Unseen Passage Comprehension and Vocabulary
Working method for an unseen passage
Read once for the gist without writing anything; read again with the questions in front of you, because unseen questions usually follow the order of the passage. Answer in Magahi, in your own sentences, borrowing only key words from the text. Where a question says "apne shabdon mein", a lifted sentence scores zero even if it is correct.
Vocabulary skills tested
Four types recur: sandarbh se arth (meaning from context), samanarthi and viparit shabd, muhavara or lokokti, and word formation through prefix and suffix. For context meaning, substitute your guessed word back into the sentence; if the sentence still makes sense, the guess holds. Magahi carries many tadbhav forms close to their Sanskrit sources - agni to agg (fire), akshi to aankh (eye), dugdha to doodh (milk) - so a Sanskrit base often unlocks an unfamiliar word.
Worked example
Sentence for practice, with gloss: "U aisan manush chhe je khet mein din bhar kam kare chhe aur kono din bina kaam ke na rahe." "He is the kind of man who works in the field all day and never stays without work." Asked the meaning of "bina kaam ke na rahe", reason from the double negative plus bina ... ke: not remaining without work means he is never idle. The gloss and the negative structure together give the answer; guessing from Hindi alone would give the wrong shade.
Traps that cost marks
- Answering in Hindi or English when the paper is Magahi.
- Copying whole sentences instead of framing an answer.
- Guessing a word from Hindi sound alone; Magahi has false friends.
- Ignoring singular and plural or honorific forms that change the subject of a sentence.
- Leaving a vocabulary question blank instead of using the context substitution test.