Unseen Persian Prose: Reading Comprehension
This domain tests a passage you have never seen - usually five to ten sentences of narrative or description - followed by direct questions, word-meanings, true/false items and occasionally an identify-the-form item. Nothing here can be memorised; what is marked is whether you can locate the finite verb, unpack ezāfe chains, and answer precisely what was asked, no more.
Find the verb, find the clause
Persian is verb-final. Each finite verb carries person, number, tense and polarity, so read sentence-final words first. raft = he went; mi-ravad = he goes; na-raft = he did not go; rafte ast = he has gone. The number of finite verbs equals the number of clauses.
Read ezāfe as glue
The unstressed -e links a noun to whatever follows it: ketāb-e now (a new book), pedar-e Ahmad (Ahmad's father), dust-e man (my friend). A chain is read left to right as head-plus-qualifier: dar-e khāne-ye bozorg = the door of the big house.
Question words steer the answer
chi (what), ki (who), koja (where), key (when), chera (why), cheqadr (how much), kodām (which). Answer with the same word class the question asked for.
Worked example
Passage: Ahmad diruz bā pedar-e khod be bāzār raft va yek ketāb-e now kharid. U ketāb rā be dust-aš dād. Question: Ahmad che kharid va be ki dād? Reasoning: two verbs (raft, kharid) plus dād = past time; rā marks a definite object; -aš = his. Answer: Yek ketāb-e now kharid va ān rā be dust-aš dād.
Marks that are easily lost
Treating the ezāfe -e as a separate word and mis-parsing the noun phrase; reading mi- as negation; missing an initial na- on a verb; answering with a copied full sentence when a phrase is enough; guessing a word from an Arabic-looking shape instead of from context.