When the Answer Key Calls Correct Marathi Wrong
A 10-mark editing task in the school internal test gives a dialogue passage with ten underlined items. Eight are genuine errors of number agreement, tense, postposition, pronoun, and word order. One is a dative-subject construction in a village character's speech: 'मला पुस्तक हवे' where the key expects 'मी पुस्तक हवे'. One is the English loanword 'ट्रेन' inside an otherwise Marathi sentence. Two teachers mark 40 scripts. Teacher A has accepted only the key and awarded 7/10 to a script that corrected all eight real errors but left the dative and loanword unchanged. Teacher B wants full marks for that script, arguing the two items are not errors. The head of department asks you to resolve the key before marks are entered. You have the scripts, the textbook's grammar chapter, and 30 minutes.
1. Decide the correct treatment of 'मला पुस्तक हवे' and justify it with a grammatical rule and a parallel example.
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'मला पुस्तक हवे' is correct Marathi. 'हवे' is a defective verb that takes a dative experiencer, not a nominative subject; the person who needs is marked with 'ला', while the thing needed is the grammatical subject. Parallel examples are 'मला भूक लागली', 'त्याला पाणी हवे', and 'आम्हाला वेळ नाही'. Changing it to 'मी पुस्तक हवे' produces an ungrammatical sentence because 'मी' cannot serve as the subject of 'हवे' in this construction. The key is therefore wrong on this item. The script that left it unchanged did not miss an error; it declined to create one. The teacher who awarded 7/10 was applying a faulty key, not a stricter standard. The item should be removed from the key or treated as a non-error, and the script should gain the mark.
2. What do you do about 'ट्रेन' and the script that left both items unchanged? Recommend a defensible mark.
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'ट्रेन' is a loanword in wide standard use; it is not an error unless the question explicitly tests substitution with 'रेल्वे' or tests register. The passage's village speaker and informal dialogue make 'ट्रेन' plausible, and the key gives no instruction to purify the vocabulary. So the second disputed item is also not an error. The script corrected all eight genuine errors and left two non-errors untouched. Out of eight valid items it deserves 8/8, not 7/10. The cleanest resolution is to re-score all 40 scripts with the corrected key: count only valid items, cap the total at 8, and scale to 10 if the school requires a 10-mark total. Re-scoring only the one script would be unfair to students who made the same defensible choice.
3. Write the instruction you would add to future papers so this ambiguity does not recur, and explain how you would moderate the key.
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Add: 'The passage contains eight errors. Correct only the erroneous items; do not alter dialect forms, loanwords, or constructions that are grammatical in standard Marathi. One mark for each corrected error.' The key should give a one-line rationale for every accepted correction and list any acceptable alternatives. Before the next test, have two teachers independently mark five scripts and compare; discrepancies usually reveal an ambiguous item rather than a lazy marker. Avoid items that test register unless register is the stated learning objective. If a dative-subject construction is included deliberately, ask students to identify the subject and explain the case, rather than asking them to 'correct' a sentence that is already correct. That turns a trap into a grammar question.