Paper 3: listening, reading and writing (برگه‌ی سوم)

You are about to hear a recording that begins: «امروز درباره‌ی تغییر عادت‌های خرید در شهرهای بزرگ گفت‌وگو می‌کنیم. مهمان ما پژوهشگری است که چند سال روی این موضوع کار کرده است.» Plan what you do in the first thirty seconds and what you write down.

1. 01Before anything: read every question first

   You have individual control of the recording, so the sequence is entirely yours, and the best first move is to spend two or three minutes reading all four questions before pressing play. Questions tell you what to listen for; without them you will listen to everything with equal attention, which means you will retain nothing in particular. Note the question types as you read: a multiple-choice question needs you to hold four options in mind, whereas a summary question needs you to track a structure.

2. 02The opening lines are a map, not content

   امروز درباره‌ی تغییر عادت‌های خرید در شهرهای بزرگ گفت‌وگو می‌کنیم tells you the sub-theme — changing shopping habits in large cities, which sits in the society themes — and مهمان ما پژوهشگری است tells you the speaker's status: a researcher, so claims will be framed as findings rather than as personal experience. Write two words in your notes: خرید and پژوهشگر. Do not attempt to transcribe. The opening of a recording is almost never where the answers are; it is where the frame is.

3. 03Take notes in Persian, in nouns, with a mark for the speaker

   Notes in English cost you a translation later, under time pressure, in the exam's most time-poor section. Notes in Persian nouns cost you nothing. Use a column per speaker if there is more than one, and write only the load-bearing words: عادت, خرید, اینترنت, قیمت, راحتی. Add a small mark for any hedge you hear — شاید, ممکن است, به نظر می‌رسد — because hedges are exactly what an open-response question will test and exactly what you will otherwise forget.

4. 04Then use the replay deliberately, not anxiously

   The second pass is not a repeat of the first. Play only the stretches that answer specific questions, and stop as soon as you have what you need. Reserve the third pass, if you have time, for one thing only: checking numbers, names and quantifiers, which are the details most often heard slightly wrong. A candidate who plays the whole recording three times has spent forty-five minutes and answered the questions once; a candidate who plays it once and then twice in fragments has answered them three times.

Result: Read all four questions first; treat the opening as a map and write two Persian nouns; take notes in Persian nouns with a mark for every hedge; then replay only the stretches that answer specific questions, reserving a final short pass for numbers, names and quantifiers.

You hear: «بیشتر فروشگاه‌های محلی هنوز باز مانده‌اند، هرچند شمار مشتریان آن‌ها کمتر شده است.» Question 1 offers: (الف) همه‌ی فروشگاه‌های محلی بسته شده‌اند; (ب) بیشتر فروشگاه‌های محلی هنوز باز هستند; (ج) شمار مشتریان بیشتر شده است. Question 2 asks: چه چیزی درباره‌ی مشتریان گفته شد؟

1. 01Question 1: identify what separates the options before deciding

   Option الف turns on the quantifier همه and the verb بسته شده‌اند; option ب turns on بیشتر and باز; option ج reverses the direction of the change in customer numbers. So three different elements are being tested by three options: a quantifier, a polarity and a direction. The heard sentence gives بیشتر, باز مانده‌اند and کمتر شده است. Option ب matches on both of its elements; option الف fails on both; option ج inverts the direction. The answer is ب.

2. 02Why option ج is the dangerous one

   Option ج contains the words شمار مشتریان, which were in the recording, and it is the option a candidate listening for familiar words will drift towards. What it changes is one word — بیشتر for کمتر — and that is precisely the design. This is the standard shape of a distractor in this paper: correct vocabulary, reversed content. The defence is the habit from the previous section: identify the distinguishing element in advance and listen for that.

3. 03Question 2: retrieve, re-encode and write a full clause

   The fact is that customer numbers have fallen. Do not write کمتر شده است alone: it is a predicate with no subject and it may not earn the mark. Write: شمار مشتریان فروشگاه‌های محلی کاهش یافته است. Two moves here. کاهش یافتن replaces کمتر شدن, which demonstrates your own Persian rather than the speaker's. And the subject is stated in full, so the answer stands on its own without the question propping it up.

4. 04Notice the concessive, because a follow-up question will want it

   The sentence's real content is the relation between its two halves: هرچند introduces a concession, so the speaker is saying that the shops remain open despite fewer customers. If a later question asks چه تناقضی در سخن گوینده هست, what tension there is in the speaker's statement, the answer is already in your notes if you marked the connective. Mark every هرچند, اما, در حالی که and با این حال while listening; connectives are where the argument lives and they are cheap to note.

