Orthography and Punctuation
Two orthographic norms
Candidates must know that modern Armenian has two accepted norms: the classical (Մաշտոցյան) orthography used widely in the diaspora, and the reformed orthography adopted in Soviet Armenia in the 1920s and used in the Republic. Exam tasks usually follow the norm stated in the paper; mixing them is a common trap. Learn the main divergences: spelling of the prefix ան-, the treatment of compound vowels, the use of ե/է and ո/օ, and the writing of ւ versus վ.
Core rules
Revise capitalization of proper names and sentence starts; the negative prefixes ապ-, ան-, չ-; the particle մի՛ with the imperative; and the difference between ոչ and ոչ մի. In punctuation, know the Armenian full stop (։), the միջակետ (․), the comma, the question mark (՞) placed over the stressed vowel, the exclamation mark (՜), quotation marks « », the dash, and parentheses. A frequent error is placing ՞ at the end of the word instead of over the vowel: ինչո՞ւ, ո՞վ, որտե՞ղ.
Worked example
Նա չեկավ, որովհետև անձրև էր գալիս։ Here չեկավ is written together because չ- is a negative prefix; a comma separates the subordinate clause introduced by որովհետև; the sentence ends with ։ rather than a Latin period. If the same sentence were a question, the mark would sit over the interrogative vowel, not after the final word.
Rule of thumb
Before choosing a spelling, identify the morpheme boundary and the norm; before punctuating, identify the clause boundary and the sentence type.