Cambridge O Level Second Language Urdu: Paper 2 — Practice Questions

These are original exam-technique questions written for Marlbridge, testing understanding of Paper 2’s format and mark scheme rather than reproducing full sentence-transformation, cloze, writing or translation tasks. Use these alongside official past papers for full-length practice.

Related: Paper 2 Grammar, Writing and Translation study guide and revision notes.

Section A

1. State the total time, total marks, and weighting of Paper 2 within the qualification. [3]

2. Name the four exercises on Paper 2, and state the marks each carries. [4]

3. State which exercises use Urdu-only questions and answers, and which exercise uses an English question. [2]

Section B

4. A candidate transforms a sentence from active to passive voice as instructed in Exercise 1, but in doing so changes the sentence’s original meaning.

(a) Explain why this answer is unlikely to gain the mark. [2] (b) State what Exercise 1 always requires a transformation to preserve. [1]

5. In Exercise 2’s cloze passage, a candidate selects an option that is grammatically correct on its own but does not fit the meaning of the surrounding sentence.

(a) Explain why this option is still likely to be marked wrong. [2] (b) Suggest what the candidate should do differently when approaching each gap. [2]

6. A candidate writes a fluent, grammatically accurate 200-word response for Exercise 3, but ignores the specified audience and format given on the question paper.

(a) Explain why this response is likely to be capped regardless of its language accuracy. [2] (b) Suggest what the candidate should check before starting to write. [1]

7. A candidate translates an English idiom word-for-word into Urdu for Exercise 4, producing a literal but unnatural-sounding sentence.

(a) Explain why this is marked down compared with a natural Urdu equivalent. [2] (b) Suggest a technique for checking whether a translation sounds natural. [1]

8. Explain why Exercises 3 and 4 should receive more revision time, proportionally, than Exercises 1 and 2. [2]

9. A candidate assumes their revision notes for 3247 First Language Urdu’s Paper 2 will help them prepare for 3248 Second Language Urdu’s Paper 2.

(a) Explain why this assumption is mistaken. [2] (b) State what each syllabus’s Paper 2 actually tests. [2]

10. Name three named grammar points a candidate should build into a personal checklist to prepare systematically for Exercise 2. [3]

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Answers

1. 1 hour 30 minutes, 50 marks, worth 50% of the qualification [3].

2. Exercise 1, Sentence transformation, 5 marks; Exercise 2, Multiple-choice cloze passage, 10 marks; Exercise 3, Extended writing, 20 marks; Exercise 4, Translation, 15 marks [4].

3. Exercises 1 to 3 use Urdu-only questions and answers; Exercise 4’s question is presented in English, with the answer given in Urdu [2].

4. (a) This answer is unlikely to gain the mark because the instruction in Exercise 1 is always to preserve the original meaning while changing the required structure, not simply to alter the form of the sentence [2]. (b) The original sentence’s meaning [1].

5. (a) Because the cloze exercise tests grammatical usage in context, not grammar as an abstract, isolated rule; an option that is correct on its own but does not fit the surrounding sentence’s meaning does not satisfy what the exercise is actually testing [2]. (b) The candidate should read a full sentence around each gap before choosing an option, rather than judging each option only on whether it is grammatically valid in isolation [2].

6. (a) Because Exercise 3 specifies a purpose, format and audience on the question paper, and ignoring these caps the achievable mark regardless of how accurate the language itself is, since matching the specified task is part of what is being assessed [2]. (b) The candidate should check the specified purpose, format and intended audience before starting to write, and plan the response around all three [1].

7. (a) Because a literal, word-for-word translation that produces unnatural Urdu is marked down compared with an accurate translation that also reads naturally in the target language; precision alone is not enough if the result does not read as genuine Urdu [2]. (b) Reading the translation aloud as if it were a standalone Urdu sentence, separate from the English original, to check whether it sounds natural [1].

8. Because Exercises 3 and 4 together carry 35 of the paper’s 50 marks, so revision time weighted toward extended writing and translation practice reflects where most of the marks are actually concentrated, rather than splitting effort evenly across all four exercises [2].

9. (a) This assumption is mistaken because 3247 and 3248 are two separate syllabuses with genuinely different Paper 2 content (and different Paper 1s too, which share only the title Reading and Writing) [2]. (b) 3247’s Paper 2 (Texts) tests literary set texts through an unseen passage plus prescribed poetry and prose; 3248’s Paper 2 (Grammar, Writing and Translation) tests applied language skills — grammar in context, extended writing, and translation from English into Urdu [2].

10. Any three of: verb conjugation, subject/verb agreement, comparatives, superlatives, parts of speech, nouns, prepositions, postpositions, articles, context-appropriate vocabulary [3].

A note on exam technique for this topic

Because Exercises 3 and 4 carry 35 of the paper’s 50 marks between them, the most efficient use of revision time is clearing Exercises 1 and 2’s grammar points quickly and confidently, then dedicating sustained, repeated timed practice to extended writing and translation. Build a personal checklist from the syllabus’s own named grammar points for Exercise 2, since every cloze gap is designed to probe one of them specifically. For both Exercise 3 and Exercise 4, the recurring theme across common mistakes is matching the task exactly — the specified purpose, format and audience in Exercise 3, and natural rather than literal Urdu in Exercise 4 — since these requirements cap achievable marks independently of raw language accuracy.