Changes in Arab society: the family and the media (المحور الأول)

You have a single fact: in many Arab countries young women now enter university in larger numbers than a generation ago. Build it into a paragraph that explains rather than asserts, and that could be lifted into a Paper 1 Section C answer or a Paper 3 Section B evaluation.

1. 01State the fact, and put the country in

   ارتفع عدد الطالبات في الجامعات في كثير من الدول العربية خلال الجيل الأخير. Notice three decisions. ارتفع is a Form VIII verb from the root ر-ف-ع and is the natural verb for a rise; it is masculine singular because its subject is عدد, a masculine noun, not الطالبات. في كثير من takes a genitive after من. خلال الجيل الأخير — during the last generation — is a time expression that commits you to a period without committing you to a number you cannot source. If you know the country, name it here and drop في كثير من الدول العربية altogether.

2. 02Refuse the lazy explanation before offering a better one

   ولا يكفي أن نفسر ذلك بتغير المواقف وحده. لا يكفي أن plus a subjunctive verb is a compact way of rejecting an explanation; نفسر is in the subjunctive after أن and its final ن is dropped in the dual and plural forms, though not in this first-person plural. بتغير المواقف uses the preposition ب to mark the means of explanation, and وحده — alone, by itself — is the word that does the actual work. Refusing an easy answer obliges you to supply a fuller one, which is what structures the rest of the paragraph.

3. 03Give two causes and rank them

   فالعامل الاقتصادي أقوى من العامل الثقافي في تفسير هذا التحول، لأن دخل الأسرة صار يعتمد على أكثر من معيل واحد. أقوى من is the comparative, formed on the pattern أفعل and followed by من for the thing compared. لأن is a subordinating conjunction from Appendix 2's list and, like إن, puts the following noun in the accusative. صار يعتمد على is a sister of كان followed by an imperfect verb, an idiomatic way of saying came to depend on. Ranking two causes rather than listing them is what an argument looks like.

4. 04Attribute the disagreement

   ويرى بعض الباحثين أن التعليم سبب هذا التحول، بينما يرى آخرون أنه نتيجة له. Two things are happening. أن after يرى introduces a nominal clause and puts its subject in the accusative: أن التعليمَ. And the second half reverses the arrow — others see education as the result rather than the cause — which is a real scholarly disagreement about the direction of causation and is worth having ready in Arabic. بينما is the cleanest connective for a contrast between two positions.

5. 05Close on the limit of your own claim

   غير أن الصورة تختلف من دولة إلى أخرى، ومن المدينة إلى الريف داخل الدولة الواحدة. غير أن — however, yet — is a more formal alternative to لكن and takes an accusative subject. من … إلى … repeated twice sets up two axes of variation, national and internal. Ending on the limits of a generalisation is not hedging; in the AO4 grid it is exactly the evaluation the top band asks for, and it protects you from the commonest content error in this theme.

Result: ارتفع عدد الطالبات في الجامعات في كثير من الدول العربية خلال الجيل الأخير. ولا يكفي أن نفسر ذلك بتغير المواقف وحده. فالعامل الاقتصادي أقوى من العامل الثقافي في تفسير هذا التحول، لأن دخل الأسرة صار يعتمد على أكثر من معيل واحد. ويرى بعض الباحثين أن التعليم سبب هذا التحول، بينما يرى آخرون أنه نتيجة له. غير أن الصورة تختلف من دولة إلى أخرى، ومن المدينة إلى الريف داخل الدولة الواحدة

Put into correct Arabic: the responsibility of the children of the family towards the care of the elderly. Then explain every ending you chose.

1. 01Identify how many terms the chain has

   English pushes the whole idea through of and towards; Arabic will use one construct chain plus one preposition. The chain is مسؤولية أبناء الأسرة — the responsibility of the children of the family — three terms deep, and تجاه رعاية كبار السن hangs off it as a prepositional phrase containing a second, two-term chain. Counting the terms before writing is the habit that prevents the commonest error, which is putting the article on the wrong noun.

2. 02Strip the article and the tanwin from every non-final term

   مسؤولية takes no article and no tanwin because it is the first term. أبناء likewise takes no article, because although it is the second term of the first link it is simultaneously the first term of the next: in a chain of three, only the last noun may be definite. So it is مسؤولية أبناء الأسرة and never المسؤولية أبناء الأسرة or مسؤولية الأبناء الأسرة. The whole chain is definite because الأسرة is definite; definiteness passes leftwards up the chain in Arabic even though the article appears only once.

