[xx_standbyme_xx]

Hi,

Anyone else here doing The Life and Times of Cicero? I'm just wondering how other people are revising, all we've been told is to make sure we read the Correspondance and learn names!

What names and dates are you learning? Do you know which people may come up in the short 1 or 2 mark questions at the beginning - are you just learning the names of all the people mentioned in Cicero's letters? That's a lot of people!! And with dates, obviously we need to know specific dates corresponding to Cicero, but what about dates to do with other major characters (for instance, birth and important dates for Pompey, Crassus, Caesar... you get the picture)?

Thanks!!

[BayBee323]

yes - is it on the 17th?

ive NO idea how to revise; i'm so confused and i've no idea what i'm meant to be doing for this exam. do i need to revise the history then link it to letters?

[PatroclusFTW]

(Original post by xx_standbyme_xx)
Hi,

Anyone else here doing The Life and Times of Cicero? I'm just wondering how other people are revising, all we've been told is to make sure we read the Correspondance and learn names!

What names and dates are you learning? Do you know which people may come up in the short 1 or 2 mark questions at the beginning - are you just learning the names of all the people mentioned in Cicero's letters? That's a lot of people!! And with dates, obviously we need to know specific dates corresponding to Cicero, but what about dates to do with other major characters (for instance, birth and important dates for Pompey, Crassus, Caesar... you get the picture)?

Thanks!!

In terms of names and dates I've basically made a massive timeline of Cicero's life with a column of what is happening to him personally, and a column for what is happening in politics at that time. And I would say I know that quite well now. Also doing notes on each letter- what happened before, what he's talking about during, and what happened immediately after. But for specific dates for other characters- I reckon just know dates of major achievements of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar (e.g.. military achievements, consulships, all the Triumvirate formation and reformation dates, and the civil war). And i wouldn't say you need to know ALL the people mentioned - but all his family and Tiro yes, and Curio and Caelius, maybe Varro. Hope that kinda helped, I can't believe it's come round so soon x

[deadlypepperpot]

I'm trying to learn from mark schemes; it's a lot to take in though

Can't believe how quickly this year has gone! Good luck everyone

(Original post by xx_standbyme_xx)
Hi,

Anyone else here doing The Life and Times of Cicero? I'm just wondering how other people are revising, all we've been told is to make sure we read the Correspondance and learn names!

What names and dates are you learning? Do you know which people may come up in the short 1 or 2 mark questions at the beginning - are you just learning the names of all the people mentioned in Cicero's letters? That's a lot of people!! And with dates, obviously we need to know specific dates corresponding to Cicero, but what about dates to do with other major characters (for instance, birth and important dates for Pompey, Crassus, Caesar... you get the picture)?

Thanks!!

(Original post by BayBee323)
yes - is it on the 17th? No, Friday the 18th I think? (And hope!)

ive NO idea how to revise; i'm so confused and i've no idea what i'm meant to be doing for this exam. do i need to revise the history then link it to letters?

(Original post by PatroclusFTW)
In terms of names and dates I've basically made a massive timeline of Cicero's life with a column of what is happening to him personally, and a column for what is happening in politics at that time. And I would say I know that quite well now. Also doing notes on each letter- what happened before, what he's talking about during, and what happened immediately after. But for specific dates for other characters- I reckon just know dates of major achievements of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar (e.g.. military achievements, consulships, all the Triumvirate formation and reformation dates, and the civil war). And i wouldn't say you need to know ALL the people mentioned - but all his family and Tiro yes, and Curio and Caelius, maybe Varro. Hope that kinda helped, I can't believe it's come round so soon x

[PatroclusFTW]

(Original post by deadlypepperpot)
I'm trying to learn from mark schemes; it's a lot to take in though

Can't believe how quickly this year has gone! Good luck everyone

I know right, the mark schemes are amazing revision material! I wish I had thought of it earlier! It's crazy how similar the questions are every year, I was really hoping to have a Verres section, but looking at how many times it has come up, it seems unlikely

Good luck to you also!

[deadlypepperpot]

(Original post by PatroclusFTW)
I know right, the mark schemes are amazing revision material! I wish I had thought of it earlier! It's crazy how similar the questions are every year, I was really hoping to have a Verres section, but looking at how many times it has come up, it seems unlikely

Good luck to you also!

I know! But knowing the luck of our year they'll throw in a curveball or something :P Plus Verres came up in January so looking very unlikely; it'll be the first ever June exam without it on :

[cwalton]

my teacher told me we don't need to learn or even know much about the letters. is that wrong?

[Adamwiznott]

(Original post by deadlypepperpot)
I know! But knowing the luck of our year they'll throw in a curveball or something :P Plus Verres came up in January so looking very unlikely; it'll be the first ever June exam without it on :

(Original post by PatroclusFTW)
I know right, the mark schemes are amazing revision material! I wish I had thought of it earlier! It's crazy how similar the questions are every year, I was really hoping to have a Verres section, but looking at how many times it has come up, it seems unlikely

Good luck to you also!

(Original post by cwalton)
my teacher told me we don't need to learn or even know much about the letters. is that wrong?

Hey I'm new to this thread, but was wondering if you know roughly how many points we have to make for 20 mark and 30 mark questions respectively?

[PatroclusFTW]

(Original post by cwalton)
my teacher told me we don't need to learn or even know much about the letters. is that wrong?

