MATSEC IM Arabic common mistakes
MATSEC IM Arabic · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing the essay (ta'bir) in the wrong register - mixing Egyptian or Levantine colloquial forms such as 'مش', 'كده', 'عايز' into what should be Modern Standard Arabic, or conversely overusing archaic literary constructions where a simple MSA sentence is expected.
Candidates who have learned Arabic largely from films, songs, or conversation practice with native speakers absorb dialect first; the Maltese secondary classroom also exposes students to spoken varieties informally, so the colloquial register feels more 'natural' even though the exam demands MSA in written production.
What to do instead
Before the exam, build a personal 'register swap' list of the ten colloquial items you use most and their MSA equivalents (مش → ليس/لا, كده → هكذا/كذلك, عايز → أريد, كتير → كثيراً). In the last five minutes of the writing task, reread only for these items and replace them. Practise writing three short paragraphs a week entirely in MSA and have them checked specifically for colloquial leakage.
Producing grammatically correct but empty essays: a 200-word composition on, say, 'البيئة' that repeats 'البيئة مهمة جداً' and 'يجب أن نحافظ على البيئة' without a single concrete example, statistic, cause, or consequence.
Under time pressure candidates grab the first safe sentences that come to mind and then pad; many also lack topic-specific vocabulary because they revised grammar rules rather than theme lexis, so they cannot say anything specific even if they want to.
What to do instead
Prepare a small bank of 5–6 'content hooks' per common theme (environment, technology, family, education, health): one statistic or widely known fact, one cause, one consequence, one personal example, one recommendation. In the exam, plan for two minutes and write one hook per paragraph before writing prose. Aim for at least one concrete noun or figure per body paragraph.
Misidentifying the root and pattern of unfamiliar words in the reading passage, then guessing a meaning from superficial resemblance - for example reading 'استخدام' as 'خدمة' (service) rather than 'use', or treating 'مُدرِّس' (teacher) and 'مُدَرَّس' (curriculum/taught) as the same word.
Candidates recognise the root letters but ignore the vowel pattern and the extra affixes (استـ، مُـ، ـة), and schools often drill vocabulary as whole-word lists without training students to decompose words morphologically.
What to do instead
When you meet an unknown word, write down root letters and pattern separately (e.g. ك-ت-ب + مُفَعِّل) and check whether the pattern signals a doer, a passive participle, an instrument, or a place. Practise with 15 derived forms of three common roots per week; in the exam, use surrounding context to confirm or reject the guess before answering.
Translating word-for-word from Maltese or English into Arabic, producing calques such as 'أنا عندي 16 سنة' (from English 'I have 16 years') instead of 'عمري 16 سنة', or 'يعمل معنى' for 'makes sense'.
Bilingual candidates naturally map L1 structures onto Arabic; classroom translation exercises often reward 'getting the meaning across' rather than idiomatic Arabic, so the habit is never corrected.
What to do instead
Keep a two-column idiom notebook: L1 expression on the left, the idiomatic Arabic equivalent on the right (e.g. 'I am 16' → عمري ستة عشر عاماً; 'it makes sense' → هذا منطقي). Learn these as fixed chunks, not as translations. In the translation task, read your Arabic sentence back and ask whether an Arabic speaker would phrase it that way, then rewrite any sentence that mirrors L1 word order.
Mishandling the Arabic verb system: using the wrong tense/aspect (present where the past is required in a narrative), omitting the subjunctive after أن/لن/كي, or failing to apply the jussive after لم.
Arabic's aspect system does not map neatly onto Maltese or English tenses, and the mood endings (رفع/نصب/جزم) are taught as abstract grammar tables rather than as forms attached to particular particles, so candidates memorise labels without being able to produce the forms.
What to do instead
Learn each particle together with a model verb in all persons: لن + مضارع منصوب (لن أذهبَ), لم + مجزوم (لم أذهبْ), كي + منصوب. Write ten sentences per particle set and get them corrected. In narratives, default to the past tense (الماضي) unless the sentence is explicitly habitual or future.
Breaking the Arabic word order and agreement rules: putting the verb before the subject in a nominal sentence where a topic-comment structure is needed, or failing to make the verb agree in gender with a postposed subject (e.g. writing 'ذهبت الطلاب' instead of 'ذهب الطلاب').
Candidates over-apply the VSO pattern they were taught first, and the rule that a verb preceding its subject stays singular and agrees only in gender is easily forgotten because it contradicts the 'verb agrees with subject' intuition from European languages.
What to do instead
Learn two model sentences side by side: 'الطلابُ ذهبوا' (subject first → full agreement) and 'ذهبَ الطلابُ' (verb first → singular verb, gender-matched). Do transformation drills converting the same sentence between the two orders. In the writing task, check every verb-subject pair for number and gender agreement as a separate editing pass.
Misplacing or omitting the definite article and case endings in formal written output - writing 'ذهبت إلى المدرسة الجميلة' correctly but then 'رأيت المدرسة الجميلة' with no accusative marking, or dropping tanwin and case vowels entirely in a passage that requires full vocalisation.
Because most modern printed Arabic is unvocalised, candidates rarely see case endings in authentic texts and conclude they are optional; where the exam requires them (or where they disambiguate the sentence), the omission costs marks.
What to do instead
Treat case endings as part of the word, not decoration: practise reading short fully-vocalised passages aloud daily so the endings become auditory habits. Learn the core case functions (فاعل → رفع, مفعول به → نصب, after حرف جر → جر) and apply them when the task demands vocalisation. In editing, read your text aloud and mark any word whose ending you cannot justify.
Answering comprehension questions by copying a whole sentence from the passage rather than extracting the specific information asked for, and missing inference questions that require reading between the lines (e.g. 'ماذا يستنتج الكاتب؟').
Copying feels safe and is faster than reformulating, and many candidates have been trained to 'find the answer in the text' literally; inference questions are unfamiliar because classroom reading focuses on literal retrieval.
What to do instead
For each question, underline the key interrogative word (من، ماذا، لماذا، كيف، متى) and the exact phrase it targets, then answer in your own words in one sentence. Practise classifying questions as 'literal' vs 'inferential' and, for inference items, ask what the writer implies rather than what is stated. Never copy more than three consecutive words from the passage.
Writing a summary or paraphrase that keeps the original's sentence order and wording, producing a shortened copy rather than a restructured summary, and omitting the passage's main idea in favour of a minor detail.
Candidates equate summarising with deleting words, and they lack practice in identifying topic sentences and main ideas; under time pressure, lifting phrases is quicker than reformulating.
What to do instead
Use a three-step method: (1) read the passage and write the main idea in one sentence without looking at the text; (2) list three supporting points as keywords only; (3) write the summary from your keywords, not from the passage. Then compare with the original and rewrite any phrase that matches it. Practise on 150-word passages weekly, targeting a summary of about one-third the length.
Ignoring the rubric's task requirements in the writing paper - writing a letter when an article was asked for, omitting the required salutation and closing in a formal letter, or failing to address every bullet point given in the prompt.
Candidates read the topic and start writing immediately, treating the genre and bullet points as decoration; genre conventions (letter vs report vs article layout, appropriate opening and closing formulae) are often under-taught relative to grammar.
What to do instead
In the first minute, annotate the prompt: circle the genre, underline each required content point, and note the expected layout (date, salutation, closing for letters; headline and paragraphs for articles). Tick off each bullet as you cover it, and reserve two minutes at the end to verify that every point is addressed and the format is complete.