The literary text: Paper 2 Section B (النص الأدبي)

You have chosen a question of the common type: إلى أي مدى يمكن القول إن الشخصية الرئيسية في العمل تتغير بفعل الظروف لا بفعل قرارها؟ Plan the essay before writing a word of it, with the three grids in view.

1. 01Minute one: find the arguable word

   The question turns on لا بفعل قرارها — the contrast between circumstance and decision — and on إلى أي مدى, to what extent, which invites a degree rather than a yes or no. So the claim must be a proportion, not a verdict, and the essay's shape is set: some of the change is circumstantial, some is chosen, and the argument is about which predominates and where. Write that observation down as one line; it is the spine of everything that follows.

2. 02Minute two: write the claim in one Arabic sentence

   يمكن القول إن الظروف تحرك الشخصية في النصف الأول من العمل، غير أن التحول الحاسم يأتي من قرار تتخذه بنفسها. يمكن القول إن is a formal, hedged frame that the range grid likes. غير أن introduces the reservation that makes it an argument rather than an assertion. تتخذه بنفسها has the resumptive pronoun and the emphatic reflexive. One sentence, and the essay now knows what it is for.

3. 03Minute three: choose two episodes and no more

   Select one episode that supports the circumstantial half and one that supports the chosen half, and choose them because they support the claim rather than because they are memorable. Two well-used episodes beat five mentioned, because the AO4 grid rewards justification with appropriately selected evidence. Write, for each, three words: where it sits in the work, what happens, and which half of the claim it serves. That is your evidence plan.

4. 04Minute four: decide the counter-reading

   Ask what somebody who disagreed would say. Here: that the apparently free decision was itself produced by the circumstances, so the distinction the question draws is unstable. That is a real objection and acknowledging it is the single highest-value move available. Plan where it goes — after both evidence blocks, before the conclusion — and plan the frame: وقد يعترض قارئ بأن …، وهو اعتراض وجيه إلى حد ما، غير أن ….

5. 05Minute five: plan the range deliberately

   Decide now which structures will appear where, because bolting them on later reads as decoration. Paragraph one: يمكن القول إن with غير أن. Paragraph two: an internal passive and a verbal noun. Paragraph three: a relative clause after an indefinite antecedent and a comparative. Paragraph four: a conditional, probably لو with لـ, for the counter-reading. Conclusion: a tamyiz or a cognate accusative. Six structures placed by design, and each one is there because the meaning wanted it.

6. 06Minute six: budget the words and the clock

   The guide is 270 to 320 words, which at roughly 60 to 70 words a paragraph is five paragraphs: claim, evidence one, evidence two, counter-reading, conclusion. Of the recommended 65 minutes per essay, spend six planning, about forty-five writing and the last ten checking — agreement, the article on construct chains, verb endings after لم and أن, and whether every paragraph still serves the claim. A plan that fits the word count is a plan you can execute.

Result: يمكن القول إن الظروف تحرك الشخصية في النصف الأول من العمل، غير أن التحول الحاسم يأتي من قرار تتخذه بنفسها. Five paragraphs at 60 to 70 words each: claim, two selected episodes, a counter-reading introduced with وقد يعترض قارئ بأن, and a conclusion that states the proportion rather than a verdict. Six structures placed at planning time, six minutes of planning, forty-five of writing and ten of checking.

The episode used here is invented purely to demonstrate the shape of the sentence, since these notes supply no plot detail for any prescribed work; substitute an episode from the text you have actually studied. Suppose the work contains a scene, at an early point, in which the central character declines an invitation and stays in his room while the household eats without him.

1. 01Move one: locate it, and locate it honestly

   في مشهد مبكر من العمل. If you are certain of the chapter, say so — في الفصل الثاني — because precision is worth something. If you are not, مبكر, early, is true and costs nothing. What you must not do is invent a chapter number: an examiner who knows the work will see it, and a wrong locating detail undermines everything the paragraph then claims. Vagueness that is true beats precision that is false, every time.

