WBBSE Madhyamik Tamil (First Language) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Urainadai

The Tamil prose section of the Madhyamik First Language paper, containing descriptive and reflective lessons tested for theme, character, and author intent.

Character sketch structure

A three-part answer giving one defining trait, a specific incident from the text proving it, and the trait's effect on the lesson's message.

Author-text matching

An objective item type pairing each prose lesson with its named author, so the author must be learned alongside the title.

Central theme answer

A one-sentence statement of the lesson's main idea, followed by textual evidence, rather than unsupported general commentary.

Contextual vocabulary in prose

Vocabulary items taken from prose passages that test how a word functions in its sentence, not its full dictionary range of meanings.

Kavithai

The poetry section of the paper, testing poetic devices, central emotion, and the poet's message in classical and modern Tamil poems.

Uvamai

The Tamil simile, a figure of speech comparing two things explicitly; identifying it precedes explaining the effect it creates in the poem.

Uruvagam

Personification, in which a non-human thing is given human qualities or actions; a common device in Sangam and modern Tamil poetry.

Thinai classification

The division of Sangam poems into akam, concerned with inner emotional life, and puram, concerned with public, heroic, or ethical life.

Asai, seer, thaalai

Tamil prosody units: asai is a syllabic unit, seer a metrical foot, and thaalai the line pattern formed from seer.

Iyaipu and thodai

Iyaipu is rhyme and euphony across lines; thodai covers alliteration and related sound patterns linking words in a poem.

Poet's intention question

A question answered by naming the human value expressed, such as love, duty, protest, or devotion, rather than summarising the poem's content.

Non-detailed text

The supplementary reader section, testing plot order, character relationships, and the moral of a longer narrative rather than line-by-line recall.

Plot sequencing strategy

Building a written timeline of major events before answering, so that order-of-events items can be checked against a fixed reference.

Moral with evidence

An answer naming the value a lesson teaches and citing the specific event in the narrative that demonstrates that value.

Main plot versus subplot

The distinction between the central narrative line and secondary threads; 'why' questions usually hinge on a subplot detail.

Cause-effect long answer

A longer non-detailed answer ordered as situation, action taken, consequence, and lesson, keeping strictly inside the text's logic.

Vetrumai

Tamil case markers attached to nouns to show relationship, including ai for accusative, aal and odu for instrumental and sociative, and ku for dative.

Thiribhu

The oblique form a noun takes before a case marker, as maram becomes marath- before the endings -ai or -il.

Muttu and eccam

The division of Tamil verb forms into finite verbs, which complete a sentence, and non-finite forms such as participles and verbal nouns.

Tense markers

Suffixes signalling verb tense in Tamil: -kinr- or -kir- for present, -nt- for past, and -pp- for future; identifying the marker classifies the verb.

Four word classes

Peyar (noun), vinai (verb), idaichol (particle with no independent meaning), and urichol (modifier); the basis of Tamil grammatical analysis.

Sandhi or punarchi

Rules for joining words: a vowel-final word plus a vowel-initial word causes glide insertion or vowel merger, checked against the joined spelling.

Edhircholl and otracholl

Tamil terms for antonym and synonym; answers should keep the same grammatical form and part of speech as the prompt word.

Formal Tamil letter parts

Sender address, date, receiver designation, subject line, salutation, body, and closing; omitting the subject line costs marks.

Katturai structure

Essay layout of introduction, three or four body paragraphs each carrying one idea, and a conclusion restating the position taken.

Paragraph unity rule

The principle that one paragraph carries one controlling idea, so a new idea requires a new paragraph rather than a longer block.

Letter purpose placement

The convention that a letter states its reason for writing within the first two lines, so the reader knows the purpose immediately.

Comprehension own-words rule

The requirement that answers be phrased independently; copying a complete sentence from the passage is normally penalised by examiners.

Vocabulary-in-context test

A technique of substituting each option into the original sentence and keeping the one that preserves the passage's meaning.

Suitable title item

A comprehension question requiring a heading that covers the whole passage, not merely its opening line or one detail.

Marabu thodar

A Tamil idiom whose meaning is fixed and figurative; the figurative sense must be given, not a literal translation of the words.