General Hindi, भाग ब: Precis, Expansion and Translation

What the official syllabus says

Main Examination, Paper IV: General Hindi and General English

Unit I - सामान्य हिन्दी

भाग ब - (अंक 30)

• संक्षिप्तीकरण - गद्यावतरण का लगभग एक-तिहाई शब्दों में संक्षिप्तीकरण (गद्यावतरण की शब्द सीमा लगभग 150 शब्द)
• पल्लवन - किसी सूक्ति, काव्य पंक्ति, प्रसिद्ध कथन आदि का भाव विस्तार (शब्द सीमा-लगभग 100 शब्द)
• अनुवाद - दिए हुए अंग्रेजी अनुच्छेद का हिंदी में अनुवाद। (शब्द सीमा-लगभग 50 शब्द)

In English: Part B (30 marks) has three items. Precis (sankshiptikaran): shortening a prose passage of about 150 words to about one-third of its words. Expansion (pallavan): expanding the sense of a maxim, a line of poetry or a famous saying, in about 100 words. Translation (anuvad): translating a given English paragraph into Hindi, word limit about 50 words.

Topics in detail

संक्षिप्तीकरण (precis)

• The task: reducing a prose passage (गद्यावतरण) of about 150 words to about one-third, roughly 50 words
• Reading the passage twice: first for the central idea, then for the supporting points
• Marking the main points and the links between them
• Leaving out examples, illustrations, repetition, quotations and figures of speech
• Writing in one's own words rather than joining sentences from the passage
• Using the third person and indirect speech
• Keeping the author's view: no opinion or comment of one's own
• One connected paragraph that reads well on its own
• Counting the words and staying close to the limit
• Giving a title where the question asks for one
• Common slips: a precis that is too long, leaves out the central idea, or copies the passage

पल्लवन (expansion of an idea)

• The task: the भाव विस्तार (expansion of the sense) of a सूक्ति (maxim), a काव्य पंक्ति (line of poetry) or a प्रसिद्ध कथन (famous saying), in about 100 words
• Grasping both the literal meaning and the deeper sense of the line
• Order of the expansion: what the line means, why it is true, an example from life, history or society, and a closing sentence that returns to the line
• One or two connected paragraphs; no headings and no bullet points
• Staying with the given idea instead of drifting into a general essay
• Kinds of lines that fit the description: couplets of poets such as Kabir, Tulsidas and Rahim, Sanskrit maxims, and sayings of great thinkers
• Pallavan and precis are opposite processes: one enlarges a short text, the other shortens a long one

अनुवाद (translation from English into Hindi)

• The task: translating a given English paragraph into Hindi, word limit about 50 words
• Translating the meaning and tone, not word for word
• Changing English subject-verb-object order into Hindi subject-object-verb order
• Tense, aspect and voice: matching English forms with the right Hindi verb forms; turning awkward passives into active sentences where natural
• English prepositions and articles: rendered by Hindi postpositions, or dropped where Hindi needs none
• Gender and number agreement in the Hindi sentence
• Administrative and technical words: the standard Hindi terms (see the पारिभाषिक शब्दावली list in भाग अ)
• Proper nouns, numbers, dates and abbreviations
• Revising the draft for natural Hindi, correct spelling and punctuation
• Practice material: official notices, news reports and editorials on public affairs

Overlaps

The same skills are tested in English in General English, Part B (a precis of about 100 words and translation from Hindi into English), and expansion of an idea is close to elaboration of a theme in General English, Part C.