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Urdu

A-Level Urdu in England is a Pearson Edexcel qualification, specification 9UR0, Issue 1, June 2018, first assessed in May/June 2020. Its full title is Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Urdu (listening, reading and writing), and that parenthesis is the single most important structural fact about the course: there is no speaking paper. Speaking appears in the aims - students should develop speaking skills during the course of study, although there will be no assessment of those skills - and every mark in the qualification is in fact earned by listening, reading, translating and writing. This is a different qualification from the Edexcel languages that do have a speaking paper, and different again from the AQA modern-language A-Levels, so folklore attached to either is unreliable here. There are three externally examined papers, all taken in the same May/June series. Paper 1, Translation into English, reading comprehension and writing (research question) in Urdu, runs for two hours thirty minutes, carries 80 marks and is worth 40 per cent: Section A is an unseen translation from Urdu into English for 20 marks, Section B is reading for 20 marks over four questions, and Section C is the research question for 40 marks, in which the student reads an unseen Urdu text and responds to a statement about their own researched subject in roughly 320 to 370 words of Urdu. Section C alone is a fifth of the whole A-Level. Paper 2, Translation into Urdu and written response to works, runs for two hours forty minutes, carries 110 marks and is worth 30 per cent: Section A is an unseen translation from English into Urdu for 20 marks, and Sections B and C carry two extended essays of 45 marks each, either two on literary texts or one on a literary text and one on a film. Paper 3, Listening, reading and writing in Urdu, runs for two hours fifteen minutes, carries 60 marks and is worth 30 per cent: Section A is listening comprehension for 30 marks, with individual control of the recording, and Section B is a 30-mark question in which the student summarises one heard source and one read source on the same sub-theme and then evaluates the views in both in roughly 220 to 270 words. The content is four themes, each broken into two sub-themes and a research subject, and each of those divided into aspects; the specification prints all of them in Urdu. Theme 1 is the evolution of Pakistani society, carried by a family sub-theme and a work sub-theme, with education as its research subject. Theme 2 is culture and the fine arts in the Urdu-speaking world, carried by folk custom and tradition and by popular culture, with media as its research subject - which is why the specification says this theme covers artistic culture and political culture alike. Theme 3 is migration and multicultural society, carried by the positive aspects of a diverse society and by attitudes and outlooks towards migration, with emigration from Pakistan as its research subject. Theme 4 is the directions of Pakistani politics, carried by the creation of Pakistan in 1947 and by the feudal system, with measures on environmental issues in Pakistan as its research subject. Themes 1, 3 and 4 are set in the context of Pakistan only; Theme 2 alone is set in the wider Urdu-speaking world, meaning Pakistan and areas of India where Urdu is an official language. The independent research is examined inside Paper 1 Section C: the student chooses exactly one of the four research subjects, bases it on exactly one country or area, covers all three of that subject's aspects, must not touch either of the works declared for Paper 2, and sits the examination with no dictionary and no research notes. Alongside the themes sit a prescribed grammar list in Appendix 2 - gender and number, the postposition system, the ergative ne with transitive verbs, the full tense system including the future perfect and the perfect continuous, compound verbs of every class, the subjunctive, causal and double-causal verbs, the enclitic izafat borrowed from Persian, subject-object-verb word order and the modes of honorific address - and two declared works taken from Appendix 1's list of three literary texts and three films. Assessment objectives are weighted 20 per cent AO1, 30 per cent AO2, 30 per cent AO3 and 20 per cent AO4, and every question in Sections B and C of Paper 1, in all of Paper 2 and in all of Paper 3 is set in Urdu and must be answered in Urdu. No dictionary is permitted in any paper.

0/60 Texts12 Chapters~377 min total

Continue reading — Chapter I Table of contents

Pearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 1 — پاکستانی معاشرے کا ارتقا: خاندانPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Paper 1 Section C (research subject and country/area rule)DfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languagesPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 1 — خاندان: خاندانی ساخت میں تبدیلیاںPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 1 — خاندان: خاندان میں عورتوں کا کردار اور مقامPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 1 — خاندان: شادی کے بارے میں بدلتے ہوئے رویے+83 moreStandardAdvanced

Table of contents · 12 ChaptersT·12

Ch. IThe evolution of Pakistani society: family, work, education (پہلا موضوع)5 texts · 0 read

Ch. IIMigration and multicultural society (تیسرا موضوع)5 texts · 0 read

Ch. IIIFolk custom and tradition in the Urdu-speaking world (دوسرا موضوع، لوک رسوم و روایت)5 texts · 0 read

Ch. IVPopular culture, cinema and the media (دوسرا موضوع، مقبول کلچر)5 texts · 0 read

