Prose answer that retells instead of arguing
A higher-secondary Persian internal assessment uses a 7-mark nasr question: “Explain how the narrator uses the dervish’s rebuke to expose the king’s pride.” The scheme awards 2 marks for theme, 2 for character function, 2 for textual evidence and 1 for conclusion. One 190-word script spends its first 130 words retelling the passage in order: the king dreams, the dervish enters, a dialogue follows, the king wakes. The final 60 words say, “So the story teaches us not to be proud.” The only quotation is “ای پادشاه”; the dervish’s irony is never mentioned. The teacher has 34 scripts and a moderation meeting in 40 minutes. The question asks “how”, not “what happens”. A colleague proposes 5/7 because the retelling is accurate and the moral is correct.
1. Decide the mark out of 7. Break the decision into the four scheme headings and explain what the script earns and misses.
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Decision: 2/7, not 5/7.
- Theme (1/2): the moral “do not be proud” is relevant, but it is asserted at the end rather than derived from the dervish’s rebuke. The script does not show how pride is exposed, so only partial credit.
- Character function (0/2): the dervish is treated as a plot agent who “enters” and speaks. His low status, directness and function as a mirror to the king are not analysed.
- Textual evidence (0/2): the only quotation is a form of address. There is no quotation or close reference showing irony, contrast or reversal, which is the evidence the question demands.
- Conclusion (1/1): the final moral sentence does conclude, even if thinly.
A 5/7 would reward accurate plot recall, but the verb “expose” and the question word “how” require a causal account: the dervish’s speech must be shown to puncture the king’s self-image. Feedback should name one concrete upgrade: link the rebuke to the king’s dream and quote one contrasting phrase. This also keeps the other scripts with similar retelling profiles consistent.
2. Rewrite the candidate’s final two sentences into a full-credit conclusion of 35–50 words that cites the text without quoting more than six words.
Read the worked answer
“The dervish’s rebuke works by ironic reversal: the king, who reads his dream as a warning to others, is himself the warning’s object. The dervish’s calm, blunt speech strips royal authority of its cover, so pride is exposed by contrast rather than by argument.”
The revision adds a how claim (ironic reversal), a character function (the dervish as mirror), and a textual inference (calm, blunt speech) without a long quotation. It stays within 50 words and gives the examiner a conclusion that follows from evidence rather than merely restating the moral.