Re-marking a Grammar Section Built on Borrowed Categories
Your 20-mark grammar section was set straight from the categories printed in the textbook: (i) sandhi - join two words and name the type (4 marks); (ii) samas - classify a compound (3); (iii) karak - name the case-relation of an underlined noun in a Santhali sentence (5); (iv) verb form - fill in the correct agreement (4); (v) transformation - turn an active sentence into a passive (4). In a class of 40, 33 scored zero or near-zero on (i) and (ii), most gained partial marks on (iii), and (iv) and (v) split the class. Strong students lost 5 to 7 marks overall and the rank order has changed. A parent has complained that the topper 'failed grammar'. You must decide which items were fair, re-score the section, and explain the outcome without telling the class that the textbook is wrong.
1. Which of the five item types are validly testable in Santhali? Give the re-scoring arithmetic.
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Void (i) and (ii): 7 marks. Sandhi and samas classification are Sanskrit categories that reached Santhali textbooks through Hindi. Santhali does join morphemes and does form compounds, but the five-fold sandhi types and the dvandva/tatpurusa labels are not facts of the language, and a Class X candidate cannot be asked to name a category her language does not have.
Keep (iii) with rewording. The label 'karak' is borrowed, but the underlying fact is real: Santhali marks relations with postpositions - locative re, dative/benefactive la, source/ablative te in most varieties; check your edition's list before printing - not with noun endings. Ask 'which postposition and why', not 'which vibhakti'.
Keep (iv). Verb agreement is central and entirely fair: person, number including the dual in -kin, and animate-object agreement.
Void (v): 4 marks. Santhali has no English-style passive; the item tested a construction the language does not use in that form.
Arithmetic: keep 9 marks (5 + 4). Re-score each script out of 9, then multiply by 20/9 and round to the nearest half mark. Record raw and scaled marks side by side, and keep the re-marking sheet with the scripts.
2. Write replacement items for the voided ones that test the same underlying skills, with the answers.
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For (i), keep the skill - recognising a boundary and writing the joined form - but drop the classification:
- Join and write: hɔṛ (man) + -kɔ (plural) → hɔṛkɔ, 'men'.
- Join and write: hɔṛ + -kin (dual) → hɔṛkin, 'two men'.
- One more pair using a vowel-final stem, so the joining produces a visible change; take the pair from the textbook's own exercise so the vocabulary is familiar.
For (ii), test compound recognition rather than Sanskrit labels:
- In the sentence your textbook gives, is the pair daka (water) + sɛtɛr (field) acting as one naming word or as two separate words? Write the form you choose.
For (v), keep the demand - control of the verb group - in a construction Santhali has:
- Transform Hɔṛkɔ sɛtɛr re kam kɛdɛa ('The people worked in the field') into the negative, then into a question.
- Transform a direct statement into reported speech using the reporting verb supplied in the textbook's chapter.
Before printing, fill in the model answers yourself from the verb chapter and have a colleague check them; a replacement item with a wrong key is worse than the voided item.
3. How do you explain the re-marking to the class and to the complaining parent without undermining the textbook or the paper?
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To the class: do not say the book is wrong. Say that some of the labels in the grammar chapter came into Santhali through Hindi and Sanskrit, and that in Santhali the work those labels describe is done by postpositions and by verb endings. Put two columns on the board - 'the label in the book' and 'what Santhali actually does' - and demonstrate with hɔṛkɔ and hɔṛkin: we change the word itself, we do not add a case ending. Then a three-minute pair task adding la, re and te to nouns in frame sentences. Close with the sentence that protects them: 'the exam will ask you to use the postposition, not to name a vibhakti.'
To the parent: show the item paper, show which four items were withdrawn, show the raw and scaled marks, and say plainly that the section was re-scored because two item types did not test Santhali grammar fairly. Do not discuss the topper's rank. Offer the parent the replacement items so the fairness is visible, and note that every script was re-scored by the same rule, so no candidate gained or lost relative to the others on the voided items.