Ch. VThe creation of Pakistan and the evolution of democracy (چوتھا موضوع، قیامِ پاکستان)5 texts · 0 read

Ch. VILand, rural power and the environment research subject (چوتھا موضوع، جاگیرداری نظام)5 texts · 0 read

Ch. VIIGrammar and translation: Paper 1 Section A and Paper 2 Section A5 texts · 0 read

Ch. VIIIPaper 3: listening, reading and writing in Urdu5 texts · 0 read

Ch. IXPaper 1 Section B: reading comprehension in Urdu5 texts · 0 read

Ch. XPaper 2 Section B: the written response to a literary text5 texts · 0 read

Ch. XIPaper 2 Section C: the written response to a prescribed film5 texts · 0 read

Ch. XIIThe independent research and Paper 1 Section C (تحقیق کا موضوع)5 texts · 0 read

Instrument · 01Recommended study order

Instrument · 02Exam structure

Paper 1 - Translation into English, reading comprehension and writing (research question) in Urdu (9UR0/01): Written examination of 2 hours 30 minutes, 80 marks, 40 per cent of the A-Level - the largest single component. Three compulsory sections. Section A, translation into English, 20 marks with a recommended 20 minutes: one unseen Urdu passage rendered into English, its content drawn from any one of the eight sub-themes, marked by a points-based scheme in which one mark is given for each correct individual section of language. Section B, reading, 20 marks with a recommended 45 minutes: four questions, a mixture of multiple-choice and open-response, on texts that are authentic or adapted from authentic sources and that mix factual with abstract content - contemporary, historical, literary, fiction and non-fiction, written for different purposes and audiences, drawn across all the sub-themes. Section C, writing (the research question), 40 marks with a recommended 1 hour 25 minutes: the student reads one unseen Urdu text on their chosen research subject and responds to a statement about it, using information from the text together with their own research findings, in a recommended 320 to 370 words. Section C is marked by three levels-based grids applied to the one answer: knowledge and understanding of society and culture via research (AO4) out of 20, understand and respond to written language in writing (AO2) out of 10, and accuracy and range of language (AO3) out of 10. Because a student may research one country or area only, the unseen text for a Theme 2 research subject is written to be general in nature and equally relevant to Pakistan and to any area of India where Urdu is an official language, so the country-specific substance can only come from the student's own research. All questions in Sections B and C are set in Urdu and must be answered in Urdu. No dictionary, and no documentation relating to the research, may be taken into the examination room. Its assessment-objective share is 25 per cent AO2, 10 per cent AO4 and 5 per cent AO3, so it carries five sixths of the qualification's reading marks and half of its cultural-knowledge marks.
Paper 2 - Translation into Urdu and written response to works (9UR0/02): Written examination of 2 hours 40 minutes, 110 marks, 30 per cent of the A-Level. Section A, translation into Urdu, 20 marks with a recommended 30 minutes: one unseen English passage rendered into Urdu, its content drawn from any one of the eight sub-themes. Sections B and C, written response to works, 90 marks across a recommended 2 hours 10 minutes: two extended essays of 45 marks each. Section B holds the literary texts and Section C the films. A student may answer on two literary texts, in which case they answer twice in Section B and do not enter Section C; or on one literary text and one film, in which case they answer once in each. Answering on two films is not permitted. There is a choice of two questions on each work. Each essay is marked out of 45 by three separate levels-based grids applied to it individually: critical and analytical response (AO4) out of 20, range of grammatical structures and vocabulary (AO3) out of 15, and accuracy of language (AO3) out of 10. Pearson advises approximately 320 to 370 words per essay in order to give a detailed analysis, but the whole essay is marked regardless of length. Responses are expected to address features such as the form and technique of presentation, key themes, concepts and issues, characterisation, the structure of the plot, and the social and cultural setting, and to justify every point of view with evidence from the work. No credit is given for an essay on a literary text whose evidence comes from a film version adapted from that text. All questions are set in Urdu and must be answered in Urdu. No dictionary, and no documentation relating to the works, may be taken into the examination room.
Paper 3 - Listening, reading and writing in Urdu (9UR0/03): Written examination of 2 hours 15 minutes, 60 marks, 30 per cent of the A-Level. This is the paper that stands where a speaking test would stand in other Edexcel languages, and it is the only place where listening is assessed. Two compulsory sections. Section A, listening comprehension, 30 marks with a recommended 45 minutes: four questions, multiple-choice and open-response, including questions testing summary skills, on a recording featuring Urdu-language speakers speaking at a speed appropriate for the level, over different registers and text types, including material from online media, with content drawn across all the sub-themes. Recordings reach centres as a CD or as MP3 files through Pearson's secure download service, and each student has individual control of the playback: they may stop, revisit and replay sections of the recording as they wish. Section B, the listening, reading and writing question, 30 marks with a recommended 1 hour 30 minutes: the student listens to a recording and reads a written text, both drawn from the same sub-theme, summarises the different points of view in each source in questions 5(a) and 5(b), which are points-based, and then in question 5(c) evaluates the viewpoints in both sources and draws conclusions in a recommended 220 to 270 words. Question 5(c) is marked by three levels-based grids - understand and respond to spoken language (AO1) out of 6, understand and respond to written language (AO2) out of 6, and accuracy and range of language (AO3) out of 10. All questions in both sections are set in Urdu and must be answered in Urdu. No dictionary. This paper assesses synopticity and it carries the whole of the qualification's AO1 weighting.