Hmm, I think it's sort of just different opinions of how to learn it- for example, we focused on the letters quite a lot because they make up about 80% of the source material- all questions are based on a letter or the Verrine Speech (maybe even a Philippic), and if you know the letters well, you can rattle off the 1, 2 or 3 markers really quickly, as well as the ten markers some times (E.g. In what way is this letter from Caesar threatening to Cicero). But tbh, I wouldn't worry about it, because if you know all the dates and the history well, and the circumstances, you can't really go wrong because they'll always give you the date of the letter. But knowing that the letter occurred is probs important- e.g. knowing that Cicero sent a letter to Pompey in 62BC criticising his lack of praise, or that knowing that he refused to sent Caelius panthers for his election to aedile.

(Original post by Adamwiznott)
Hey I'm new to this thread, but was wondering if you know roughly how many points we have to make for 20 mark and 30 mark questions respectively?

Obv I'm no expert, but maybe for the 20marker about 10 points well explained in about 5 paragraphs? And for the thirty mark maybe about 15 points in about 7 paragraphs? That seems to be the amount the mark schemes suggest, don't take my words for gold, but I thought it seems a reasonable plan! Just jam as much as you can in the time I reckon, you get marks for the breadth of the info you provide, and aim to cover all of the suggested bullet points.

[olivia.clinton56]

(Original post by cwalton)
my teacher told me we don't need to learn or even know much about the letters. is that wrong?

You really do need to know the letters as the first question is a section of a letter and you usually have 5 marks asking questions specifically on that particular letter. It's only 5 marks, but you never know, they could be the difference between grade boundaries!!

[cwalton]

(Original post by olivia.clinton56)
You really do need to know the letters as the first question is a section of a letter and you usually have 5 marks asking questions specifically on that particular letter. It's only 5 marks, but you never know, they could be the difference between grade boundaries!!

looks like a bad call by my teacher then, how many letters are there? i expect its a bit late to start trying to learn them

[PatroclusFTW]

(Original post by cwalton)
looks like a bad call by my teacher then, how many letters are there? i expect its a bit late to start trying to learn them

Only a good 23 or so.... 2 every hour till the exam? :P

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about it that much, the only marks you could potentially miss are the first 5, as long as you can do a good few essays it'll be fine

[cwalton]

(Original post by PatroclusFTW)
Only a good 23 or so.... 2 every hour till the exam? :P

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about it that much, the only marks you could potentially miss are the first 5, as long as you can do a good few essays it'll be fine

fingers crossed, although on some 20 & 30 markers there are letters as one of the bullet points, will you lose marks if you don't refer to it?

[PatroclusFTW]

(Original post by cwalton)
fingers crossed, although on some 20 & 30 markers there are letters as one of the bullet points, will you lose marks if you don't refer to it?

I don't think you would necessarily LOSE marks- as if you managed to provide a wide array of other accurate relevant information to the question (like if you answered every other bullet point really well), you would still score pretty highly.

It depends what kind of question it is really- but remember if one section has a really letter focused question on it, the other one probably won't, so just pick that one if you're worried! :P

[cwalton]

(Original post by PatroclusFTW)
I don't think you would necessarily LOSE marks- as if you managed to provide a wide array of other accurate relevant information to the question (like if you answered every other bullet point really well), you would still score pretty highly.

It depends what kind of question it is really- but remember if one section has a really letter focused question on it, the other one probably won't, so just pick that one if you're worried! :P

ok thanks a lot.

Does anybody has a list of all the past 20 & 30 mark questions by any chance?

[olivia.clinton56]

My classics teacher gave us some rough predictions: in the 30 mark essay, it MIGHT be on either Verres or Cicero's attitudes to Cataline/Antony and he gave us a whole sheet on the letters that havn't been used yet. Don't take my word for it, but it may be a good idea to brush up on them!

[Adamwiznott]

(Original post by PatroclusFTW)

Obv I'm no expert, but maybe for the 20marker about 10 points well explained in about 5 paragraphs? And for the thirty mark maybe about 15 points in about 7 paragraphs? That seems to be the amount the mark schemes suggest, don't take my words for gold, but I thought it seems a reasonable plan! Just jam as much as you can in the time I reckon, you get marks for the breadth of the info you provide, and aim to cover all of the suggested bullet points.

Thanks for the reply.

I've been going through the past papers and noticed that there is always a choice between question from events during his early part of the career(80-55) and ones nearer to the end(54-43) in both section 1 and 2. Do you reckon they'd keep the same format? because (regrettably) I'm not so confident about the event right after Caesar's assassination

[La_Mignonne]

Our teacher predicted us relationship with Caesar for one of the essays

I really really hope that Verres comes up but I've got a horrible feeling it won't

[PatroclusFTW]

(Original post by Adamwiznott)
Thanks for the reply.

I've been going through the past papers and noticed that there is always a choice between question from events during his early part of the career(80-55) and ones nearer to the end(54-43) in both section 1 and 2. Do you reckon they'd keep the same format? because (regrettably) I'm not so confident about the event right after Caesar's assassination

Yeah I reckon it'll be the same format, can't think they would ever do two really late sections of his life- there might be one 45- 43BC and a 59-50 BC one, but I really doubt they would do any periods closer together than that for each section.

I know what you mean, I avoid after the assassination questions like the plague, I just haven't had time to learn all of it as well as his earlier life!

Sod's Law will probably mean it will be, but hopefully everyone would be in the same boat if it did happen! :P

[La_Mignonne]

I think everyone avoids kinda post assassination...anyone know what the grade boudaries are like? Like are they high?

And anyone doing the Iliad next week?