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OCR Latin GCSE Official Thread 2016

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That really made me laugh. The exam was also by OCR but it was really easy as it was just the entry level. I just had to learn some vocab and grammar it was probably at the level I was at in Latin in year 8 or 9.

Eheu, the pain I had to go through not doing Latin for Year 9 and 1/2 of year 10...

That was hard.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 321

outgoingpopcorn

Original post by TeenPolyglot

Ehue, the pain I had to go through not doing Latin for Year 9 and 1/2 of year 10...

That was hard.

How did you manage to get the spec done??

Reply 322

TeenPolyglot

Original post by niv1234

How did you manage to get the spec done??

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 323

outgoingpopcorn

Original post by TeenPolyglot

I did an intensive course for GCSE, after the English department found out I'd learnt Latin at the school I'd attended prior. This intensive course basically involved:
-2 hours after school on Monday and Wednesday EACH [alongside dance on Tuesdays, Chemistry on Thursdays and Geography revision on Fridays]
-Learning both Pliny and Nisus and Euryalus at the same time
-Being the only student, shared between two teachers
-Having to attend school early on the exam days to recite the verse and prose passages to my teachers, and early to do grammar with them
-Having absolutely NO knowledge of how to write 8 marker and 10 markers, so relying on consistent practice
-Homework every Monday and Wednesday night, which would either be a past exam paper or grammar practice...
-Having to attend Classics lessons once a week with the sixth formers to get the historical knowledge that the English department couldn't teach me

Yeah...it was a lot of fun though!

Even alongside 11 other subjects...

Wow that is some serious dedication. My friends I was talking about- the one who has 29 exams its because she chose to do Latin after school hours as well as her other subjects because her timetable clashed. I felt bad for her but you are just on another level.

Reply 324

TeenPolyglot

Original post by niv1234

Yeah...our school doesn't actually offer Latin, and a lot of my exams ran alongside the exams by just sixth formers; when there was an AS Classics...the jealousy they all had of this Year 11 doing Latin!

When one of them said, somewhat rhetorically, "how the hell is anyone doing Latin?", I turned around and replied to them "I don't know. How have I been able to remember around 100 lines of Verse, 3 different stories of Prose, and then been able to have strong opinions about characters and their portrayal within these stories, and write 10 marks about it, with reference to the hyperbaton, chiasmus and asyndetic and polysyndetic ways of the Latin authors? I honestly don't know."

Literally, her reply?

"What's Prose?"

But the look on her face was priceless!

Reply 325

outgoingpopcorn

Original post by TeenPolyglot

But when we speak about Latin we just seem so clever to people who don't do Latin.

Reply 326

TeenPolyglot

Original post by niv1234

But when we speak about Latin we just seem so clever to people who don't do Latin.

Scienta potentia est, amice mi, et cum verba Latini dicimus, omnis alter, qui non Latinium sciunt, tum sumus callidior quam illi.

[Worth a try erat.]

Reply 327

outgoingpopcorn

Original post by TeenPolyglot

Scienta potentia est, amice mi, et cum verba Latini dicimus, omnis alter, qui non Latinium sciunt, tum sumus callidior quam illi.

[Worth a try erat.]

I think I get the gist of what you said, you are really good at Latin especially considering you haven't been doing it very long. :wink:

Reply 328

TeenPolyglot

Original post by niv1234

I think I get the gist of what you said, you are really good at Latin especially considering you haven't been doing it very long. :wink:

Well I started it in Year 6 until Year 8, dropped it then started again in Year 10.5 :tongue:

So 4 and a half years :colondollar:

Annually, however, I have extravagant command regarding Latin, in quantifiable measures as signified in a slightly omnicorporeal manner.

[And that is a sentence made up primarily of Latin derivations].

Reply 329

outgoingpopcorn

Original post by TeenPolyglot

Well I started it in Year 6 until Year 8, dropped it then started again in Year 10.5 :tongue:

So 4 and a half years :colondollar:

Yes I guessed that about the sentence, I love derivatives they are so interesting and make me somehow sound so clever when I bring them up, something thats rather unusual for me. I started Latin at the beginning of year 8 and have been doing it ever since. Its shocking that you did Latin in primary school although some of my friends who went to my school for primary school also did it.

Reply 330

TeenPolyglot

Original post by niv1234

Well, in actual fact, I was in preparatory school when I started Latin.
If I summed Year 6 Latin up in one word- Minimus.

But any form of "Latin"- even the word- immediately makes you sound more intelligent than your counterparts.

And only a Latin scholar would use the word counterparts in every day conversation.

Innit.

Reply 331

Pepsi Cola :)

Original post by niv1234

I have a question, is everybody happy or sad that GCSE Latin is over? I can't decide...

Happy, 100% (actually maybe 90% because I did surprisingly enjoy Latin lessons with my crew 😂😌)! I just pray to god that I get an A*... That would be so nice 😌 Especially as Ofqual said recently that it was the hardest GCSE 😬 (I should probably question my life choices 😂)

Reply 332

outgoingpopcorn

Original post by TeenPolyglot

Thats what they did as well apparently it was something about a mouse. The school that I go to goes from age 3-18 but I joined in year 7 so I didn't get to do Latin in primary school. I probably would have enjoyed it as well.

