slogans without representative texts.
What to do instead
Make a decade-by-decade timeline for the nineteenth century with two columns, Eastern and Western Armenian. Attach one representative work and one movement label to each author, and write a two-sentence comparison of a romantic and a realist passage.
Calls Yeghishe Charents a nineteenth-century poet and lumps all Soviet-era writing together as propaganda, ignoring formal experimentation and the difference between Soviet Armenian and diaspora writers.
Broad political labels replace periodisation, and diaspora literature is often left out of the revision map; dates are remembered by association with major events rather than by author biography.
What to do instead
Divide twentieth-century material into pre-Soviet, Soviet, diaspora and post-Soviet phases. For each author, record birth and death years, place of activity, and one formal feature; keep a separate diaspora list including Saroyan and Tekeyan.
Retells the plot instead of analysing it, labels every figurative expression «փոխաբերություն», and confuses the work’s theme with its idea.
Plot summary is easier under time pressure, and tropes are learned as definitions without practice in distinguishing tenor and vehicle; theme and idea are treated as synonyms because both are abstract nouns.
What to do instead
Annotate a short passage: mark each trope and name it (համեմատություն, փոխաբերություն, մակդիր, հիպերբոլա). Then write one sentence beginning «Թեման է…» and one beginning «Գաղափարը…», and check that the second makes a claim rather than naming a subject.
Begins the essay without a thesis, writes a personal narrative or a paraphrase of the prompt, and ends without a conclusion; ignores the word limit and the required genre.
Exam time pressure encourages immediate writing, and school essays are often graded on content recall rather than argument; planning is skipped because it feels like lost minutes.
What to do instead
Use a five-minute plan: one-sentence thesis, three supporting claims with evidence, and a conclusion that answers the prompt. Allocate minutes for planning, writing and checking, and verify that every paragraph advances the thesis rather than retelling the text.