2. 02Move two: describe it in the present tense, in one sentence

   يرفض البطل الدعوة ويبقى في غرفته بينما تتناول الأسرة طعامها. Arabic, like English, describes what happens in a literary work in the present. بينما sets the simultaneity and the contrast at once. Keep the description to what is observable: he declines and stays; the household eats. No adverbs of feeling, no interpretation yet — because the interpretation is the next move and mixing them makes the evidence unusable.

3. 03Move three: state what it shows, and connect it to the claim

   وهو ما يكشف أن انسحابه اختيار لا نتيجة، لأنه يحدث قبل أي ضغط خارجي واضح. وهو ما plus a verb is the resumptive frame that turns a description into evidence, and كشف أن, يبين أن, يدل على أن and يوحي بأن are its four standard verbs in ascending order of hedging. The لأن clause is what makes it argument rather than assertion: it says why the episode supports the claim, and without it the reader has to supply the reasoning themselves.

4. 04Vary the claim without changing the episode

   The same episode, used for a question about the social setting: وهو ما يبرز أن المائدة في هذا العمل مساحة اجتماعية إلزامية، وأن الغياب عنها فعل ذو دلالة. Used for a question about narrative technique: ولعل اختيار الكاتب أن يعرض المشهد من داخل الغرفة لا من حولها هو ما يمنح الانسحاب ثقله. One bank entry, three questions answered. This is why the bank is built with several claims attached to each episode.

5. 05Handle uncertainty inside the sentence

   If you are not sure whether the household knew he had declined, do not decide it: write ولا يوضح النص ما إذا كانت الأسرة تعلم بذلك، وهو غموض له وظيفته. Naming an uncertainty in the text as an uncertainty is legitimate analysis and is often more interesting than resolving it, and it is far safer than inventing the detail. The frame لا يوضح النص ما إذا كان is worth memorising for exactly this purpose.

6. 06Assemble and check the length

   The full evidence block: في مشهد مبكر من العمل، يرفض البطل الدعوة ويبقى في غرفته بينما تتناول الأسرة طعامها. وهو ما يكشف أن انسحابه اختيار لا نتيجة، لأنه يحدث قبل أي ضغط خارجي واضح. Around thirty-five words, which is right: at 270 to 320 words for the whole essay, an evidence block that runs past sixty words is squeezing out the counter-reading, and the counter-reading is where the AO4 marks concentrate.

Result: في مشهد مبكر من العمل، يرفض البطل الدعوة ويبقى في غرفته بينما تتناول الأسرة طعامها. وهو ما يكشف أن انسحابه اختيار لا نتيجة، لأنه يحدث قبل أي ضغط خارجي واضح

Take a question of the form: ناقش الطريقة التي تبنى بها الشخصية الرئيسية في العمل. Write the central paragraph, and see at each step what separates the analytical version from the descriptive one it would otherwise have been.

1. 01Open on the technique, not the person

   تبنى الشخصية الرئيسية في هذا العمل من الخارج أكثر مما تبنى من الداخل. تبنى is the internal passive of بنى, is built, and using the passive is exactly right here because the agent — the writer, the text, the narrative method — is not what the sentence is about. أكثر مما is a comparative with a clause. The descriptive version of this sentence would have started with the character's name and an adjective; this one has already made a claim about method.

2. 02Say what the text does, and name the technique

   فنحن نراها في أفعالها وفي ردود فعل من حولها، ولا يمنحنا الراوي إلا القليل من أفكارها. لا يمنحنا … إلا القليل is the negative-plus-إلا construction meaning gives us only a little. ردود فعل من حولها, the reactions of those around her, is a chain. This is the evidence, and it is evidence about construction: what the narrator gives and withholds, rather than what the character is.

3. 03Say what that method produces

   وهو ما يجعل القارئ يبني حكمه على ما يراه لا على ما يقال له. وهو ما يجعل is the resumptive result frame. يبني حكمه على is to base one's judgement on. The contrast ما يراه لا على ما يقال له — what he sees, not what he is told — uses an internal passive in the second half. This sentence is the analysis: it moves from what the text does to what the doing achieves, and that move is what the AO4 grid calls critical analysis.