3. 03Put every non-first term in the genitive

   أبناء is genitive because it follows مسؤولية, and الأسرة is genitive because it follows أبناء. Unvocalised writing does not show this, which is exactly why students forget it — but it becomes visible the moment a sound masculine plural or a dual enters the chain, since those mark case with letters rather than vowels. والدا الطفل, the child's two parents, is nominative; والدي الطفل is accusative or genitive; and the ن of the dual disappears in both, because a dual or sound masculine plural loses its ن when it heads a construct.

4. 04Attach the prepositional phrase, and build the second chain inside it

   تجاه is a preposition meaning towards and takes the genitive: تجاه رعاية. رعاية كبار السن is itself a chain — the care of the elders of age — where كبار is genitive after رعاية and السن is genitive after كبار. كبار السن is the standard phrase for the elderly and is worth memorising whole. The full phrase is مسؤولية أبناء الأسرة تجاه رعاية كبار السن

5. 05Check what an adjective would do to it

   An adjective cannot sit inside a chain; it waits until the chain has ended, and then agreement alone tells the reader which noun it belongs to. Take the shorter chain بيت العائلة, the family's house. بيت العائلة الكبير means the family's big house, because الكبير is masculine singular and agrees with بيت. بيت العائلة الكبيرة means the big family's house, because الكبيرة is feminine singular and agrees with العائلة. Same word order, different meaning, and the only carrier of the difference is the agreement. That is why agreement in Arabic is not decoration: in a construct chain it is the syntax.

Result: مسؤولية أبناء الأسرة تجاه رعاية كبار السن. The first term carries neither article nor tanwin; every following term is genitive; only the final noun of each chain shows the article, and its definiteness spreads leftwards; the dual and the sound masculine plural drop their ن in the construct; and an adjective waits for the chain to finish, then agrees with whichever noun it belongs to.

Translate into Arabic. Attitudes to marriage have changed in many Arab countries over the last thirty years. Young people now marry at an older age than their parents did, and the reasons usually given are economic rather than cultural. Divorce is still discussed with some embarrassment, but it is no longer hidden. Researchers disagree about how far these changes reach beyond the big cities.

1. 01Attitudes to marriage have changed in many Arab countries over the last thirty years

   تغيرت المواقف من الزواج في كثير من الدول العربية خلال العقود الثلاثة الماضية. تغيرت is a Form V verb and is feminine singular because المواقف is a non-human plural — the single most frequently broken agreement rule in the whole language. Attitudes to is المواقف من, with من and not إلى; the preposition a noun takes is part of the word and must be learned with it. كثير من takes a genitive plural. Thirty years is rendered as العقود الثلاثة الماضية, the last three decades, which avoids a numeral-agreement trap and reads more naturally in Arabic than ثلاثين سنة.

2. 02Young people now marry at an older age than their parents did

   فالشباب اليوم يتزوجون في سن أكبر من سن آبائهم. The ف at the front links this sentence to the previous one as an explanation, which is what Arabic prose does instead of starting sentences cold. الشباب is a collective and takes a plural verb here because a human plural follows; يتزوجون is Form V, imperfect. أكبر من is the comparative on the pattern أفعل, invariable for gender and number, with من for the thing compared. Repeating سن after من — سن أكبر من سن آبائهم — is what Arabic does where English says than their parents did; the elliptical English cannot be copied.

3. 03and the reasons usually given are economic rather than cultural

   والأسباب التي تذكر عادة اقتصادية أكثر منها ثقافية. Given is a passive, and Arabic prefers the internal passive: تذكر, from ذكر. التي is the feminine singular relative pronoun, correct here because أسباب is a non-human plural. The relative clause needs a definite antecedent, which الأسباب supplies; with an indefinite antecedent the relative pronoun would be omitted entirely, a rule Appendix 2 names explicitly. عادة is an adverbial accusative. Economic rather than cultural becomes اقتصادية أكثر منها ثقافية — more economic than cultural — because Arabic has no comfortable equivalent of rather than in this position.

4. 04Divorce is still discussed with some embarrassment, but it is no longer hidden

   وما زال الحديث عن الطلاق يثير شيئا من الحرج، لكنه لم يعد مخفيا. Two sisters of كان in one sentence, which is why this sentence is worth memorising. ما زال takes an imperfect verb here — ما زال … يثير — meaning the situation persists. لم يعد takes the jussive of عاد after لم, and its predicate مخفيا is accusative, the alif visible in writing. Rather than translating discussed literally, الحديث عن الطلاق يثير شيئا من الحرج says talk about divorce still causes some embarrassment, which is more idiomatic and loses nothing.

