Arabic I
Arabic I tests recognition of the Arabic script, basic MSA vocabulary, gender and number agreement, nominal and verbal sentences, the definite article, and short reading comprehension. The exam uses Modern Standard Arabic, not a regional dialect.
Core patterns
- Arabic writes right to left. Short vowels are usually omitted, so root and context matter: ك-ت-ب underlies كتب (wrote), كتاب (book), مكتبة (library).
- The definite article is الـ (al-). “Sun letters” assimilate the l: الشمس is pronounced ash-shams; “moon letters” keep it: القمر al-qamar.
- A nominal sentence has no present-tense “to be”: الطالب في المكتبة = “The student is in the library.”
- Adjectives follow nouns and agree in gender, number, and definiteness: كتاب جديد (a new book), الكتاب الجديد (the new book).
- Idafa possession: the possessed noun takes no definite article, and the second noun may be definite: كتاب الطالب = the student’s book.
Worked example
“كتب الطالب الدرس.” This is a verbal sentence: verb كتب (wrote), subject الطالب (the student), object الدرس (the lesson). Arabic often puts the verb first, so the subject follows the verb. English order “The student wrote the lesson” is possible in Arabic too, but the VSO pattern is a common exam shape.
Traps
- Do not put الـ on both terms of idafa: كتاب الطالب, not الكتاب الطالب.
- Sun-letter assimilation affects pronunciation and sometimes transcription.
- Masculine/feminine agreement is obligatory even with plural non-human nouns, which often take feminine singular agreement.
- Hamza forms (أ إ آ ء ئ ؤ) are distinct; do not treat them as optional spelling.
- Dialect words may appear in distractors; choose the MSA form.