Tuzla Canton Secondary Matura key terms

A grammatical category marking the role a noun phrase plays in a sentence, such as subject, direct object or possessor; BCS has seven: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental and locative.

Changing the form of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numbers to show case, number and gender; BCS nominal declension runs through seven cases with distinct endings for each declension type.

A verb property showing whether an action is presented as completed or as ongoing; BCS pairs imperfective verbs such as raditi with perfective ones such as uraditi, and aspect affects tense choice.

A deliberate departure from ordinary wording used for expressive effect, for example metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole or antithesis; naming and interpreting such devices is a standard literary-analysis task.

A fourteen-line poem, usually in iambic pentameter and organised as two quatrains plus two tercets or three quatrains plus a couplet, with a turn of thought near the end.

The voice that tells a narrative; it may be first-person, a character inside the story, or third-person, outside it, and may be omniscient, limited or unreliable.

A rule assigning to each element of one set, the domain, exactly one element of another set, the codomain; written f(x) and shown graphically as a line or curve.

A sequence in which each term after the first is obtained by adding the same constant difference d, so that the n-th term equals a₁ plus (n−1)d.

A sequence in which each term is obtained by multiplying the previous term by a fixed ratio q, so that the n-th term equals a₁ multiplied by q to the power (n−1).

The instantaneous rate of change of a function at a point, defined as the limit of the difference quotient; geometrically it is the slope of the tangent line at that point.

A generalisation of adding up infinitely many infinitesimal contributions; the definite integral gives the signed area under a curve, while the indefinite integral gives a family of antiderivatives.

The exponent to which a base must be raised to obtain a given number: log base b of x equals y means b to the power y equals x, defined for positive x and b greater than 0, not equal to 1.

A number between 0 and 1 expressing how likely an event is; with equally likely outcomes it is computed as the number of favourable outcomes divided by the number of all possible outcomes.

An English tense formed with have or has plus the past participle, linking a past action to the present; it covers experience, recent results and periods of time not yet finished.

A clause pattern in which the receiver of the action becomes the subject, formed with a form of be plus the past participle; it is used when the doer is unknown or unimportant.

Indirect quotation of someone's words, which requires backshifting tenses and adjusting pronouns, time words and place words when the reporting verb is in a past tense.

A sentence pattern with if plus the past simple in the condition and would plus the base verb in the result, used for hypothetical or improbable present and future situations.

An auxiliary such as can, must, should or may that expresses ability, obligation, permission or possibility; it takes no third-person -s and is followed by the bare infinitive.

A subordinate clause that modifies a noun, introduced by who, which, that, whose or where; defining clauses are written without commas, while non-defining clauses are set off by them.

The German case of the direct object, also required after prepositions such as durch, für, gegen, ohne and um; masculine articles change to den and einen, other forms mostly stay unchanged.

The German case of the indirect object, used after prepositions such as mit, nach, bei, seit, von and zu; articles take the forms dem, der, dem and den in the plural.

The German past tense formed with the auxiliaries haben or sein plus the past participle; it is the usual tense in spoken narration and in informal written texts.

German verbs with a separable prefix, such as aufstehen or einkaufen; in a main clause the prefix moves to the end, while in the infinitive and past participle it stays attached.

German word order rules: the finite verb occupies the second position in a main clause, goes to the end in a subordinate clause, and the prefix or infinitive closes the sentence frame.

The process in which green plants, algae and some bacteria use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen inside chloroplasts.

Deoxyribonucleic acid, a double-stranded molecule carrying genetic instructions in the order of its bases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine; it is copied before each cell division.

Change in the inherited characteristics of populations across generations, driven mainly by natural selection acting on variation, together with mutation, gene flow and genetic drift.

The attraction that holds atoms together in compounds; the main types are ionic bonding by electron transfer, covalent bonding by shared electrons and metallic bonding with delocalised electrons.

A scale from 0 to 14 measuring hydrogen ion concentration in a solution; values below 7 are acidic, 7 is neutral and above 7 basic, each unit representing a tenfold change.

One of the three laws of motion: inertia, the relation force equals mass times acceleration, and action with equal and opposite reaction; together they explain how forces change motion.

Any surviving trace from the past, such as a document, object, image or oral account, that historians interpret; sources are classed as primary, from the period, or secondary, later analysis.

The relation in which one condition or event brings about another; historical and geographical explanations usually separate long-term underlying causes from short-term triggers and from consequences.

The principle of separating legislative, executive and judicial power among different bodies that check one another, so that authority is not concentrated in a single institution or person.

A direct vote by the electorate on a specific question, law or constitutional change; it is used alongside representative institutions to settle major territorial or constitutional issues.

The movement of people from one place to another, either inside a country or across borders; it is usually explained by push factors at home and pull factors at the destination.

Gross domestic product, the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a year; it is used to compare economic output, not directly welfare.