The Date-Palm and the City: Adjudicating Two Readings of a Prose Line
During a Tuesday revision hour, 42 SSLC candidates work on a 4-mark prose question. The teacher projects four lines from an unseen nasr passage: «هاجرتِ النخلةُ إلى المدينةِ، وتركتِ القريةَ تُصلي وحدَها». The question reads: «ما الذي ينتقده الكاتب؟» Two interpretations dominate. Group A says the writer criticizes rural-to-urban migration and the loneliness it leaves behind. Group B says the writer criticizes the palm tree for ingratitude. A candidate has five minutes and a 60-word limit. The marking scheme gives 2 marks for a defensible claim, 1 for textual evidence, and 1 for clear language. One draft reads «النخلة جاحدة لأنها رحلت» and quotes nothing. A second draft has the right idea but runs to 78 words and misspells «ينتقد». The teacher asks you to adjudicate before the class writes the final answer.
1. Which interpretation, A or B, should the class adopt? Identify two words or phrases from the excerpt that support your choice and explain why the other reading is weaker.
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Adopt A. The evidence is structural, not decorative:
- «هاجرتِ النخلةُ» gives a plant the human act of migration. The palm is therefore a figure for villagers, not a moral agent who can be 'ungrateful'.
- «تركتِ القريةَ تُصلي وحدَها» names the collective consequence: the village is left alone, and prayer here signals abandonment and loss of community.
B is weaker because it literalizes the personification and ignores «القرية». The text never says the palm was ungrateful; it says it left. In a 4-mark answer, the claim must name the writer's critique, and the evidence must be quoted rather than loosely paraphrased.
2. The second draft is substantively right but would lose marks. Name two concrete revisions that protect the language and length marks without changing the interpretation.
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Two fixes are enough:
- Cut from 78 words to about 55 by deleting the repeated example and the extra sentence about city life. Keep one claim and one quotation.
- Correct «ينتقد» and use one clear connector, «لأن», instead of three short sentences.
A safe frame is: claim (about 12 words) + quoted evidence (about 15 words) + explanation (about 20 words). Length and spelling are language-mark issues; do not trade away the quotation to save words. The candidate should keep «هاجرت» or «تصلي وحدها» because the evidence mark depends on textual support.
3. Write the 45–50 word answer the candidate should produce.
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ينتقد الكاتب الهجرة من القرية إلى المدينة لأنها تترك المجتمع الريفي وحيدًا. يدل على ذلك فعل «هاجرت» الذي يُشخِّص النخلة، وعبارة «تصلي وحدها» التي تصور انقطاع أهل القرية. وليس في النص لوم مباشر للنخلة، بل تصوير لأثر الهجرة.
This is about 36 Arabic words, comfortably under the limit. It states the critique, quotes two clues, and explicitly rejects the literal 'ungrateful palm' reading-so it targets all four marking points without padding.