Question 1 - Grammar

CPE REPORT 2013

TAMIL

The format of the Tamil question paper was same as that of the previous years. The paper consisted of two levels, namely ELC and DLC. Section A consisted of five questions whereas Section B contained questions six to eight. The candidates, on the whole, did not encounter major difficulties in attempting the paper. It was within the reach of average candidates.

Question 1 - Grammar

There were twenty multiple choice items in this question which aimed at testing the candidates’ knowledge on grammar. Although most candidates had fared rather satisfactorily in this question, yet certain scoring items on verbs, cases and vocabulary were wrongly answered. Since this question allows candidates to score maximum marks, teachers are kindly requested to give more practice to their pupils on such types of questions.

Question 2 - Comprehension

Question 2 A

The comprehension passage was well within the experience of candidates. These multiple choice questions were meant to test the ability of pupils in identifying correct answers, following understanding of the passage. However, in item (2) many candidates were confused choosing ‘oru maatha maaga’ instead of ‘pala naatgalaaga’.

Question 2B

It comprised five parts, each one had to be answered in one or two words. Students could easily answer factual questions, but encountered some kind of difficulties in answering other types of questions. While answering the fifth item, for example, most of them have written ‘avargal’ instead of defining it as ‘Kambanum and Sivanum or maganmaargal’.

Question 3 - Cloze Test

The Cloze Test, which aimed at testing candidates’ ability to read and understand, did not evoke the expected response. Although the words provided were all familiar and within the candidates’ range, it seemed that these words caused some difficulties to some pupils due to the context in which they were placed. Teachers are expected to train students to read, understand, and to provide sufficient amount of practice in Cloze Test thus enabling the students to perform better.

Question 4 - Jumbled Sentences

This question which required the students to write sentences in a sequential order was attempted by almost all candidates, but many could not score full marks. There has been improvement in this question compared to last year performance.

Question 5 - Sentence Construction

In this question, candidates had to write their sentences with the given pair of words. Errors related to application of grammar were very common in even high performing students. Some candidates could write very good sentences, while others wrote funny sentences with queer word formation such as ‘kudaikiraar, palagaaramgiraar’. Adequate practice in sentence writing along with proper guidance are needed to improve the performance of the students in this type of question.

Question 6 - Grammar

In this number, candidates were expected to give the correct grammatical formation of the words given in the bracket. Only few candidates could attempt these questions confidently. The poor performance in this question by many candidates revealed pupils’ poor knowledge - grammar.

Question 7 - Comprehension

The Comprehension Passage was meant to test understanding and expression skills at a higher level. There were five questions to be answered. The overall performance of the candidates was below expectation. Only a few brilliant candidates attempted this question rather satisfactorily. Many pupils unnecessarily copied from the passage while others gave incomplete answers.

Question 8 - Composition

Candidates were asked to write a composition of about 12 lines based on a given canvas. Apart from a few remarkably well written compositions, the majority of the compositions contained a large number of errors. Wrong and inappropriate case - endings, spelling mistakes, wrong verbs usages and inappropriate vocabularies were noted in the compositions.

Teachers are advised to give more attention to composition writing and initiate pupils to use effective adverbs and expressions in their compositions.