5. 05Researchers disagree about how far these changes reach beyond the big cities

   ويختلف الباحثون حول مدى وصول هذه التغيرات إلى ما وراء المدن الكبرى. Disagree about is اختلف حول, Form VIII with its preposition. How far becomes مدى plus a verbal noun — مدى وصول, the extent of the reaching — because Arabic turns English subordinate clauses into verbal nouns far more readily than English does, and doing so is exactly the range the AO3 grid rewards. هذه التغيرات: the demonstrative precedes and agrees, and التغيرات being non-human plural takes feminine singular agreement wherever an adjective or verb attaches to it. المدن الكبرى uses the feminine superlative الكبرى, agreeing with the non-human plural المدن.

Result: تغيرت المواقف من الزواج في كثير من الدول العربية خلال العقود الثلاثة الماضية. فالشباب اليوم يتزوجون في سن أكبر من سن آبائهم، والأسباب التي تذكر عادة اقتصادية أكثر منها ثقافية. وما زال الحديث عن الطلاق يثير شيئا من الحرج، لكنه لم يعد مخفيا. ويختلف الباحثون حول مدى وصول هذه التغيرات إلى ما وراء المدن الكبرى

Translate into English. لم يعد الإعلام في العالم العربي مقتصرا على الصحف والتلفزيون الرسمي. فمنذ انتشار القنوات الفضائية ثم الإنترنت، صار المشاهد قادرا على اختيار مصادره بنفسه. ويرى بعض الباحثين أن هذا التحول وسع دائرة النقاش العام، بينما يحذر آخرون من انتشار الشائعات وضعف المصداقية. أما داخل الأسرة، فقد أصبح الخلاف حول وقت الشاشة موضوعا يوميا في بيوت كثيرة. ومهما اختلفت الآراء، فمن الصعب تصور الحياة اليومية اليوم بلا هاتف محمول

1. 01لم يعد الإعلام في العالم العربي مقتصرا على الصحف والتلفزيون الرسمي

   لم plus the jussive is a past negative: did not, has not. لم يعد is the fixed idiom for no longer, and it takes an accusative predicate — مقتصرا, restricted — whose alif is the visible sign of the case. اقتصر على is Form VIII with its preposition, to be confined to. الرسمي agrees with التلفزيون alone, so the English is state television and not state newspapers and television; reading the agreement is the whole of the decision here. Media in the Arab world is no longer confined to newspapers and state television.

2. 02فمنذ انتشار القنوات الفضائية ثم الإنترنت، صار المشاهد قادرا على اختيار مصادره بنفسه

   The ف is a connective, not a word: render it as for, since or simply by starting a new sentence. منذ takes a genitive and, before a verbal noun, means since. انتشار is the verbal noun of انتشر, and English will usually prefer a noun here too: since the spread of. صار is another sister of كان with an accusative predicate, قادرا على, able to. اختيار is a verbal noun in the genitive after على, and مصادره carries its possessive suffix. بنفسه is the emphatic reflexive, himself. Since the spread of satellite channels and then the internet, the viewer has become able to choose his own sources.

3. 03ويرى بعض الباحثين أن هذا التحول وسع دائرة النقاش العام

   رأى with أن means to hold or to be of the view, not to see. بعض الباحثين is an idafa, some of the researchers, and takes a masculine plural agreement in the following pronoun if one appears. أن introduces a nominal clause and puts its subject in the accusative, invisible here because هذا التحول is definite and unvocalised. وسع is Form II, to widen, causative of وسع. دائرة النقاش العام is a chain with the adjective at the end agreeing with النقاش. Some researchers hold that this shift widened the circle of public debate.

4. 04بينما يحذر آخرون من انتشار الشائعات وضعف المصداقية

   بينما is while in the contrastive sense and is the standard way of setting two positions against each other. حذر من is to warn of or against, and it governs the two verbal nouns that follow: انتشار, spread, and ضعف, weakness. Both are in the genitive after من, and both head their own idafa. English needs two nouns here as well, because a clause would be clumsy. While others warn of the spread of rumours and of weakened credibility.

