PSEB SS Urdu cheat sheet

PSEB Senior Secondary Urdu - Core Reference

• PSEB (Punjab School Education Board) Senior Secondary Urdu is examined as a second/optional language paper; the paper carries 100 marks split into objective (MCQ), short-answer, and long-answer/essay sections.

• Standard mark weighting: prose (nasar) and poetry (nazm/ghazal) comprehension and explanation, grammar (qawaid), composition (mazmoon nigari, khatt nigari), and translation (tarjuma) - grammar and composition together typically carry about 30 of 100 marks.

• Urdu script facts: 38 letters in the standard alphabet (alif to ye); letters are joined (muttasil) or unjoined (munfasil) depending on position - initial, medial, final, isolated.

• Hamza (ء) and ain (ع) are distinct letters; do not substitute one for the other in spelling - a common objective-question trap.

• Correct nisab spellings to memorize: 'khushkhati' (calligraphy), 'tanqeed' (criticism), 'afsancha' (short story), 'drama', 'mazahiya mazmoon' (humorous essay), 'khaka' (sketch), 'safar nama' (travelogue), 'sawanih' (biography).

• Genres of Urdu prose in the syllabus: dastaan, afsana, novel, drama, mazmoon, khaka, safar nama, sawanih, tanqeed, and reportage (reportage/khaka distinction is a frequent MCQ).

• Poetic forms: ghazal (couplets - sher - with radif and qafiya), nazm (thematic poem), qasida, marsiya, masnavi, rubai, qat'a, and haiku (adopted form); each has fixed structural rules.

• Grammar (qawaid) core topics: ism (noun) and its kinds, zameer (pronoun), fail (verb) and its three tenses, sift (adjective), mausuf, mutradif (synonyms), mutazad (antonyms), wahid/jama (singular/plural), muzakkar/muannas (gender), and muhawara (idiom) usage.

• Essay (mazmoon) types: bayani (descriptive), tanqeedi (critical), and tasawwuri (imaginative); letter (khatt) types: rasmi (formal) and ghair-rasmi (informal), each with fixed salutation and closing conventions.