Hindi and English Language Proficiency for the Classroom
Language proficiency is tested functionally: grammar, vocabulary and comprehension in both Hindi and English, usually through error spotting, fill-in-the-blank, idiom, and sandhi or samas items. The standard expected is clean, correct classroom language rather than literary criticism.
Hindi
- Sandhi: swar sandhi (dirgh, gun, vriddhi, yan, ayadi), vyanjan and visarga.
- Samas: tatpurush, karmadharay, dvandva, bahuvrihi, dvigu, avyayibhav.
- Alankar: anupras (repetition of consonants), yamak (same word, different sense), upma, roopak.
- Upsarg and pratyay, tatsam and tadbhav pairs, muhavare, vakya shuddhi.
English
- Subject-verb agreement with one of, neither, either and collective nouns.
- Tense and sequence of tenses; articles; prepositions; active to passive; direct to indirect speech.
- Idioms, one-word substitutions, comprehension with inference.
Worked example (Hindi)
Vidya + aalay = Vidyalay. Reasoning: the final aa of vidya and the initial aa of aalay are both aa; aa + aa = aa, so this is dirgh sandhi and only one long aa is written. Contrast sada + ev = sadaiv, where aa + e becomes ai, which is vriddhi sandhi. Naming the sandhi correctly depends on identifying the vowel pair, not on the meaning.
Worked example (English)
One of the boys ___ absent today, so was. Reasoning: the subject is one, a singular pronoun; the phrase of the boys is a prepositional modifier and does not govern the verb.
Traps that cost marks
- Mixing anupras and yamak; anupras repeats sounds, yamak repeats a word with a changed meaning.
- Naming bahuvrihi as tatpurush when the compound denotes a third entity.
- Writing a plural verb after one of the.
- Confusing affect (verb) and effect (noun).
- Translating a Hindi muhavara word for word into English.