Unseen Passage: Why, When and the Lifted Sentence
An unseen passage in a Class 10 practice paper reads: 'ಗ್ರಾಮದ ಗ್ರಂಥಾಲಯ ಸಂಜೆ ಮಾತ್ರ ತೆರೆಯುತ್ತದೆ. ಗ್ರಂಥಪಾಲಕರು ಹಗಲೆಲ್ಲ ಹೊಲದಲ್ಲಿ ದುಡಿಯುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಹೊಸ ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳು ಬಂದಿಲ್ಲ, ಆದರೂ ಸದಸ್ಯರ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿದೆ. ಕಾರಣ, ಹತ್ತನೇ ತರಗತಿಯ ಮೀನಾ ಪ್ರತಿದಿನ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೆ ಕಥೆ ಓದಿ ಹೇಳುತ್ತಾಳೆ. ಮಕ್ಕಳು ಕಥೆ ಕೇಳಲು ಬರುತ್ತಾರೆ, ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಹಿಡಿದು ನಿಧಾನವಾಗಿ ಓದಲು ಕಲಿಯುತ್ತಾರೆ.' ('The village library opens only in the evening. The librarian works in the fields all day. No new books have arrived, yet the number of members has grown. The reason: Meena, a Class 10 student, reads a story aloud to the children every day. The children come to hear stories and slowly learn to hold a book and read.') Question 3(b) asks, for two marks, 'Why has membership grown although no new books have arrived?' Three answers: X - 'Because the librarian works in the fields all day.' Y - 'Because Meena reads stories aloud, children come for stories and then begin reading books.' Z - 'Because the library opens only in the evening.'
1. Award marks to X, Y and Z, and name the reading error behind each weak answer.
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Y - 2/2. Complete causal chain: Meena's readings bring children in; once there, they learn to handle books; membership rises. Both the immediate cause and the link to books are stated.
X - 0/2. This repeats the reason for the timing (the librarian works in the fields) and answers 'why in the evening', not 'why membership grew'. Pattern: answering the adjacent question.
Z - 0/2. Copies the first sentence - a detail about when the library opens, not a cause of growth. Pattern: lifting a sentence because it shares a word with the question ('library'), without testing it against the question word 'why'.
Award 1 only if X or Z had added a causal step such as 'so children come in the evening'; neither did, so both are 0.
2. Design a five-minute follow-up using one sentence from the passage that teaches the difference between 'when' and 'why'.
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Put the sentence 'ಗ್ರಂಥಾಲಯ ಸಂಜೆ ಮಾತ್ರ ತೆರೆಯುತ್ತದೆ' on the board and ask two questions against it:
- When does the library open? (Evening.)
- Why only then? (Students must find 'ಗ್ರಂಥಪಾಲಕರು ಹಗಲೆಲ್ಲ ಹೊಲದಲ್ಲಿ ದುಡಿಯುತ್ತಾರೆ'.)
The class sees that the same sentence answers 'when' but the next sentence supplies 'why'. Now return to 3(b): the passage itself signals its cause with the word 'ಕಾರಣ', so a correct cause answer must be traceable to that sentence or the one immediately following it.
Rule to write on the board: underline the question word - why / how / when - before reading the options, and refuse any sentence that answers a different question word.
3. A student glosses 'ಸದಸ್ಯರು' as 'people' and 'ದುಡಿಯುತ್ತಾರೆ' as 'eat'. Decide the marks and outline the remediation.
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'ಸದಸ್ಯರು' = members, not merely 'people'. Award 0 but mark it as a near-miss: 'people' is too broad, and the passage's argument (membership growth) depends on the narrower sense.
'ದುಡಿಯುತ್ತಾರೆ' = work. 'Eat' is a guess with no support in the sentence; award 0 and note that the student must use the context clue 'ಹೊಲದಲ್ಲಿ' (in the field) rather than sound association.
Remediation: a three-column table from the passage - word / context clue in the sentence / meaning - completed for ಸದಸ್ಯರು, ದುಡಿಯುತ್ತಾರೆ and ನಿಧಾನವಾಗಿ. In the next unseen passage, require students to underline the clue before writing any meaning, so that guessing is replaced by inference. Two minutes per lesson is enough; the habit matters more than the vocabulary list.