Reading Comprehension and Translation: Gist, Inference and Meaning Transfer
Reading Comprehension and Translation tests unseen material: a Nepali passage followed by short-answer questions, vocabulary in context, inference, and translation between Nepali and English (or the prescribed direction). The paper checks whether you can extract gist and detail without copying the passage, and whether you can carry meaning across languages rather than exchange words.
Core rules
- Skim first for topic and purpose, then scan for names, dates, numbers, and cause-effect signals.
- Answer in your own words; use a short quotation only when the question asks for textual evidence.
- For word meaning, use context, not the first dictionary sense.
- Translate sense-for-sense: keep tense, number, person, and register; retain proper nouns by transliteration.
- If an idiom is non-compositional, translate its equivalent meaning, not its literal words.
Worked example
Nepali: “वर्षाले खेतमा पानी जम्यो।” Literal: “Rain caused water to collect in the field.” Better: “The rain waterlogged the field.” Reasoning: the Nepali verb जम्नु here means collect/stand, not freeze; English prefers a compact verb. The translation keeps past tense and singular field.
Traps
Word-for-word translation that produces unnatural English; translating idioms literally; ignoring negation; copying whole sentences as answers; changing tense or number; and answering a “why” question with a “what” statement.
Exam habit
Underline the question’s operator: state, explain, infer, translate. Then match the length of your answer to it.