WBBSE Madhyamik Odia (First Language) cheat sheet

Theme (mukhya bhaba) is the central idea a passage conveys; state it in one sentence before answering detail questions, then check each option against it.

Character analysis rests on three evidences only: what the character says, what the character does, and what the narrator or other characters say about the character.

Direct speech inside a prose passage is quoted in inverted commas; indirect speech reports it without quotation marks and shifts pronouns and tense.

Tatsama words are Sanskrit borrowings used unchanged in Odia; tadbhava words are Sanskrit-derived but phonetically changed (e.g., ratri to rati).

Desya or ardha-tatsama words are native Odia words not traceable to Sanskrit; they dominate everyday prose dialogue.

Odia prose sentences place the verb at the end; a question may invert order, so locate the verb first when parsing a long sentence.

Distinguish author (lekhaka) from narrator (bakta): the narrator's views are not automatically the author's, a common trap in theme questions.

When asked for the 'sara' (gist) of a prose extract, keep it to one-third of the original length and retain only the main argument plus one supporting point.

The nine rasas are karuna, hasya, adbhuta, bibhatsa, bhayanaka, raudra, vira, srngara and shanta; each poem's dominant rasa is decided by its sthayi bhava.

Upama is a simile marked by words such as 'pari', 'niti' or 'sadrsa'; rupaka is a metaphor where the object and image are identified without a comparison word.

Anuprasa is repetition of the same consonant sound; yamaka is repetition of an identical word or syllable group with a different sense.

Utpreksha presents an imagined supposition, usually signalled by 'yena', 'mane' or 'jani'; atisayokti is deliberate hyperbole for emphasis.

Each Odia line is scanned by matra (mora) count; common measures are akshara-brtta (syllabic) and matra-brtta (moraic), and a mismatch signals a wrong reading.

The refrain (ghosa or dhruva-pada) usually carries the poem's central emotion, so quote it when asked for the theme.

Bhakti poetry typically uses the kirtana or bhajana form with a refrain; svabhavika or deshatmabodhaka poetry prefers blank or free verse with concrete rural imagery.

A poem's title and its last stanza together usually state the poet's purpose; the middle stanzas supply imagery, not the thesis.

Story answers are graded on four points: setting, main incident, turning point, and resolution; name each explicitly rather than retelling the plot.

A character sketch in the reader should cite at least two incidents from the text as evidence, not adjectives alone.

When asked 'what lesson does the story teach', answer with a generalisable value plus the specific incident that demonstrates it.

Essay-type questions on a story usually want theme plus relevance to present life; keep the story summary to one-third of the answer.

Questions beginning 'kene' (why) need a causal chain: immediate cause, deeper cause, and consequence, in that order.

Quotations from the reader must be attributed to the speaker, not the author, unless the line is narrative.

Compare-and-contrast questions on two stories must give one similarity and one difference, each supported by a specific textual detail.

For 'title justification' (namakarana) questions, show how the title refers to the central character, the central event, or the central idea, and rule out the other two.

Svara sandhi joins vowels; vyanjana sandhi joins a consonant to a vowel or consonant; visarga sandhi involves a final visarga.

Dirgha sandhi: a + a, i + i, u + u each become the corresponding long vowel; guna sandhi: a + i/e becomes e, a + u/o becomes o, a + r becomes ar.

Vrddhi sandhi: a + e becomes ai, a + o becomes au; note that Odia often writes these as separate vowels rather than the Devanagari forms.

In a samasa the compound is named by the relation between its members: tatpurusa (case relation), dvigu (numeral first), dvandva (both members joined by 'and'), bahubrihi (the compound denotes something else), avyayibhava (indeclinable first member), karmadharaya (adjective plus noun).

Karaka is the relation of a noun to the verb; vibhakti is the case ending. Identify karaka by asking the verb a question, then match the answer to karta, karma, karana, sampradana, apadana, adhikarana or sambandha.

Karta takes the unmarked or -e ending; karma is the object; karana is the instrument, marked by -re/-dvare; apadana is the source, marked by -ru/-tharu.

Active to passive in Odia: object becomes subject, verb takes the past participle plus ja- auxiliary, and the agent takes the -dvare or -dvara marking.

Idioms (bhasara prayoga) are fixed: replace one word and the meaning is lost, so learn each idiom as a whole with its sentence context.

Direct to indirect speech: change pronouns to match the reporter, shift present to past, and replace question marks with a reporting verb such as 'sodhila'.

An Odia essay has three parts: bhumika (introduction), mukhya anga (body with two or three paragraphs), and upasamhara (conclusion); keep the introduction under one-fifth of the total.

Formal letters (abanitika patra) carry sender's address, date, receiver's designation, subject line, salutation, body, and signature; informal letters omit the subject and designation.

A report (pratibedana) opens with a headline and place-date line, then answers what, when, where, who, why and how in past tense and third person.

Dialogue writing uses direct speech with a dash or quotation marks, keeps turns short, and must advance the given situation rather than drift.

Word limits are binding: a 250-word essay exceeding 300 words loses marks for proportion, so plan paragraph lengths before writing.

Essay topics fall into descriptive, narrative, reflective, and argumentative types; argumentative essays need a clear stance stated in the introduction.

In letters, the closing formula depends on the relationship: 'Iti' or 'Bhabadiya' for elders, plainer closings for friends and officials.

Report and dialogue answers must not introduce facts absent from the prompt; invented statistics or names are penalised.

Read the questions before the passage; the question order usually follows the passage order, so answers can be located sequentially.

A summary (sara) must be in your own words, in the third person, and roughly one-third of the passage length; do not add opinions or examples.

Vocabulary questions ask for a synonym or antonym in Odia; supply a single word, not a phrase, and check that it fits the passage's register.

When asked for the passage's main idea, reject options that are true but peripheral; the correct option covers the whole passage, not one paragraph.

Fill-in-the-blank items drawn from the passage require the exact word form used in the text, including its suffix.

For 'why' questions on an unseen passage, the answer is stated or directly implied in the text; if it requires outside knowledge, re-read the preceding sentence.

Mark the topic sentence of each paragraph first; the sequence of topic sentences is the skeleton of the summary.

Answers to unseen comprehension must be complete sentences unless the instruction says 'one word' or 'in brief'.