Tarkeeb Under Two Grammatical Vocabularies
The annual Urdu paper has a 5-mark tarkeeb item and a 3-mark muhavara item. 64 scripts are being moderated. The tarkeeb sentence contains an izafat and a compound predicate. The senior teacher's key uses mubtada, khabar, fail, mafool and muta'lliq; the new teacher, trained through Hindi, writes kartaa, karm, kriya and sambandh for the same functions. Seven candidates give a parsing that is defensible under an alternative analysis of the izafat. In the muhavara item, 22 candidates give the literal meaning of the idiom instead of its idiomatic sense; 9 of those also use it correctly in an original sentence. Moderation is tomorrow; the two teachers each claim their scheme is the standard one.
1. Which terminology will you accept, and what rule keeps the 64 scripts comparable?
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The construct is grammatical analysis, not label recall. Accept either set of labels if the grammatical function is correctly assigned, but require consistency within a single script. Publish a one-page mapping, for example mubtada with kartaa or uddeshya, khabar with kriya or vidheya, and mafool with karm. If the question explicitly demands the prescribed istilah, terminology is part of the mark; otherwise do not deduct for a correct analysis in the other vocabulary. Both teachers then mark 15 common scripts and compare. This is defensible because it separates function from vocabulary and produces evidence that the two marking schemes are comparable.
2. Seven candidates give a defensible alternative parsing of the izafat. Should they receive full credit, partial credit, or zero?
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First decide whether the sentence is genuinely ambiguous. If both analyses account for every word without breaking a rule, accept both. If the alternative ignores the binding force of the izafat, it is not defensible; award partial credit for the parts correctly parsed and zero for the misparsed element. To make the decision transparent, have both teachers parse the sentence independently before seeing scripts, then record the accepted alternatives in the key. Avoid giving full marks merely because an analysis is ingenious; the test is whether it explains the sentence, not whether it is novel.
3. The 22 literal meanings: how many of the 3 marks should they receive, and what follow-up is warranted?
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The item tests figurative competence. A literal meaning earns 0 for the idiom-meaning part. The 9 candidates who also wrote a correct original sentence earn the usage mark, so they receive 1/3, not 0/3. Award 0/3 only where both parts fail. Follow-up matters more than the mark: teach 10 high-frequency muhavaras with context sentences and a matching exercise, then retest in the monthly test. A 34% literal rate is a teaching signal, not a reason to soften the key after the scripts have been marked.