Every one of the 500 O/L Sinhala Paper I questions on Wizder (14 papers, 2012 to 2025) was rated easy, medium or hard by our curators when it was checked against the marking scheme. Put those ratings next to the topic tags and a clear picture comes out: the marks are not lost evenly across the paper.
The overall split
20% of the questions are rated easy, 56% medium and 24% hard. A student who gets every easy and medium question right already has about 76% of Paper I; the hard questions decide whether that becomes an A.
The topics where marks are lost
"Hard" is hard questions out of the topic's total; "Years" is the sittings it was asked in. Ranked by the share of each topic's questions rated hard (topics with at least six questions, so one odd question cannot top the list).
| # | Topic | Hard | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | අක්ෂර වින්‍යාසය | 6/7 | 6/14 |
| 2 | සන්ධි | 8/12 | 12/14 |
| 3 | පද්‍ය රසවින්දනය | 7/12 | 8/14 |
| 4 | නාම ආඛ්‍යාත ගැළපීම | 14/26 | 14/14 |
| 5 | ව්‍යාකරණ ප්‍රවර්ග | 12/23 | 12/14 |
| 6 | ස්වර පිලි | 4/8 | 8/14 |
| 7 | ක්‍රියා පද | 6/14 | 12/14 |
| 8 | උක්ත අනුක්ත නාම පද | 5/13 | 12/14 |
| 9 | ප්‍රත්‍යය | 3/8 | 8/14 |
| 10 | සමාස | 5/15 | 14/14 |
| 11 | සාහිත්‍ය ඉතිහාසය | 8/25 | 12/14 |
| 12 | වචන ගොනු | 2/7 | 7/14 |
Why these are hard
- In spelling and grammar questions all four options look almost identical. The difference is one letter or one ending, so a quick read picks the wrong one.
- Poetry appreciation (පද්‍ය රසවින්දනය) asks what a verse suggests, not what it says. Two options are usually defensible and only one is what the marking scheme wants.
What to do about it
- Do the hard topics after the core, not before. A week on them once the frequent topics are solid (week 5 of the 8-week plan) moves the score more than starting with them.
- Read why the wrong options are wrong. On these topics the distractors are built from the exact mistake students make, so the explanation is where the learning is.
- Mix years. The same hard idea appears in different wording across sittings; recognising it is the skill.
Two from the top of the list, worked
සෑම පදයක ම අක්ෂර වින්‍යාසය නිවැරදි ව යෙදී ඇති පද පේළිය තෝරන්න.
- Aසම්මුඛ, සුකුමාළ, සිතුමිණ, චුම්භක
- Bගුරුමුෂ්ටි, ගොලුවා, චන්ද්‍රග්‍රහණ, තොටුපොල
- Cපරිඥාන, පරිපූර්ණ, යුද්ධායුද, ශික්ෂණ
- Dආරූඪ, මිනුම, ශීතෝෂ්ණ, සහළු
පූර්වරූප සන්ධියට හා පරරූප සන්ධියට අදාළ නිදසුන් පිළිවෙළින් දක්වෙන වරණය තෝරන්න.
- Aගෙත්තම්, ගොක්කොළ
- Bහද්දවස, ගොක්කොළ
- Cගොක්කොළ, ගෙත්තම්
- Dහද්දවස, ගෙත්තම්
How the ratings were made
The ratings are ours, not the Department of Examinations'. Each question was rated once, when it was transcribed and checked against the published marking scheme, on how much a typical student has to know and how close the distractors sit to the answer. Treat them as a guide to where to spend a week, not as a statistic about candidates.
One more, to try yourself
“සේවකයෝ රාජකාරි නිමා කර කාර්යාලයෙන් පිටත් වූහ.” යන වාක්‍යයෙහි ‘කාර්යාලයෙන්’ යන්නෙහි විභක්තිය කුමක් ද?
- Aඅවධි
- Bආධාර
- Cසම්ප්‍රදාන
- Dකර්ම