4. 04Add the qualification that shows you have read closely

   غير أن هذه المسافة تضيق في المواضع التي يتدخل فيها الراوي، وهي قليلة ولكنها موزعة في مواضع حاسمة. Noticing an exception to the pattern you have just described is the single clearest sign of close reading, and it is what separates a good paragraph from a competent one. التي يتدخل فيها is a relative clause with a definite antecedent and a resumptive فيها. قليلة ولكنها موزعة balances two claims about the same thing.

5. 05Connect it back to the question and to the wider work

   ولذلك يمكن القول إن الشخصية في هذا العمل ليست موصوفة بقدر ما هي مستنتجة. ليست … بقدر ما هي … , is not so much … as … , is a comparative frame worth memorising. موصوفة and مستنتجة are two passive participles — described and inferred — and the pairing states the whole argument in four words. A paragraph that ends on a formulation this compact has earned both its analysis mark and its range mark.

6. 06Check what the descriptive version would have looked like

   الشخصية الرئيسية إنسان هادئ ومغلق، ولا يتكلم كثيرا، والقارئ يشعر بأنه وحيد. Every clause is about the person and none is about the text. It could be written by somebody who had read a summary. The analytical version could not, because it depends on noticing what the narrator does and where the pattern breaks — and that is exactly the difference the AO4 grid is built to detect.

Result: تبنى الشخصية الرئيسية في هذا العمل من الخارج أكثر مما تبنى من الداخل. فنحن نراها في أفعالها وفي ردود فعل من حولها، ولا يمنحنا الراوي إلا القليل من أفكارها. وهو ما يجعل القارئ يبني حكمه على ما يراه لا على ما يقال له. غير أن هذه المسافة تضيق في المواضع التي يتدخل فيها الراوي، وهي قليلة ولكنها موزعة في مواضع حاسمة. ولذلك يمكن القول إن الشخصية في هذا العمل ليست موصوفة بقدر ما هي مستنتجة

Analytical Arabic nominalises far more than English does, and doing it deliberately is one of the cheapest range gains available. Take four ordinary clauses and convert each into the construction a critic would use, explaining what changes.

1. 01The narrator disappears in the second half

   Ordinary: يختفي الراوي في النصف الثاني. Critical: غياب الراوي في النصف الثاني ملحوظ. غياب is the verbal noun of غاب, and turning the verb into a noun lets you make it the subject of a further claim — it is now something you can characterise, compare or explain. The verbal noun heads a construct chain, الراوي is genitive, and ملحوظ is a passive participle as predicate. The clause has become an object of analysis.

2. 02The writer uses dialogue to build the character

   Ordinary: يستعمل الكاتب الحوار ليبني الشخصية. Critical: يقوم بناء الشخصية على الحوار. Two verbal nouns and the writer has disappeared, which is correct: the claim is about the work's method, not about a decision you cannot evidence. قام على is to rest on. Note also that the critical version is shorter, which matters when the guide length is 320 words.

3. 03The events are told out of order

   Ordinary: تروى الأحداث بغير ترتيبها. Critical: يقوم السرد على كسر الترتيب الزمني. كسر الترتيب الزمني, the breaking of the chronological order, is a verbal noun heading a chain with an agreeing nisba adjective. The ordinary version describes; the critical version names a technique, and naming a technique is what lets you then say what it achieves — which is the next sentence and the actual analysis.

4. 04The ending does not resolve the conflict

   Ordinary: النهاية لا تحل الصراع. Critical: عدم حل الصراع في النهاية اختيار لا نقص. عدم plus a verbal noun is Arabic's way of negating a noun phrase, and Appendix 2 lists it explicitly under verbal nouns and negation. The construction lets you make the non-resolution itself the subject and then judge it — اختيار لا نقص, a choice and not a shortcoming — which is a complete critical argument in seven words.

5. 05Know when not to nominalise

   Nominalisation compresses, and compression can become opacity. غياب تدخل الراوي في تقديم بناء الشخصية stacks four verbal nouns and is barely readable. The rule of thumb is two per sentence: enough to sound like criticism, few enough to be understood. A range grid rewards variation, and a paragraph of unrelieved verbal nouns is as monotonous as a paragraph of simple sentences, just harder to read.