Result: Question 1: option ب. Question 2: شمار مشتریان فروشگاه‌های محلی کاهش یافته است، هرچند این فروشگاه‌ها هنوز باز مانده‌اند.

You have heard a three-minute discussion in which a town official describes a new recycling scheme and a resident responds. Your notes read: مسئول: طرح تازه، سه محله، رایگان، از ماه گذشته | ساکن: خوب اما ظرف کم، آموزش نشده، شاید بعدها. The question asks: در حدود پنجاه کلمه، آنچه را در این گفت‌وگو گفته شد خلاصه کنید.

1. 01Decide the structure before you write a word

   The notes show two speakers and a relation between them: the official describes, the resident qualifies. That is a contrast, so the summary should be built on a contrastive connective rather than presented as two separate paragraphs. Deciding this takes five seconds and saves you from the commonest summary failure, which is a list of facts in the order you happened to note them.

2. 02Write the first speaker in one sentence, with the details subordinated

   مسئول شهرداری از طرح تازه‌ای برای بازیافت خبر می‌دهد که از ماه گذشته در سه محله و به‌طور رایگان اجرا می‌شود. Four details — new, since last month, three districts, free — are all packed into one relative clause rather than four short sentences. That is what a summary is: compression with the relations preserved. خبر دادن از, to report or announce, takes از. اجرا شدن is the passive of اجرا کردن and is right because no agent is named.

3. 03Write the second speaker with the concession marked

   یکی از ساکنان طرح را می‌پسندد، اما می‌گوید که شمار ظرف‌ها کافی نیست و به مردم آموزش داده نشده است. The resident's position has three elements and the first is positive, so the sentence must open with the approval and turn on اما; a summary that reports only the complaints has misrepresented the speaker, which is an AO1 error rather than a stylistic one. آموزش داده نشده است is a negative passive perfect and is exactly the tense the note آموزش نشده implies.

4. 04Close with the unresolved element and stop

   او امیدوار است که این کمبودها بعدها برطرف شود. He hopes that these shortcomings will be remedied later. امیدوار بودن که governs a subjunctive برطرف شود, because a hope is not a fact. The whole summary is now about fifty words, has two speakers clearly separated, has one contrastive hinge, and contains no opinion of your own. Then stop: a summary that continues past its brief loses time from Section B, which is worth the same thirty marks and is far harder.

Result: مسئول شهرداری از طرح تازه‌ای برای بازیافت خبر می‌دهد که از ماه گذشته در سه محله و به‌طور رایگان اجرا می‌شود. یکی از ساکنان طرح را می‌پسندد، اما می‌گوید که شمار ظرف‌ها کافی نیست و به مردم آموزش داده نشده است؛ او امیدوار است که این کمبودها بعدها برطرف شود.

The recording carries a teacher who says that pupils read less than they used to but read differently, on screens. The text carries a librarian who says that borrowing figures have fallen and that this is a real loss. Write 5(c) in Persian, around 220 words, and account for the structure.

1. 01Move one: the shared ground, in two sentences

   هر دو منبع می‌پذیرند که رفتار خواندن در میان نوجوانان تغییر کرده است. هیچ‌یک ادعا نمی‌کند که این تغییر ناگهانی بوده است. Both sources accept that reading behaviour among adolescents has changed; neither claims that the change has been sudden. Opening on agreement is not padding: it is what makes the disagreement locatable, and the grids reward judgements on viewpoints, which requires that the viewpoints be distinguished from each other rather than merely reported.

2. 02Move two: name the divergence and its kind

   اختلاف آنان بر سر خودِ تغییر نیست، بلکه بر سر آن است که چه چیزی شمرده می‌شود: آموزگار به کنش خواندن می‌نگرد و کتابدار به شمار امانت‌ها. بنابراین این دو ادعا می‌توانند هم‌زمان درست باشند. Their disagreement is not about the change itself but about what is being counted. Naming the kind of divergence — here, the unit of measurement — is the single most reliable evaluative move in this question, and it recurs across almost every pairing the examiners can construct.

