Arabic grammar questions in Thanaweya Amma usually ask for the role of a word (إعراب) or the reason for its ending. Students who memorise rules separately struggle; a fixed routine works better: find the sentence type, find the word's role, then its case and sign.
The three steps
- 1Sentence type: nominal (starts with a noun) or verbal (starts with a verb)? Is there a governing word such as كان or إنّ?
- 2Role: subject, predicate, object, ḥāl, and so on.
- 3Case and sign: nominative, accusative or genitive, and whether the sign is the original one or a substitute.
Worked examples
- كان الجوُّ جميلًا: الجوُّ is the subject of kāna (nominative), جميلًا its predicate (accusative). Kāna makes its predicate accusative.
- إنّ العلمَ نورٌ: العلمَ is the subject of inna (accusative), نورٌ its predicate (nominative). Inna works the opposite way to kāna.
- جاء الطالبُ مسرعًا: مسرعًا is a ḥāl (accusative), describing the state of the student when he came.
- مررتُ بمساجدَ كثيرةٍ: مساجدَ is genitive after the preposition, but takes a fatḥa instead of a kasra because it is a diptote (a plural on the مفاعل pattern).
Before naming a word's ending, find what governs it. The governing word (verb, preposition, kāna, inna) decides the case.
How EXAMEV helps
The EXAMEV Grade 12 Arabic Grammar and Morphology bank (Egypt) has 470 questions across all thirteen units, from parts of speech and إعراب to styles, derivatives and punctuation, with explanations. The examples here are EXAMEV practice, not official exam questions.