Unseen Passage: Answering a "Why" That the Text Only Implies
A 5-mark unseen comprehension item is being marked. The passage supplied is: ekasmin grāme ekā vṛddhā mātā putreṇa saha vasati sma. putraḥ pratyaham kṣetre karma karoti sma. ekadā ativṛṣṭiḥ abhavat, kṣetram api naṣṭam. putraḥ duḥkhitaḥ san gṛhaṃ pratyāgacchat. mātā tam uvāca - "putra, duḥkhaṃ na śāśvatam. yadi hṛdayaṃ dhairyavat bhavati, tarhi duḥkham api na tiṣṭhati." putraḥ mātuḥ vākyāni śrutvā dhairyaṃ prāpa. Question 2 asks, in Marathi, "मुलाने पुन्हा धैर्य का मिळवले?" and carries 2 marks. Candidate M writes: "कारण त्याची आई त्याला समजावत होती." Candidate N writes: "कारण आईने सांगितले की दुःख कायम राहत नाही, आणि धीर असला तर दुःख टिकत नाही." Candidate P writes a fluent paragraph about a mother's love and sacrifice, mentioning nothing from the passage.
1. Write the model answer to the question and show which words of the passage license each part of it.
Read the worked answer
Model answer: "कारण आईने सांगितले की दुःख शाश्वत नाही, आणि धैर्यवान हृदय असल्यास दुःख टिकत नाही; तिची वाणी ऐकून त्याने धैर्य मिळवले."
The evidence chain is explicit in the text:
- duḥkhaṃ na śāśvatam - the first half of the mother's argument (sorrow is not permanent).
- yadi hṛdayaṃ dhairyavat bhavati, tarhi duḥkham api na tiṣṭhati - the conditional second half (a steadfast heart does not let sorrow stay).
- mātuḥ vākyāni śrutvā - hearing, not merely being comforted; the hearing of these words is the stated cause.
- dhairyaṃ prāpa - the stated result.
A full-mark answer must reproduce the content of the words, because the passage makes the content the cause. "The mother was comforting him" identifies the speaker but leaves out the reason the passage actually gives.
2. Award marks to M, N and P, and explain the standard you use for answers that are true but not textual.
Read the worked answer
N - 2/2. Both halves of the mother's statement are present, in the right causal order, plus the result.
M - 1/2. It is not false: the mother is the agent. But the question asks why, and the passage answers with a specific argument. Naming the speaker without the argument wins only the partial credit for locating the right sentence. Feedback should quote duḥkhaṃ na śāśvatam and ask the candidate to translate it into the answer.
P - 0/2. General praise of motherhood is imported from outside; no word of the passage supports it, and the candidate has answered a different question.
Standard: mark what the passage licenses. A statement true in the world but unsupported by the printed text scores nothing; a statement that identifies the right sentence but not its content scores half. This protects the item from being answered out of general knowledge.
3. A candidate translates *kṣetram api naṣṭam* as "शेत नष्ट झाले". Is this acceptable, and what does *api* contribute?
Read the worked answer
It is half-acceptable: the sense of naṣṭam is right, but api is dropped. Placed after a word, api here means "too/even", adding a second loss on top of the rain - "शेतही नष्ट झाले" or "पावसामुळे शेतही गेले". The point matters for the comprehension question, because the double loss explains the son's dejection. A translation that flattens api into "आणि" is weaker but not wrong in substance; a translation that omits it entirely should lose the vocabulary mark, not the comprehension mark.