May 2010

SEC Examiners’ Report – May 2010
SEC ARABIC
MAY 2010 SESSION
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
The examination consisted of Paper 1, the core paper, and Paper IIA and IIB. This year there were 16 candidates who sat for the examination; 9 registered for Paper IIA and 7 for Paper IIB.
Grade 1 2 3 4
Table 1
5 6 7 U Abs Total
I & IIA
I & IIB
TOTAL
% of
TOTAL
1
-
1
6.3
0
-
0
0
0
-
0
0
1
1
2
12.5
2
1
3
18.8
-
0
0
0
-
0
0
0
5
3
8
50
-
2
2
12.5
9
7
16
100
Paper 1
Listening Comprehension
Two candidates managed to obtain full marks while four candidates failed to obtain half of the marks allotted to this section. Five candidates were absent. As usual answers were not void of plenty of spelling and grammatical mistakes
Dictation
Only five candidates succeeded in obtaining the pass mark allotted to this section. Spelling and grammatical mistakes were plenty, proving that most probably students are not being involved in a sufficient dictation exercises. Five candidates were absent.
Oral - Conversation - The Reading Comprehension
Four out of eleven candidates who sat for this part failed to obtain the average mark. Arabic speaking candidates showed difficulty in refraining from switching to dialectal Arabic while some
Maltese speaking candidates were at times completely tongue tied.
Some of them could not distinguish between sad ص and sin س , dad ض and dal د , ta ت and tha ث etc.; and they could not pronounce well certain letters such as the ghain ع and غ
ghain .
Paper IIA
Translation from Arabic into English
Four candidates obtained marks above the average. There were some candidates who failed to grasp the gist of the translation passage.
Translation from English into Arabic
More than half of the candidates managed to convey the gist of the translation passage and one of them obtained a very high mark. Some phrases and sentences were omitted, and many spelling and grammatical mistakes were committed.
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SEC Examiners’ Report – May 2010
Essay
Only four candidates succeeded in obtaining more than half of the allotted marks and one of them deserved a very good mark. Spelling and grammatical mistakes were plenty and some had very poor handwriting. With the exception of a couple of essays the rest lacked ideas and originality. Some candidates who could not express themselves in Arabic included several Maltese phrases or sentences in the Arabic alphabet.
Grammar
The examiners are sorry to say that the poor performance of some candidates in this section indicates that they have not yet grasped the basic grammatical rules. One candidate obtained full marks while five candidates obtained less than half the marks allotted to this section. Eight candidates tackled this section.
Culture
Only two candidates managed to obtain a good mark while the rest gained very poor marks. It’s quite evident that most of the candidates were not well prepared for this section.
Paper IIB
Translation from Arabic into English
Only two candidates out of five who tackled this section managed to obtain a mark above the average.
Three candidates failed to do so owing to the fact that they did not fully understand the Arabic text and committed a lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes.
Essay
Again the same two candidates succeeded in obtaining more than half of the allotted marks. Some candidates wrote very short essays lacking originality and ideas. Candidates need to work harder to provide a readable handwriting and to avoid spelling and grammatical mistakes.
Grammar
Three candidates managed to obtain good marks. Again it is clear that some candidates have not yet mastered the most basic grammatical rules.
Culture
Extremely poor performance by all the candidates who tackled this section; in fact no single candidate succeeded in obtaining a satisfactory mark. It is evident that candidates need to be more prepared for the two recently introduced sections in the SEC examination, namely the grammar and culture sections.
Chairperson
Board of Examiners
May 2010
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