Unseen Passage and Applied Language Skills
What this domain tests
An unseen Ardhamāgadhi passage, usually shorter and simpler than the prescribed texts, followed by comprehension, word-matching, case-filling and sentence-completion. You are not expected to know the passage; you are expected to decode it.
Decoding order
- Read the Marathi questions first; they tell you what to look for.
- Underline every verb ending and fix person and tense.
- Mark -e (nominative singular), -ā (nominative plural), -ṃ (accusative).
- Mark the particles: ṇa (not), ṇaṃ (emphatic), vi (also), khu (indeed), jāva … tāva (until … so long), idāṇi (now), ettha (here).
- Translate clause by clause, subject first.
Cognate strategy
Go Ardhamāgadhī → Sanskrit → Marathi: ṇāṇa → jñāna → ज्ञान; jāṇaï → jānāti → जाणतो; pekkhaï → paśyati → पाहतो; aggī → agni → अग्नी; giri → पर्वत; ambu → पाणी. Expect Skt. clusters to become double consonants, and Skt. r to become a, i or u.
Applied tasks
Question words: ko (who), kaṃ (what), kahiṃ (where), kadā (when), kahaṃ (how). Expect synonym pairs such as samaṇa–muṇi (ascetic), ṇāṇa–vijjā (knowledge), mokkha–nivvāṇa (liberation), appā–jīva (soul). Number or person changes are common: hoi → honti, homi → homa.
Worked example
je samaṇe appāṇaṃ damei, se sukhaṃ pāvei.
- je … se: correlative pair, "whoever … he".
- samaṇe: nominative singular subject.
- appāṇaṃ: accusative singular of appā, "the self".
- damei: third singular present of √dam, "subdues, restrains".
- pāvei: third singular present of √pā, "obtains". Answer: जो श्रमण आत्म्याला संयमित करतो, तो सुख प्राप्त करतो.
Traps
- Reading the particle ṇaṃ as the negation ṇa and inverting the sense.
- Guessing from Marathi sound alone without checking the verb ending.
- Omitting Marathi's subject pronoun where Ardhamāgadhi drops it.
- Writing ś or ṣ where the text has plain s.
- Forgetting that a compound's head is its last member.