Marking Forty Applications in Four Minutes Each
A batch of 40 answer scripts contains an 8-mark darkhwast item: an application in Urdu to the Principal asking for a fee concession. The rubric is 3 marks for format (superscription, 'Bakhidmat-e-Janab-e-Aali', subject line, date, signature block), 3 for content (reason, supporting facts, clear request) and 4 for language. Script 17 reads fluently and makes a persuasive case, but it addresses the Principal as 'mere dost', opens with 'suna hai', signs off with 'aap ka apna dost' instead of 'Arz-guzar, Shagird', omits the date and subject line, writes 'mera guzarish' for 'meri guzarish', spells zaroorat as 'zarorat', and drops the izafat in 'Bakhidmat Janab-e-Aali'. The examiner has 40 scripts and can give four minutes to each. A sample re-mark of five scripts produced marks from 5 to 7 out of 8, so the marks are not comparable between examiners.
1. Award script 17 its marks on the 3/3/4 rubric and justify each component.
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Format: 1/3. The superscription is present, which is worth something, but the salutation and sign-off belong to a letter to a friend, not to a darkhwast; the date and subject line are missing; the izafat is dropped, which is a fault in the very formula the format marks are testing. One mark, not zero, because the skeleton of the genre is visible.
Content: 3/3. The reason is stated, the supporting facts are there, and the request is unmistakable. This is the part the candidate did well, and the marks should say so plainly.
Language: 2/4. Fluent, but two recurrent errors of the kind the grammar syllabus tests - gender agreement (mera guzarish) and spelling (zarorat) - plus the dropped izafat. Two of four.
Total: 6/8.
The judgement call: the register failure (mere dost, aap ka apna dost) is marked under format, not under language. A darkhwast is a fixed genre with a fixed addressee; using the wrong register means the candidate has not produced the genre at all. Marking it under language would let a fluent but socially wrong script score 8, which is how a school ends up with students who can write beautifully and cannot write an application.
2. With four minutes per script, which three error types should the examiner mark and which three should be ignored? Give the reasoning.
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Mark:
- Register and format breaches - wrong addressee, missing salutation, missing date. These carry 3 marks and are learnable in a single lesson; ignoring them makes the rubric meaningless.
- Errors the grammar syllabus names - gender agreement (meri guzarish), izafat, compound verb choice. These are taught items and the candidate has been examined on them.
- Recurrent spelling of high-frequency words - zaroorat, khush aamdeed, InshaAllah. One instance is a slip; a repeated instance is a habit and must be signalled.
Ignore:
- Handwriting flourishes and diacritics - a missing zer is not evidence about the language.
- Single non-recurrent spellings - note once at the end of the script if at all.
- Stylistic preferences not in the key - a shorter or plainer sentence is not an error because the examiner would have written it differently.
Reasoning: marking is diagnostic, not exhaustive. Four minutes allows a candidate to be told three things they can fix. A script covered in thirty ticks teaches nothing and takes ten minutes. The three-and-three rule also makes two examiners converge: they are looking for the same short list rather than for everything.
3. Write the model opening and closing lines the class should memorise, and say what they fix.
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Opening (after the superscription):
Bakhidmat-e-Janab-e-Aali, Arz ye hai ki main is madrase ka doosre saal ka talib-e-ilm hoon aur mere walid ki tabiyat ke ba'is ab mere liye fees ada karna mushkil ho gaya hai… Guzarish hai ki meri fees mein chhoot ata farmayi jaye.
Closing:
Is mehrbani ke liye main aap ka shukr-guzar rahoonga. Arz-guzar, Shagird - (naam, class, date)
What these fix, one by one: Janab-e-Aali fixes register; Arz ye hai ki fixes the opening formula and the izafat; meri fees models correct gender; Guzarish hai ki… ata farmayi jaye models the passive-polite request that a darkhwast requires; Arz-guzar, Shagird fixes the sign-off; and the bracketed date and name fix the two format marks most often lost.
Give the class the frame, not the essay. The content must still be their own - and in script 17 the content was already the strongest part.