5. 05أما داخل الأسرة، فقد أصبح الخلاف حول وقت الشاشة موضوعا يوميا في بيوت كثيرة

   أما … فـ … is a topic-fronting device: it lifts something to the front for contrast and then resumes with ف. English usually renders it as as for, or by simple word order. قد before a perfect verb marks completion and often justifies a present perfect in English. أصبح, another sister of كان, takes the accusative predicate موضوعا يوميا, a daily subject, with يوميا agreeing in case and indefiniteness. بيوت كثيرة is an indefinite noun with an indefinite adjective. As for inside the family, disagreement about screen time has become a daily topic in many homes.

6. 06ومهما اختلفت الآراء، فمن الصعب تصور الحياة اليومية اليوم بلا هاتف محمول

   مهما is a conditional word meaning however much or whatever, and it takes a perfect verb with a present or future sense — اختلفت, however much opinions may differ. اختلفت is feminine singular because آراء is a non-human plural. The main clause is introduced by ف, as conditional main clauses regularly are. من الصعب plus a verbal noun is the standard impersonal it is difficult to. تصور is the verbal noun of تصور, to imagine. بلا is without. However much opinions differ, it is hard to imagine daily life today without a mobile phone.

Result: Media in the Arab world is no longer confined to newspapers and state television. Since the spread of satellite channels and then the internet, the viewer has become able to choose his own sources. Some researchers hold that this shift widened the circle of public debate, while others warn of the spread of rumours and of weakened credibility. As for inside the family, disagreement about screen time has become a daily topic in many homes. However much opinions differ, it is hard to imagine daily life today without a mobile phone.

A short Arabic text reports that many families now argue about screen time, that parents say they cannot supervise what their children watch, and that some researchers link the change to the arrival of the smartphone rather than to television. The question is: لماذا يجد الآباء صعوبة في متابعة ما يشاهده أبناؤهم؟

1. 01Answer one, lifted

   يشكو كثير من الآباء من صعوبة السيطرة على ما يشاهده الأبناء. This is a sentence from the text with the question's own words folded back into it. It shows that the candidate found the right paragraph. It does not show that they understood why, because the reason is not in it — the sentence states the difficulty rather than explaining it. An examiner reading this can award comprehension of location but not comprehension of cause, and this is precisely how a candidate who understood the text ends up in the middle bands.

2. 02Answer two, too short

   بسبب الهاتف المحمول. Four words, and the right idea is in them. But the answer never says what it is about the mobile phone that creates the difficulty, so the examiner is asked to supply the reasoning themselves. Note also that بسبب takes a genitive noun and cannot introduce a clause; if you want a clause you need لأن. Short answers are not penalised for being short, but they are penalised for leaving the causal step out.

3. 03Answer three, recast and complete

   يجد الآباء صعوبة في المتابعة لأن المشاهدة انتقلت من التلفزيون في غرفة الجلوس إلى الهاتف الشخصي، فأصبحت فردية وغير مرئية للأسرة. Nothing here is copied. لأن introduces a full clause, as the question word لماذا requires. انتقل من … إلى … carries the actual mechanism — viewing moved from a shared screen to a private one — and the ف of consequence chains the result to the cause. أصبحت, a sister of كان, takes the accusative predicate فردية وغير مرئية, individual and invisible. غير plus a genitive is the standard way of negating an adjective, an item Appendix 2 names explicitly.

4. 04Check the three things that cost accuracy marks

   First, agreement: المشاهدة is feminine singular, so انتقلت and أصبحت are feminine singular. Second, the idafa: غرفة الجلوس has no article on غرفة, and الهاتف الشخصي is a noun plus adjective rather than a chain, so both words carry the article. Third, verb endings: there is no لم, أن or لن here, so the perfects stand as they are — but if you had written لكي تصبح, the verb would need the subjunctive تصبحَ, whose fatha is invisible unvocalised and whose plural form would visibly drop its ن.

5. 05Notice what the good answer also did for the rest of the paper

   The recast answer used a mechanism sentence — انتقلت من … إلى … , فأصبحت … — that is directly reusable in Paper 1 Section C and in Paper 3 Section B, because both of those reward explaining a change rather than reporting one. Building three or four such sentence frames, each carrying a shape of argument rather than a topic, is more efficient than building topic vocabulary lists: the vocabulary changes with the text, and the frames do not.

Result: يجد الآباء صعوبة في المتابعة لأن المشاهدة انتقلت من التلفزيون في غرفة الجلوس إلى الهاتف الشخصي، فأصبحت فردية وغير مرئية للأسرة. The lifted answer proves you found the paragraph; the four-word answer proves you understood the topic; only the recast answer proves you understood the reason, and only the recast answer is written in Arabic that the AO3 accuracy grid can reward.