Moderating Two Defensible Readings of the Closing Image of a Nazm
Two examiners marking the same 8-mark tashreeh item on a prescribed nazm disagree. The lines in question close the poem with an image of a lamp (chiragh) still burning in a room whose occupants have left. Candidate A explains the lines as a statement of endurance: the flame survives even when the household has abandoned it. Candidate B explains them as irony: the flame burns only because nobody is left to put it out, so its survival is futile. Examiner 1 has marked A 7 and B 4; Examiner 2 has marked A 4 and B 7. Both readings can be supported from the text: an earlier line calls the flame zinda (alive), while the following line calls the room veeraan (desolate). The item rubric awards 3 marks for literal meaning (tarjuma), 3 for poetic explanation (tashreeh), and 2 for language and quotation. Thirty-one scripts are still unmarked, and the board's instruction is that the marking scheme, not the examiner's taste, decides.
1. As head examiner, apply the rubric to both scripts and decide what instruction to send to the two markers.
Read the worked answer
Tarjuma (3): both candidates have the literal sense right - a lamp burning in an abandoned room. 3 to each. This is not in dispute and should never have varied.
Tashreeh (3): the test is not 'does the candidate agree with the key?' but 'is the reading anchored in the text?'
- A anchors on zinda and argues endurance - consistent, textually supported.
- B anchors on veeraan and on the absence of anyone to extinguish the flame, and argues irony - also consistent and supported.
Both therefore earn 3. If the scheme's expected-points list mentions only hope, that list is incomplete, not authoritative: a scheme lists expected points, it does not ban other valid ones.
Language and quotation (2): check each script on its own merits - a quoted word plus clean Urdu earns 2; assertion without quotation earns 1.
Instruction to markers: 'Where the scheme is silent and the candidate's reading does not contradict the text and is argued with quoted words, credit it. Re-mark both scripts on that basis and bring the 31 remaining scripts into line.' The 7/4 and 4/7 spread is an examiner-taste artefact, not a difference between candidates, and it is exactly what moderation exists to remove.
2. Candidate A's second paragraph merely restates the line in simpler Urdu: 'chiragh abhi jal raha hai, kamre mein koi nahin.' How does that affect the tashreeh marks as against the tarjuma marks?
Read the worked answer
It earns nothing further. The literal meaning has already been paid for out of the first 3 marks; re-narrating the line in easier Urdu in a later paragraph is double-paying, and double-paying is the commonest marking error on this item.
Tarjuma answers what is said. Tashreeh answers how and why it is said: the image chosen, the contrast built, the tone produced, the place of the lines in the poem's argument. A paraphrase, however fluent, never crosses that line.
What an upgrade would look like:
- name the image and its function - the lamp as the sole remaining witness in the room;
- name the contrast the poet has built - zinda against veeraan, one live thing in a dead space;
- name the tone and its source - whether the effect is defiance or futility, and which word produces it;
- tie it to the poem's movement - why the poem withholds the household until the last line.
So Candidate A's second paragraph should be marked 0 for tashreeh and the candidate told, in one sentence, that tashreeh is not a translation. If a marker instead adds a mark for the paraphrase, the same candidate will write paraphrases for every tashreeh question in the paper and lose 40 marks overall.
3. Rewrite the rubric line for this item so that the remaining 31 scripts are marked consistently.
Read the worked answer
Rewritten rubric line:
Tashreeh (3): award for any two of - (a) the image of the chiragh and what it stands for; (b) the contrast between zinda and veeraan; (c) the tone the closing lines produce, whether endurance or irony. The candidate must quote at least one word from the lines and must not contradict the text. Either tone is acceptable; do not penalise a reading that differs from the wording of the key, and do not reward a reading that is asserted without quotation.
Why this works better than adding a 'model answer' note: a model answer invites markers to compare wording, which is what produced the 7/4 split. A criterion list tells them what to look for, so two markers can arrive at the same number from different readings.
Two drafting rules behind it:
- State the number of points required ('any two of'), otherwise markers give one mark for a single good point and full marks for a list of three.
- Separate the evidence requirement from the interpretation requirement, so that a beautifully argued but unquoted answer can be marked down on a stated ground rather than on taste.
Circulate the rewritten line with the two scripts as anchor scripts at 7, so all 31 are marked against a fixed standard rather than against memory.