Language I - Mother Tongue / Medium (30 marks)
What is tested
Language I carries 30 marks and is taken in your medium or mother tongue - Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Hindi, Nepali or another listed language. It tests comprehension, grammar, vocabulary and the pedagogy of teaching that language as L1 in Classes I–V.
Content anchors (Assamese)
- বৰ্ণমালা: 11 স্বৰবৰ্ণ and 41 ব্যঞ্জনবৰ্ণ; কাৰ, ফলা and যুক্তাক্ষৰ such as ক্ষ.
- সন্ধি: joining of two sounds - স্বৰসন্ধি, ব্যঞ্জনসন্ধি, বিসৰ্গসন্ধি.
- সমাস: several words compressed into one - দ্বন্দ্ব, কৰ্মধাৰয়, বহুব্ৰীহি, দ্বিগু, অৱ্যয়ীভাৱ.
- কারক ও বিভক্তি, লিংগ, বচন, কাল, সকৰ্মক ও অকৰ্মক ক্ৰিয়া.
- Comprehension passage, synonyms and antonyms, খণ্ডবাক্য (idioms), one-word substitution.
Pedagogy
L1 is acquired, not taught from zero: listening and speaking come before reading and writing. Build a print-rich room, use rhyme, story and the big book, shared reading and process writing. NCF 2005 treats the home language as a resource, not a problem; Cummins separates conversational BICS from academic CALP, so a fluent speaker may still struggle with textbook language.
Worked example
সূৰ্য + উদয় = সূৰ্যোদয়.
The final অ of সূৰ্য meets the initial উ of উদয় and becomes ও - a স্বৰসন্ধি (গুণ). Writing সূৰ্য্উদয় keeps the two vowels separate and is wrong.
Traps
সন্ধি joins sounds, সমাস joins words into one pad; do not label every compound as both. Answer comprehension questions from the passage, not from general knowledge. Marking a child's dialect as an error damages confidence; correct the written standard only where it matters.