The four themes, the research subjects, the works, the grammar list and the rules that catch people out: The content is four themes, each broken into two sub-themes and one research subject, and each of those divided into three aspects. Themes 1, 3 and 4 are set in Pakistan only; Theme 2 is set in the Urdu-speaking world, meaning Pakistan and areas of India where Urdu is an official language. Theme 1, the evolution of Pakistani society, holds a family sub-theme (changes in family structure; the role and status of women in the family; changing attitudes to marriage) and a work sub-theme (changes in occupations; women in the workplace; workers' rights), with the research subject education (equal opportunities for girls and boys; better opportunities for the poor; parallel systems of education). Theme 2, culture and the fine arts in the Urdu-speaking world, holds folk custom and tradition (folk music; the growing influence of the West; national and religious festivals) and popular culture (key movements and genres relating to cinema; changes in cinema and what may be shown; the effects of television culture), with the research subject media (freedom of expression; the effects of print media on politics; growing political awareness as a result of social media) - which is why the specification states that this theme covers artistic culture past and present and political culture past and present alike. Theme 3, migration and multicultural society, holds the positive aspects of a diverse and varied society (community cohesion in Pakistan; the effects of a diverse society on culture; the role of migrants in economic development) and attitudes and outlooks towards migration (community activities that bring society together; public attitudes towards migration; the migrants' own point of view), with the research subject emigration from Pakistan (the political and economic reasons for migration; the emigration of the highly educated; the positive effects of returnees on Pakistani society). Theme 4, the directions of Pakistani politics, holds the creation of Pakistan in 1947 (its political effects on Pakistan; the social effects of the partition of India and Pakistan on the people of Pakistan; the evolution of democracy in Pakistan) and the feudal system (its political effects in rural Pakistani society; its social effects in rural areas; differences and similarities in the politics of urban and rural areas), with the research subject measures relating to environmental issues in Pakistan (government action against climate change and pollution; government measures against natural disasters; foreign aid organisations in Pakistan). Independent research means research carried out without the help or instruction of others, including teachers: teachers may teach research skills, comment on the availability of resources and direct students to the assessment objectives, but must not teach the content of the research subjects or provide sources. The student must gather evidence independently from at least two authentic sources in Urdu, must base the research on one country or area only, must cover all three aspects, and must not relate to or refer to either of the works studied for Paper 2. The specification instructs teachers twice to consider cultural sensitivities when guiding a student's choice of research subject. The two works are taken from Appendix 1, which lists three literary texts - the novel Aangan by Khadija Mastoor, the essays Patras ke Mazameen by Ahmad Shah Bukhari, from which the specification names five, and the play Bisaat by Basir Kazmi - and three feature films: Bin Roye, credited in the specification to Momina Duraid; Baghban, directed by Ravi Chopra; and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, directed by Kabir Khan. Prescribed lists are set by the board and revised between issues, so every candidate must confirm the list current for their own series. Appendix 2 prescribes the grammar: noun gender and number with animate and inanimate plurals, adjective agreement and apocopation, the postposition system simple and complex including the enclitic izafat borrowed from Persian, the ergative ne with transitive verbs only, the full tense system through the future perfect, the conditional perfect and the perfect continuous, compound verbs of every class - desiderative, permissive, inceptive, intensive, potential, completive, frequentative - causal and double-causal verbs, the subjunctive after commands, conditions, conjunctions of time and purpose, the passive and impersonal constructions, subject-adverbial-object-verb word order with negation and interrogatives immediately before the verb, cleft sentences, comparative constructions, indirect speech, discourse markers and the honorific modes of address. Assessment objectives: AO1, understand and respond in writing to spoken language, 20 per cent; AO2, understand and respond in writing to written language, 30 per cent; AO3, manipulate the language accurately in written forms using a range of lexis and structure, 30 per cent; AO4, show knowledge and understanding of, and respond critically and analytically to, different aspects of the culture and society of the countries where the language is spoken, 20 per cent. The qualification is linear, taken entirely at the end of the course, and no dictionary is permitted anywhere.

Instrument · 03Official sources