3. 03Move three: judge, marked as yours, with a reason

   به نظر من سخن آموزگار برای فهم آنچه رخ داده است روشن‌تر است، زیرا آمار امانت تنها یک راه خواندن را می‌سنجد و راه‌های تازه را نمی‌بیند؛ اما نگرانی کتابدار را نمی‌توان کنار گذاشت، چون کتابخانه بیش از یک انبار کتاب است. In my view the teacher's statement is clearer for understanding what has happened, because borrowing figures measure only one way of reading; but the librarian's concern cannot be set aside, because a library is more than a store of books. Note نمی‌توان کنار گذاشت, an impersonal negative, and the two subordinate clauses with زیرا and چون.

4. 04Move four: the evidence that would settle it, and stop

   اگر پژوهشی نشان دهد که همان نوجوانانی که کمتر امانت می‌گیرند، روی صفحه بیشتر می‌خوانند، آن‌گاه دیدگاه آموزگار تأیید می‌شود؛ و اگر چنین نباشد، هشدار کتابدار جدی‌تر خواهد بود. If research showed that the same adolescents who borrow less read more on screens, the teacher's view would be confirmed; and if not, the librarian's warning would be the more serious. Two conditionals, a subjunctive after اگر, a future, and a relative clause — the range requirement met inside the argument rather than bolted onto it. The response is now about 220 words and should end here.

Result: هر دو منبع می‌پذیرند که رفتار خواندن در میان نوجوانان تغییر کرده است، و هیچ‌یک ادعا نمی‌کند که این تغییر ناگهانی بوده است. اختلاف آنان بر سر خودِ تغییر نیست، بلکه بر سر آن است که چه چیزی شمرده می‌شود: آموزگار به کنش خواندن می‌نگرد و کتابدار به شمار امانت‌ها؛ بنابراین این دو ادعا می‌توانند هم‌زمان درست باشند. به نظر من سخن آموزگار برای فهم آنچه رخ داده است روشن‌تر است، زیرا آمار امانت تنها یک راه خواندن را می‌سنجد و راه‌های تازه را نمی‌بیند؛ اما نگرانی کتابدار را نمی‌توان کنار گذاشت، چون کتابخانه بیش از یک انبار کتاب است. اگر پژوهشی نشان دهد که همان نوجوانانی که کمتر امانت می‌گیرند، روی صفحه بیشتر می‌خوانند، آن‌گاه دیدگاه آموزگار تأیید می‌شود؛ و اگر چنین نباشد، هشدار کتابدار جدی‌تر خواهد بود.

In a recording you hear: «شمار دانشجویان این پوهنتون در سال‌های گذشته دو برابر شده است، اما شفاخانه‌ی وابسته به آن هنوز کوچک مانده است.» You do not recognise two of the words. Work out what the sentence says and answer: این جمله درباره‌ی چه چیزی سخن می‌گوید؟

1. 01Use the frame, not the unknown word

   شمار دانشجویان این ... tells you that whatever پوهنتون is, students belong to it. That alone identifies it as an educational institution, and the specific translation is unnecessary for most questions. This is the core decoding skill in a no-dictionary listening paper: an unknown noun surrounded by known relations is usually recoverable to the level of precision the question needs, and stopping to worry about the exact word costs you the rest of the sentence.

2. 02Use the same method on the second unknown

   شفاخانه‌ی وابسته به آن, the one attached to it, tells you it is an institution that can be attached to a university, and وابسته به is a fixed phrase meaning affiliated to. A hospital is the obvious candidate and, in Afghan usage, شفاخانه is indeed the word for hospital. Even without knowing that, an answer describing it as a facility attached to the institution would carry most of the meaning.

3. 03Read the sentence's real structure, which is a contrast

   The sentence is not about a university or a hospital; it is about a mismatch between two rates of growth, marked by اما and by the pairing دو برابر شده است against کوچک مانده است. دو برابر شدن is to double — a comparative expression with no absolute figure in it, which is exactly the kind of formulation this qualification's sources favour. مانده است is a present perfect of ماندن, has remained.

4. 04Write the answer in your own Persian, naming the relation

   این جمله درباره‌ی ناهماهنگی میان رشد شمار دانشجویان و کوچک ماندن مرکز درمانی وابسته به آن سخن می‌گوید. This sentence speaks about the mismatch between the growth in student numbers and the fact that the affiliated medical centre has stayed small. ناهماهنگی, mismatch or lack of coordination, names the relation rather than repeating the two halves — which is what turns a retrieval into an answer. And مرکز درمانی is a safe neutral paraphrase for the word you may not have known.

Result: این جمله درباره‌ی ناهماهنگی میان رشد شمار دانشجویان و کوچک ماندن مرکز درمانی وابسته به آن سخن می‌گوید.