Odisha BSE HSC Urdu (FLU) key terms

The prose section of the prescribed Urdu textbook, containing lessons such as short stories, biographical sketches and reflective essays that candidates read, explain and answer questions on.

A single prescribed lesson in the prose textbook; candidates must know its title, author, central idea, characters and moral or message for examination answers.

A concise summary of a lesson written in the candidate's own words, covering the main points in sequence without adding personal opinion or unnecessary detail.

The central idea or theme of a lesson or poem; the single most important message the writer or poet intends to convey to the reader.

The subject or topic of a prose lesson or poem, stated briefly; often asked as a short question to test whether the candidate has grasped what the text is about.

The author or writer of a prose lesson; candidates are expected to recall the name of the writer alongside the title of each prescribed lesson.

A short passage taken from a prescribed lesson and printed in the question paper, which the candidate must read and answer questions about, often including explanation of a phrase.

The poetry section of the textbook consisting of poems on themes such as patriotism, nature, morality and social reform, studied for meaning, poet and message.

A classical Urdu poem of couplets sharing a single rhyme and refrain, each couplet usually standing as a complete thought; prescribed ghazals are studied for theme and poetic devices.

A couplet, that is two lines of Urdu poetry forming one unit of meaning; the basic building block of both the ghazal and the nazm.

Another word for a couplet in Urdu poetry, used especially in the context of the ghazal and of longer narrative poems; each bait carries a complete idea.

The opening couplet of a ghazal, in which both lines carry the rhyme and refrain; it sets the pattern that the rest of the poem follows.

The closing couplet of a ghazal, traditionally containing the poet's pen name; recognising it helps identify the poet of a prescribed ghazal.

The pen name a poet adopts and inserts into the final couplet of a ghazal; candidates should know the takhallus of each prescribed poet.

The refrain: a word or short phrase repeated after the rhyme at the end of both lines of the opening couplet and the second line of every later couplet.

The rhyme word that comes immediately before the radeef and is repeated with variation in sound across the couplets of a ghazal.

Explanation of a verse or passage, giving its literal meaning, its underlying idea and its poetic or rhetorical effect in clear, connected prose.

A poet; in examination answers candidates name the shair of each prescribed poem and may be asked to give a brief account of his life and works.

Simile: the explicit comparison of one thing to another using words such as 'like' or 'as', a device frequently identified in prescribed nazms and ghazals.

Metaphor: the transfer of a word from its literal sense to a figurative one without an explicit marker of comparison, common in classical Urdu verse.

The grammar section of the syllabus, covering parts of speech, sentence structure, gender, number, case and correction of errors in Urdu.

A noun: a word naming a person, place, thing or idea. Candidates classify ism into its types and identify it within given sentences.

A verb: a word expressing an action or state. Candidates identify the fail in a sentence and note whether it is past, present or future in sense.

A particle or function word such as a preposition or conjunction; it carries grammatical meaning but does not name anything by itself.

A pronoun: a word standing in place of a noun, such as the Urdu equivalents of I, you, he, she, we and they; used to avoid repetition.

An adjective: a word describing a noun, telling what kind, how many or which one, and agreeing with the noun it qualifies.

Singular and plural: the pair of grammatical numbers in Urdu, where plurals are formed by adding endings or changing the internal vowels of a word.

Masculine and feminine gender in Urdu nouns; every noun is assigned one of the two, and gender affects the form of accompanying adjectives and verbs.

An idiom: a fixed expression whose meaning cannot be worked out from its individual words, used to test understanding and enrich composition writing.

A proverb: a short, well-known saying expressing common wisdom, often asked for explanation or for use in an essay to support a point.

The composition section of the paper, in which the candidate writes an essay, letter or report in correct, well-organised Urdu on a given topic.

An essay: a piece of continuous writing with an introduction, developed body paragraphs and a conclusion, all on one stated topic.

A letter: a piece of formal or informal correspondence following the conventional Urdu layout of address, salutation, body and closing.

A factual written account of an event or situation, presenting what happened, where, when and to whom, in plain and orderly language.

Translation: rendering a passage between Urdu and English, or explaining an Urdu passage in simpler Urdu, while preserving the original meaning.

Comprehension: reading a given passage carefully and answering questions on it in the candidate's own words rather than by copying whole sentences.