Reply 333

outgoingpopcorn

Original post by Pepsi Cola :)

Yes!Me too I love Latin lessons they are my absolute favourite, the exams not so much though. I wanted an a* in Latin but now I am not so sure if I will actually get that. Yes I heard that as well, I read somewhere, I think it was the BBC website but I'm not sure that its harder to get an E in Latin than a C in any other subject and here I was thinking that Latin was the easiest subject I did. :wink:

Reply 334

Pepsi Cola :)

Original post by niv1234

But when we speak about Latin we just seem so clever to people who don't do Latin.

Sorry to intrude on your conversation but I think that's a bit big-headed (I don't mean to cause you any offence!)! For example, I have absolutely no clue what the heck my friends are talking about when they mention the Genesis stories in the Bible or whatever that they do in RS. It's just content that they/we have to learn to secure the grades we want, and to me this does not show that people are 'so clever'. That, on the other hand, is where results day comes in :wink:

@TeenPolyglot you too m8: By mentioning Latin 'you sound more intelligent than your counterparts.' Yet another example of my stalker traits 😂 They are probably never ending... 😏😂

I got really into that lol 😂😂

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 335

Pepsi Cola :)

Original post by niv1234

Noooo honestly from the posts that you have previously written on this thread it really does sound like you will get that A* :wink:

Have hope! #Believe 😂 I know 😳 I think they were talking about giving Latin students compensation though to show that we have taken a harder exam or something? I dunno though... Hopefully!

Reply 336

TeenPolyglot

Original post by niv1234

Yes. That was the first ever time I learnt Latin, and from "minimus sum", I was hooked.
Then, that teacher ended up in jail, and the French teacher taught Latin for a while.
Then a new- absolutely fantastic- teacher took over and in Year 8, we were being taught the perfect passive participle with relation to gerundives.
Basically...we did "Greasus" as our school show. It was "Grease" in Latin and set in Rome. There were 6 of us.
He was my most inspiring teacher.

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Reply 337

TeenPolyglot

Original post by Pepsi Cola :)

Noooo honestly from the posts that you have previously written on this thread it really does sound like you will get that A* :wink:

Have hope! #Believe 😂 I know 😳 I think they were talking about giving Latin students compensation though to show that we have taken a harder exam or something? I dunno though... Hopefully!

I think the main track of thought is that Latin is offered to the elite students, so is obviously much harder than all the other subjects- apart from Classical Greek and Biblical Hebrew of course- but I can't see how they'd give us compensation...
But either way Latin is one of those things that is a "dead" language- notice the "____"" but impresses employers, so it's a win-win. Plus it's interesting.
Quod Latinium.

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Reply 338

TeenPolyglot

Original post by Pepsi Cola :)

In all honesty, I think all of us have a good chance of getting A and A*.

Unfortunately I don't have a "crew", nor do I have a "legion". I just have the solitary me, myself, I. (Notice the asyndeton!). But I have also enjoyed Latin- if only for the excitement of finding out how much you've stalked me that day 😉😂

And I also read somewhere that Latin was said to be 1 or 2 grades harder than every other subject- it's been proven to be the only subject that has increased non-subjectively in difficulty since O-Levels.

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Reply 339

Martins1

Original post by niv1234

I have a question, is everybody happy or sad that GCSE Latin is over? I can't decide...

Happy and relieved that its over and all went really well, and not sad because Latin A level here i come! I love doing these exams, especially the latin language ones because its fun to read the translated stories in the forty minutes you have to check (the exam is so short for the amount of time you have)!

Original post by niv1234

Thats what I put too, I thought it was after the prayer right?

Yes

Original post by TeenPolyglot

I put daughter of Latona, but I don't think you'd get marked for saying something about her being the daughter of Leto; depends on how strict the examiners are being with the marking of variations of names...

Well, Daughter of Latona or Leto is correct, but somoeone said they put that he was praying to Latona - which is incorrect.

Original post by TeenPolyglot

If I'm honest, Classical Greek does NOT look nice at all anyway!

Then again...my amazing previous Classics teacher- Mr Warwick-Smith- managed to teach us the complete Greek alphabet and some pretty complex Greek grammar in one lesson!

Classical Greek is really fun - If i could i would have done it as an A level, but we simply do not have enough choices.

Original post by TeenPolyglot

"Greek certainly isn't easy"...from the beautiful Google Translate.So it probably says "Greek dogs eat you" or something...

Yeah, that wasn't right at all!I was taught Classical Greek (full course) in the same lesson time as I was given for Latin. In the end, because we were only given two years to learn the full course, we didn't do any Latin for about the final 10 weeks leading up to the exam as we were so focused on getting Greek done - we did not finish the Herodotus text until about a week before that exam. My Latin was a bit rusty after not studying it for ten weeks, but seems like it isn't too bad.