Reading a scholarship notice: deadline wording and a misplaced ban
Anjali, a Class 12 student at a Kolhapur junior college, is practising the Reading Comprehension section on a school notice in Spanish:
«CONVOCATORIA DE BECAS. El plazo de presentación de solicitudes finaliza el 15 de marzo inclusive. Las solicitudes se entregarán en la secretaría del centro. Asimismo, los candidatos deberán adjuntar el certificado de notas. No se admitirán documentos enviados por correo electrónico: es imprescindible presentarlos en papel. Se ofrecen cuarenta plazas. Únicamente podrán optar a la beca los alumnos con una asistencia superior al 75 %. Los resultados se publicarán el 30 de marzo.»
Her written answers are: (1) 'Applications may be emailed up to 15 March.' (2) 'A student with exactly 75 % attendance qualifies, because 75 is not less than 75.' She explains that her dictionary gives hasta as 'after', and that inclusive must belong to the results date at the end.
1. Decide whether email submission is permitted and state the true deadline. Cite the exact wording that settles each point.
Read the worked answer
Email: not permitted. The notice says «No se admitirán documentos enviados por correo electrónico: es imprescindible presentarlos en papel», and the preceding sentence sends applications to «la secretaría del centro». The colon matters - the clause after it gives the reason for the ban, so the prohibition covers the whole submission, not just attachments. Anjali's answer reverses the sentence.
Deadline: on or before 15 March. In time expressions hasta marks an endpoint ('up to, until'); the 'after' sense belongs to después de, not hasta. The word inclusive then removes boundary doubt - the 15th itself counts. It sits inside the deadline clause (el plazo … finaliza el 15 de marzo inclusive), and modifiers attach to the clause they are in; the results sentence has no plazo, so nothing attracts inclusive there.
A word-by-word reading fails because the student reads hasta and inclusive in isolation instead of as limits on the noun phrase el plazo de presentación.
2. A candidate with 75 % attendance claims eligibility. Evaluate the claim, quoting the qualifier that decides it.
Read the worked answer
«Únicamente podrán optar a la beca los alumnos con una asistencia superior al 75 %». Superior a is strictly greater: 76 % and above qualify, exactly 75 % does not. Spanish has an inclusive formula - igual o superior al 75 % - and its absence here is deliberate, so the boundary case fails.
Únicamente reinforces that attendance is the sole route in, and cuarenta plazas is a cap on how many awards are made, not a qualifying condition, so it cannot rescue a borderline candidate.
Marking point: the answer must name the boundary (75 % excluded, 76 % included), not merely say 'good attendance is needed'. Half-right paraphrases lose the mark because the question is testing whether the student reads quantifiers, which is where comprehension questions on notices are usually set.
3. Anjali does not know the word *plazo*. Show how the sentence and the exam question «¿Cuándo hay que entregar las solicitudes?» let her answer without a dictionary.
Read the worked answer
Plazo is the subject of finaliza el 15 de marzo, so it names a stretch of time with an end date - 'deadline, application window'. The collocation plazo de presentación de solicitudes ties it to handing in forms, confirming the reading.
So the answer to the exam question is two-part: before or on 15 March, in person at the secretaría, on paper with the certificado de notas attached. Both halves are in the text, and a date-only answer drops a mark.
Strategy worth writing down: unknown nouns are usually defined by what they do in the sentence - here finaliza plus a date, presentación plus solicitudes. Guessing from a lookalike English word ('plazo' → 'place') is the failure mode; the surrounding verbs are safer evidence than shape.