Grammar and Language Elements (Qawaid)
The Qawaid section is mechanical and therefore the easiest place to gain or lose marks quickly. It tests classification (ism, fail, harf, sifat, zameer), sentence structure (mubtada-khabar, fail-fael-mafool), gender and number agreement, tashih (correcting wrong sentences), and muhawara usage.
Rules worth drilling
- Ism: aam and khas, muzakkar and muannas, wahid and jama; know the broken plurals the textbook lists.
- Fail: maazi, haal, mustaqbil; mutaaddi and ghair-mutaaddi; the ne-construction, where the verb agrees with the object, not the subject.
- Harf: the word that does no work alone but joins or directs - ko, se, mein, par, aur, lekin.
- Jumla: mubtada (subject) plus khabar (predicate); in a failia jumla, fail plus fael plus mafool.
- Muhawara: a fixed phrase whose meaning is figurative; the sentence must show that figurative sense.
Worked example
Tashih question: 'Tum kal aya tha.' Reasoning: the doer is 'tum' (plural in form), the tense is maazi, and the verb must agree with the doer. Correct: 'Tum kal aaye the.' The same check applied to 'Woh kal aayi thi' shows agreement with a feminine subject, so that sentence stands.
Traps that cost marks
- Using a muhawara literally, e.g. writing about an actual eye for 'aankh ka tara' instead of 'a very dear person'.
- Missing gender agreement in sifat: 'achha larki' for 'achhi larki'.
- Treating harf as a noun in classification questions.
- Correcting a sentence but leaving the original verb form half-changed.
- Splitting a muhawara or altering its fixed wording.