Moderating a disputed కర్మణి వాక్యం item
During a Class X unit test, three Telugu teachers moderate a 1-mark grammar item. The sentence is “రైతు చేత పొలం దున్నబడింది.” The answer key labels it కర్మణి వాక్యం. One teacher says it is not a real Telugu passive and should be marked wrong; another says any sentence with “బడు” is కర్మణి; a third says the item is ambiguous because the active version “రైతు పొలం దున్నాడు” is more natural. Twenty-eight students chose కర్మణి, six chose కర్తరి, and four left it blank. The head teacher asks for a written rationale before revaluation. The teachers have the prescribed grammar glossary but no example of this exact sentence. They must also decide whether to retain, revise or drop the item for the next test.
1. Resolve the dispute using grammatical criteria rather than teacher authority. Explain how the sentence behaves and whether the key is defensible.
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The key is defensible under school grammar. In “రైతు చేత పొలం దున్నబడింది”, the farmer is marked by “చేత” as the agent, while “పొలం” is the grammatical subject and controls the verb agreement. The verb “దున్నబడింది” contains the passive marker “బడు” and agrees with the neuter singular “పొలం”. Those are the features the prescribed glossary uses to distinguish కర్మణి from కర్తరి.
The objection that Telugu has no “real” passive is a theoretical argument beyond the HSC syllabus; the item tests the school-grammar category, not a universal typology. The second teacher’s rule-“any బడు sentence is కర్మణి”-is too broad if taught alone, but it reaches the right answer here because the other features also fit. Naturalness is a style judgement: the active version may be more idiomatic, but idiom does not erase the grammatical category. The key should therefore stand, and the rationale should cite agent marker, subject-verb agreement and passive marker, not merely the presence of “బడు”.
2. Decide the revaluation outcome for the 28, 6 and 4 students. What feedback should each group receive?
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The 28 students who chose కర్మణి should retain the mark, because the key is grammatically defensible. The 6 who chose కర్తరి should not receive the mark unless the department decides the wording was defective; on the stated criteria, they have misidentified the category. The 4 blank responses receive no mark. However, the teacher should not stop at the score: the 6 and the 4 need the contrast between “రైతు పొలం దున్నాడు” and “రైతు చేత పొలం దున్నబడింది”. The first has the agent as subject and an active verb; the second has the object as subject, the agent in “చేత”, and the passive marker.
If the head teacher finds that the glossary does not define “బడు” clearly enough, the fair remedy is to drop the item and award all students 1 mark, not to penalise students for an ambiguity created by the test. But that decision should be recorded as an item flaw, not as a ruling that the original key was wrong. The feedback should name the criteria so students learn the distinction rather than memorising one sentence.
3. Would you retain, revise or drop the item for the next test? Propose a revised item that tests the same concept more clearly.
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I would revise rather than retain or drop. Retention invites the same dispute because a single isolated sentence invites style objections. Dropping loses a legitimate curriculum point. A revised item should force students to use the criteria and should include a contrast.
Example: “క్రింది జంట వాక్యాలను చూడండి: (అ) రైతు పొలం దున్నాడు. (ఆ) రైతు చేత పొలం దున్నబడింది. ఏ వాక్యం కర్మణి? మీ ఎంపికకు రెండు కారణాలు రాయండి.” This asks for identification plus reasons, so guessing from “బడు” alone is insufficient. The marking key should accept reasons based on the agent marker “చేత”, the subject “పొలం”, and the passive verb form. If the paper needs a one-mark MCQ, the options should include a clearly active sentence and a clearly passive one, with no archaic or ambiguous distractors.