Grammar: a split that sounds right, a compound with two vigrahas, and surplus correct information
Internal moderation of a 30-mark grammar section (six items, five marks each) produced four disputed scripts. Item 1 asked students to split దేవాలయము and name the sandhi; the key said 'దేవ + ఆలయము, savarṇa dīrgha sandhi'. Fourteen students wrote 'దేవా + లయము' and lost all five marks. Item 4 asked for the samasa name of పుస్తకపఠనము; the key said dvitīyā tatpuruṣa, but three students wrote ṣaṣṭhī tatpuruṣa with the vigraha 'పుస్తకము యొక్క పఠనము'. Item 6 asked only for a sandhi name, and 22 students also supplied the vigraha and the samasa name, which the marker ringed as 'unasked'. The HOD has approved a re-check but insists the revised key be defensible item by item, and the office needs final marks in two days.
1. Item 1: are the 14 students who split the word as దేవా + లయము entitled to any marks?
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No - 0 for the split and 0 for the sandhi name.
The correct key is దేవ + ఆలయము, savarṇa dīrgha sandhi (a/ā + a/ā → ā). The students' split, దేవా + లయము, is phonologically harmless only because ā + l requires no sandhi at all; the rule they would have to cite is 'no change', not dīrgha. More seriously, the split yields a vigraha unrelated to the word's meaning (లయము = dissolution), so it fails the semantic test as well.
Write the two-test rule into the key in one line: a split must reconstruct the word and yield its meaning. Do not award a consolation mark for the long ā - the vowel is right for the wrong reason, and marks here are for the operation, not the spelling.
2. Item 4: how should the dvitīyā/ṣaṣṭhī dispute over పుస్తకపఠనము be resolved?
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Both answers are tatpuruṣa; the dispute concerns only the subtype, and the subtype is decided by the vigraha the student supplies.
పుస్తకమును పఠించుట (dvitīyā) and పుస్తకము యొక్క పఠనము (ṣaṣṭhī) are both grammatical, and the prescribed textbook does not fix this compound to a single vigraha. The three students who wrote ṣaṣṭhī with a correct vigraha therefore earn full marks, as do those who followed the key.
What must be penalised is a subtype name with no vigraha, because the label cannot then be checked: name mark only.
Revise the key to read 'tatpuruṣa - dvitīyā or ṣaṣṭhī, vigraha required'. Note for future papers: do not set compounds whose vigraha the stem does not fix; that tests the textbook's convention, not grammar.
3. Item 6: should the 22 students who added unasked vigraha and samasa information be penalised?
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No. The instruction asked for the sandhi name; it did not forbid further information, and the surplus material was correct.
Penalising a correct, relevant addition teaches students to write less than they know - the opposite of what the composition section rewards. Full marks stand, the ring is removed, and the marker is told why: deductions attach to wrong or irrelevant content, never to surplus correct content.
Where the surplus is wrong - say a misnamed samasa appended to a correct sandhi - ignore it for this item but record it once in the item analysis, since it is the same error you would penalise in a samasa item. That preserves the principle of one error, one deduction, without punishing extra knowledge.