6. 06Check that the nominalisation kept the claim

   The risk of nominalising is losing the assertion: يختفي الراوي states that he disappears, while غياب الراوي merely names his absence and asserts nothing until you add a predicate. So every verbal noun you create must be given something to do — ملحوظ, اختيار لا نقص, يقوم على. If you find a verbal noun in your essay with no predicate attached, you have written a phrase where you meant a sentence, and the reader will notice.

Result: غياب الراوي في النصف الثاني ملحوظ. يقوم بناء الشخصية على الحوار. يقوم السرد على كسر الترتيب الزمني. عدم حل الصراع في النهاية اختيار لا نقص. Four ordinary clauses turned into four critical ones: the verbal noun makes an action into an object of analysis, عدم negates a noun phrase, and every nominalisation must be given a predicate or it asserts nothing.

The question is: إلى أي مدى يعتمد أثر هذا العمل على ما لا يقوله أكثر مما يعتمد على ما يقوله؟ Write the opening paragraph in about sixty-five words, then audit it against all three grids.

1. 01Convert the question into a claim you can defend

   The question offers a comparison — silence against statement — and إلى أي مدى asks for a degree. So the claim must state a proportion and a location: not that the work is silent, but where and about what. يقوم أثر هذا العمل إلى حد كبير على ما يمتنع عن قوله، غير أن هذا الامتناع ليس عاما بل يتركز في موضعين. يمتنع عن is to refrain from, and الامتناع is its verbal noun, so the claim already names its own subject.

2. 02Say what the two places are, in one clause each

   أولهما ما يتصل بماضي الشخصية، وثانيهما ما يتصل بالنهاية. أولهما … وثانيهما … is the compact dual form of the first of the two … and the second, and it numbers the essay's two evidence blocks in six words. The reader now knows what the next two paragraphs will contain, which is exactly what an opening paragraph is for and is a large part of what the AO4 grid means by developing an argument.

3. 03Add the sentence that makes it critical rather than descriptive

   ولا يعني هذا أن العمل غامض، فالغموض غياب معنى، أما الامتناع فاختيار في تقديمه. Distinguishing two things that look alike — vagueness from deliberate withholding — is one of the most reliably rewarded moves in literary analysis, because it demonstrates that you have thought about the terms of the question rather than accepting them. أما … فـ … carries the distinction, and غياب معنى is a verbal noun in a chain.

4. 04Audit against AO4

   Is there a claim? Yes, and it states a degree rather than a verdict. Is it arguable? Yes — somebody could hold that the work's effect is carried by what it does state. Does it forecast the evidence? Yes, two named locations. Does it evaluate a term? Yes, the vagueness-against-withholding distinction. Four of the AO4 grid's descriptors are engaged in sixty-five words, which is what a planned opening buys you.

5. 05Audit against AO3 range

   Count the structures. يقوم … على, a verb with its preposition. إلى حد كبير, an adverbial phrase. ما يمتنع عن قوله, a relative clause with an omitted antecedent. غير أن with an accusative subject. لا … بل, correction after a negative. أولهما وثانيهما, a dual pronoun construction. أما … فـ, topic-fronting. Two verbal nouns. Seven or eight distinct structures in one paragraph, none of them ornamental.

6. 06Audit against AO3 accuracy, then move on

   Check the three sweeps on this paragraph only: verbs — يقوم, يتصل, يعني all indicative with no particle demanding a mood change; nouns — غياب معنى is a chain with no article on غياب, and ماضي الشخصية likewise; agreement — موضعين is a dual accusative after في, correctly ين. Clean. Then stop auditing and write the next paragraph, because sixty-five minutes does not allow this level of scrutiny on all five.

Result: يقوم أثر هذا العمل إلى حد كبير على ما يمتنع عن قوله، غير أن هذا الامتناع ليس عاما بل يتركز في موضعين: أولهما ما يتصل بماضي الشخصية، وثانيهما ما يتصل بالنهاية. ولا يعني هذا أن العمل غامض، فالغموض غياب معنى، أما الامتناع فاختيار في تقديمه