The unseen passage: reading order, context meaning and the word limit
Debasish turns to the unseen passage with 17 minutes left. The passage is 220 Odia words about a village that builds a rainwater-harvesting tank; the words ସହଭାଗିତା and ଉଦ୍ୟମ each appear twice. The section carries 15 marks across five questions. Question 1 asks for a suitable title (2 marks). Question 2 asks why the villagers' first attempt failed (3 marks); the passage mentions both a cracked wall in the second monsoon and a dispute over the site. Question 3 asks what ଉଦ୍ୟମ means in this passage (2 marks); Debasish knows the word can mean effort or enterprise. Question 4, worth 4 marks, asks what the writer wants readers to learn. Question 5 carries a strict 40-word limit and 3 marks. He reads Odia at about 120 words a minute and his habit is to read twice before writing anything. One 4-mark poetry question was left half-finished earlier; he is tempted to go back to it instead.
1. Set out a reading and answering plan for the 17 minutes and justify the order of the questions.
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Read the questions first - 40 seconds. They show which parts of the 220-word passage need close reading, and Question 2 already signals two competing causes to compare.
One targeted read - 2 minutes. At 120 words a minute the passage takes under two minutes; a second full read would consume the time Question 4 needs.
Answering order.
- Q3, the word meaning, first: 30 seconds, decided by one line of context.
- Q2, the failed attempt, 4 minutes: the passage gives two causes - the cracked wall and the site dispute - and the marks reward both plus a link between them.
- Q4, the lesson, 3 minutes: one general statement plus one supporting detail.
- Q5, 3 minutes, reserved for drafting and cutting to 40 words.
- Q1, the title, 2 minutes, once the whole passage is fixed in mind and the closing paragraph is covered.
- 2 minutes checking, including the word count on Q5.
Trigger. If Q2 has not produced both causes by minute 9, write the second briefly and move on; the unseen answers are worth more in total than any single one is worth alone.
Why not poetry. Four marks there cannot be improved by a few sentences, while four minutes here decides a 10-mark section.
2. How should he choose a title in Q1 and a meaning for ଉଦ୍ୟମ in Q3?
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Title. A title must cover the whole passage, so test the candidate against the last paragraph as well as the first. 'ବର୍ଷାର ଜଳ ସଂରକ୍ଷଣ' describes the tank but not the villagers' cooperation; 'ଗ୍ରାମର ସହଭାଗିତା' covers the building and later maintenance but not the water. The better title names the link: something like 'ସହଭାଗିତାରେ ଗଢ଼ା ଜଳ ସଂରକ୍ଷଣ' - short, a noun phrase, no full stop. Since ସହଭାଗିତା appears twice, the writer is signalling it as the key word, and a title using it will read as responsive.
ଉଦ୍ୟମ. Do not take the dictionary's first sense. Look at the words within one line on either side. If the collocation is 'ଗ୍ରାମବାସୀଙ୍କ ଉଦ୍ୟମ' or 'ବହୁ ଉଦ୍ୟମ ପରେ', the sense is effort or attempt. 'Enterprise' needs a commercial frame - business, profit, a venture - which a passage about a village tank does not supply. Answer with the Odia word ପ୍ରଚେଷ୍ଟା and keep any definition to one line.
Shared principle. Both items are decided by context, so the check is always the surrounding words, never the isolated word.
3. He is tempted to return to the half-finished 4-mark poetry question with 17 minutes left. Advise him, and show how to meet the 40-word limit on Q5.
Read the worked answer
Do not go back. The arithmetic is decisive: 17 minutes for 15 marks in the unseen passage. Returning to poetry costs four or five minutes - exactly the time Q4 and the word-limit check on Q5 require. The half-finished answer also cannot improve much; marks already lost for the missing part are not recovered by adding a sentence or two. Finish the section in front of him.
The 40-word limit on Q5. Draft about 50 words, then cut, never pad:
- Keep the key terms from the question - if it asks what changed, the answer must name the change.
- Delete adjectives and any sentence that restates the question.
- Count in fives across the line rather than word by word.
- If the count lands at 44, cut a whole clause rather than single words; chopping articles produces broken Odia that costs a language mark.
Target range. 32–40 words. Falling under 30 usually means a content point has been dropped, which costs more than any length penalty.