General Comments, Recommendations & Comments on Specific Qs

8/9/2019 General Comments, Recommendations & Comments on Specific Qs

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General Comments,Recommendations &

Comments on Specific Qs

Arabic Paper 3180/1/02

Tuesday, April 27, 2010


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General Comments

The majority of

candidatesperformed well.



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Recommendations

Candidates should be more fully aware of

the Arabic grammatical rules and gender.

Candidates should choose topics theyfeel confident about.

Candidates should pay more attention to

reading and writing skills to attain ahigher level of proficiency.



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Comments on specific questions

Section A

(a) Candidates who chose this topicdescribed familiar places in their countrywell.

(b) This was the most popular topic forcandidates as it was a familiar event intheir country. Also they were familiar andwell trained in letter-writing technique.

Some candidates were not able toexpress themselves coherently andshowed that for some candidates more

practice is needed in letter writing.



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(c) Most candidates who chose this form

managed to write a dialogue quite well.Some candidates would benefit from more

practice of this form of writing.



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Section B

(a) Candidates answering this questionwrote about personal and imaginarysituations relating to the topic.

(b) Some candidates narrated their ownexperiences in countries they had been tobefore and wished to revisit. Others wroteabout countries that they had read or heard

about and that they wished to visit.

visit.



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(c) The few candidates who chose this topic

tried to write about their first school with arather limited vocabulary.

(d) Candidates who chose this topic

narrated what had happened to them in aninteresting style that read well and madesense, and they gain good marks for theirefforts.



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Recommendations

Candidates would benefit from paying

more attention to spelling rules,punctuation marks, and hand-writing.

Candidates would benefit from furtherpractice in translation by studying model

translated passages in order to improvetheir standard.



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Section A

Question 1

Generally, this passage was well translated.

However, two words caused problems forsome candidates.

The word forest was wrongly translatedinto jungle, zoo and florist. The word

wolves, was translatedinto foxes, lions, hyenas, bears, fliesand insects



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Question 2

Most candidates managed to translate thispassage adequately and correctly.

Candidates are advised not to use the wordand between English sentences so often asthis conjunction is used differently from the

equivalent word in Arabic.



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General Comments

Most candidates onthe whole performed

well on this paper.



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Recommendations

Candidates should be fully aware of Arabic

grammatical rules and in particular thoserelating to singular, dual and plural words.

Candidates should pay attention to

handwriting, rules of spelling and the correct

use of Arabic dots and vocalisation signs

above and beneath the characters.

Candidates should leave time to re-read their

answers and correct themselves to avoidunnecessary mistakes.

It is very important that candidates makeclear which question they are answering by

stating the section and question number

before they begin their answer.



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Section A

(a) Candidates who chose this topic generallyanswered it well. Unfortunately some candidates

ignored the word dialogue and answered the

question in a different way and therefore lostmarks.

(b) Candidates who chose this topic were able toexpress themselves freely and imaginatively.

(c) This topic was very popular. Most candidateswho chose this style of composition were well

trained in letter writing technique.



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Section B

(a) Candidates who chose this title wrotewell, writing about the occasion and stating

the reason for the illness.(b) Some candidates wrote about theadvantages of the mobile phone.

(c) Most of the candidates who wrote about

this topic used a good range of vocabularyand phrases.

(d) This was a very popular and enjoyabletopic for candidates to write about.



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General Comments

On the whole, the

general standard ofperformance wassatisfactory.



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Recommendations

Candidates should pay attention to

spelling, punctuation, use of vocalisationsigns and Arabic dots.

In order to improve their translation skills,candidates would benefit from studying

good translation passages, exercises andfrom using past examination papers.

Candidates should try to avoid usingcolloquial Arabic and other foreignvocabulary.



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Section A

(1) This passage was well translated on thewhole. There was some confusion betweencertain words such as Miss, Mrs, Madame,

Lady, and gate, fence, wall. These wordstended to follow a pattern, as they are

associated or similar in context. Candidatesshould pay attention to the use of correct

prepositions and pronouns.



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(2) Most candidates made a good attempt attranslating this passage into Arabic. Somedid not know the word maktaba (library)and raft (shelf). Some candidates made

singular references when they should havebeen plural, for instance, nafida (window)as opposed to nawafid (windows). Theword visitor was wrongly translated intoguest, and borrow into take.



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General Comments

The overallperformance of thecandidates on this

paper was good.

The standard was

similar to last year'spaper.



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Recommendations

(1) Candidates must remember to pay

particular attention to grammar,especially the use of gender, dual,singular and plural. They should alsomaster the use of tenses, especially the

past tenses, and personal pronouns.

(2) Candidates should be made aware ofthe importance of keeping to the wordlimit.



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Section A

(a) This question proved popular. Certaingreeting phrases were repeated in manyanswers. Candidates need to learn a variety ofnew words and phrases to be used in letter-writing.

(b) This question proved less popular. Somecandidates narrated the incident and did notwrite a report as was required in the question.

(c) This was a popular question and candidateswho chose this topic did well on the whole. Most

candidates were aware of the need to write adialogue in an appropriate style.



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Section B

(a) Many candidates successfully tackledthis topic and wrote freely about the happy

occasion and the family rituals thatprevailed at that time.

(b) The candidates who chose this topicgenerally handled it well. The majority of

candidates used familiar vocabulary relatedto their School days.



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(c) Many candidates chose this populartopic to write about an outing with friends.The description of the outing was wellexpressed, but some candidates onlyfocused on the outing and ignored the

part of the question regarding the incident.

(d) This was a popular question which wasapproached sensibly. Responses included

the positive and negative aspects ofwatching television and the role it plays inthe education of the candidates

themselves.



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General Comments

The overall

performance of thecandidates on thispaper was

satisfactory.



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Recommendations

(1) Candidates should be given more

practice in the use of correct past andpresent tenses.

(2) Candidates should be given lists ofvocabulary (i.e. names of animals,flowers, vegetables, sounds...etc.). Suchlists can be found in bilingual photo-dictionaries.

(3) To attain a higher standard oftranslation, candidates need practice in

translating texts in a range ofdifferent subject matters. Previousexamination papers can be very useful forthis purpose.


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Section A

(1) A large number of candidates managed totranslate this passage. Some answers wereinaccurate. It was noted that some candidatestranslated imaginary passages unrelated to thequestions. Some weak candidates wronglytranslated thieves as chinese, because the wordhad a similar sound. Donkey was translated into:horse, bird, and snake. Plate was translated into

bucket, basket, box, and plastic bag.


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(2) The majority of candidates understoodthis question and translated the passageaccurately. Again a minority of weakcandidates encountered problems withcertain vocabulary. For example: bark wastranslated into cry, weep, shout,commotion, and uproar. Fox was translatedinto wolf, lion, and sheep. Kitchen wastranslated into restaurant. Stable was

translated into horse and animal home.


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Other Recommendations

Candidates should be encouraged to

develop the special skills needed totranslate from Arabic into English and viceversa. This can be done by using differenttexts from various books, magazines,newspapers and past examination papers to

widen their vocabulary. Candidates should pay attention to the use

of tenses, punctuation and handwriting.

Candidates should keep to the

recommended length of writing. Quotations should be accurate and relevant

to what is being discussed.


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General Comments, Recommendations & Comments on Specific Qs