GCE Advanced Level - StudyGuide.PK

HINDI (Mauritius)GCE Advanced LevelPaper 9160/01Essay, Translation and ComprehensionGeneral commentsThe majority of the candidates were in the middle bracket of achievement. Some candidates scored marksin the seventies and a few were outstanding, achieving marks in the eighties. However, a number ofcandidates under-performed, mainly owing to dialect usage and an uncertain grasp of grammar, andbecause the spread of vocabulary is somewhat limited. The two most frequent grammatical problems notedwere as follows.• Insufficient use of the polite forms of expression.• Gender misuse combined with syntactical and spelling errors.Over the years, however, there has been a steady improvement in the overall standard of performance. Thiscould be enhanced significantly in the coming years if Teachers focused on the two salient features ofconcern indicated above.Comments on specific questionsQuestion 1EssayThe popular topics were (a), (d), (e), and (f). There were candidates who wrote with some passion andpersonal feeling on the theme of gender equality, and there were some excellent essays on the theme ofgrowing up in a multi-ethnic country. However, some of the candidates who chose Youth/Fashion as theirtopic were rather negative in their tone. Some essays were well planned with a sustained thematicprogression. Candidates demonstrated sound linguistic ability and also deployed a varied and appropriatevocabulary. However, some of the essays were disconnected, with short sentences, poor paragraphing,grammatical and spelling errors including misspelling of simple, everyday words. A number of essaysexceeded the 300-word limit.Questions 2 and 3TranslationsBoth the translation pieces were well received by the candidates. The second sentence in Question 2confused most of the candidates, and the first two sentences in Question 3 baffled almost all of thecandidates. A wider, word-specific vocabulary and an improvement in the general grasp of grammar couldsignificantly improve candidates’ performance.Questions 4-12ComprehensionMost candidates who read the passage carefully, noting the various cues, and who understood the overallcontext of the passage, performed well in this section. In Question 4 around half of the candidatesanswered incorrectly.Questions 7 and 8Many answers overlapped in these two questions.45