[710]

OCR Latin AS Level. How did you think you did, and then how did you do??? Language was fine; Literature was so time-intensive. Scared; mega!!!! I want an A. Just wanted to hear people's views...

[LeSacMagique]

(Original post by 710)
OCR Latin AS Level. How did you think you did, and then how did you do??? Language was fine; Literature was so time-intensive. Scared; mega!!!! I want an A. Just wanted to hear people's views...

I thought the language was fine but the literature was a bit ropey; ended up getting 100 and 91 respectively. I was fortunate in that my AS literature exam included questions on the openings of both set texts, which of course I knew like the back of my hand.

[tsveta]

Here is my experience.
I did Latin GCSE, got a high A - a couple of marks off an A*.

Thought I'd sail through AS as I was really good at the literature side of things, although my language did pull me down a bit.

Never handed in a piece of homework for language, avoided practicing it like the plague. But I did learn my vocab ridiculously well.
Learnt my literature pieces BACKWARDS. Got full marks in every test on literature leading up to the exam.

In the exam.
Language paper. Didn't think it was too hard, not too easy. Wasn't too worried about it.
Literature paper. Came out of Cicero literally over the moon. It was the first chapter and I had nailed it. Was ecstatic.

Results day.
Language paper - U
Literature paper - high B
Overall grade - D

Me.
Devastated and shocked.

Turned out I was actually unlucky with getting chapter 1 for literature as it hoiked up the grade boundaries because obviously across the country, everyone seemed to know chapter 1 really well.
Language paper result basically reflected my effort throughout the year. If you think you can get away with it - you can't.


Aftermath.
Wanting to study Russian at university, my grade really hindered me as most of the universities I was originally thinking of applying to (Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, UCL, Bristol) required a minimum of grade B in a language at AS. Couldn't apply to half the unis I wanted to and the two that I did, rejected me. Got places at Leeds and Nottingham though, which are obvs good, but weren't my first choices.
Couldn't retake the Literature paper because they changed the syllabus. My teacher thought it best not to bother retaking the language as I couldn't retake until summer so that would mean ridiculous amounts of hard work throughout the year and would most probably hinder my revision for my other subjects.

What's next.
Gap year; travel to Russia; do a language course; hope the unis I reapply to will appreciate this instead of a language at AS.


If you've put the work in, you should be alright.

[TheThinWhiteDuke]

(Original post by 710)
OCR Latin AS Level. How did you think you did, and then how did you do??? Language was fine; Literature was so time-intensive. Scared; mega!!!! I want an A. Just wanted to hear people's views...

I was fairly confident when sitting the AS papers but this was probably down to the fact that I was retaking Year 12. I knew the vocabulary list off by heart and was extremely familiar with the texts. Overall I got an A, 89 for language and 84 for literature. This didn't surprise me though as I was expecting high marks but knew that I was going to lose some marks because I rushed the end of the literature paper (so many things to write down but not enough time) and mucked up the second translation in the language paper which confused me for a long time due to its weird structure.

Judging by what you've written about struggling for time on the literature but finding the language paper alright there's every chance that you'll get an A.