GCSE Latin Revision- Tips?

Hello...

I'm due to sit my Latin GCSE in June, and am already panicking over how to revise..? There just seems to be so much stuff to learn; vocab, tonnes of grammar, set-texts and poetry, roman life etc. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by it all. :eek3:

Does anyone with any experience of Latin GCSE have any revision advice or know how to condense it all a bit? Would appreciate (+rep) any help... :smile:

Btw, I'm doing OCR, and the Cambridge Latin Course thing. With no coursework (so it all rests on four exams in the summer.. :s-smilie:

).

Cheers!

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Anyone? :P

Don't panic! That's the worst thing. What I did was (and still do) is learn a set number of words a day. Like ten/fifteen words a day. Same with set texts, if you learn about fifteen lines a day or something, whatever you feel you can manage, then it'll all break down nicely. With regards to grammar, maybe lots of posters up in the loo (I have a friend who does this) with the noun tables and verb tables n all that. You can even condense rules for the various rules, e.g. for "ut" clauses and all that.

Hope that helped!

Reply 3

HighSkies

1. For the vocab if you don't have a vocab list test every week anyway then I would advise you to test yourself on two pages a week. Learn the two pages and write out the latin words on some paper but don't just use the first principle part. i.e. if learning the word porto learn as in the vocab booklet:
porto, portare, portavi , portatus.

Instead of always writing down porto (the present active) choose portatus (the present passive participle) or something instead becasue a lot of verbs have unrecognisable forms when not the first principle part (the present active) which means you have to learn them, such as:

cogo, cogare, cogi, coactus sum.

pretty different looking huh?

2. For noun endings you should write them out constantly if you have trouble remembering them. There are only 5 declensions with the same basic pattern so test yourself every week till you have them off by heart.
Same goes for verb endings. Make sure you know which verb ending belongs to which tense though! There are also some which you don't need to know for GCSE so don't learn unecessarily.

3. For grammar points if you have the cambridge larin grammar it covers grammar points well so I'd advise looking there.

4. For set texts do not just learn the entire translation off by heart, read it alongside the latin so you can see where the words are all coming from. Write out a list of all the literary devices you might be asked on like anaphoras and tricolons etc.

5. If you need any help language wise, feel free to message me. :3 I can't help with roman life because I did the higher language paper instead of it, but yeah. I'll try! and good luck!

Reply 4

MathsHamster

If you haven't already, try the Cambridge Latin Course website (www.cambridgescp.com). It has loads of really good grammar and vocab activities and practice translations at all levels, and also activities to do with the literature in the anthology section. What I did with the literature was sit down for two hours at a time and literally learn the whole thing (english and latin) off by heart, making sure I knew exactly what each word meant and writing notes underneath. I left it a bit late, not something I'd recommend, but it worked if you're really stuck.

Reply 5

Rhododaktulos

For the set texts I can't stress enough the importance of using the Latin text in conjunction with the English translation - I know it's weird at first having to try and remember the translation by reading the actual Latin - but whatever you do do not just memorise an English translation and then have no idea which part of the Latin it refers to.

This technique will actually help your grammar as well - as you go through the Latin text and compare it to the English translation you'll start to pick up how the syntax works almost unconsciously. :smile:

I can guarantee you that people who can go through the translation in their heads just by reading the Latin text have an easier time of it in the exam and tend to get better grades - trust me, it's worth putting the effort into this now, it really does pay off in the end :yep:

Reply 6

saliarific

get john taylor's book "Essential GCSE Latin". great book. designed especially for situations like yours

Reply 7

Angelicus

Wow...thanks for starting this thread and getting a whole load of tips.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one out there panicking - I've hardly learnt any of the vocab so need to learn that...I do have translations for all the set texts and things but I don't know them off by heart....

I suppose its just going to be a bit of a log till the end but I suppose I'd rather do that than get an F or something...Also lucky you being able to do Roman history - our teachers just putting us all in to do the extra higher grammar paper....aaargghhh

Hopefully we can commiserate and (hopefully) celebrate together over the next couple of months rikku

Reply 8

tasha patel

i am so NOT looking forward to nxt yr...latin seems like hell.....

pft we have no c/w ethier! its absolutely CRAPPP

Reply 9

carolinesayer

I'm so glad I'm not the only one worrying! I know about half the vocab and some of the poems I know the notes and meaning but that's about it! I'm going to put a LOAD of work in over the holidays... thanks for the tips :smile:

and THANKYOU for posting this!

Reply 10

littlehobbit

Hey, I did this exact course 2 years ago. I was given SO MANY A4 sheets of all the vocab, and it may sounds funny, but my mum and I decided we would learn them all together. So, everyday from about now. she would test me on 10 words, then again the next day the ones I got wrong plus a new 10 - with us both learning and testing each other - it made it less of a chore.

We did Virgil and some Pliny for our verse section - and I honestly tried to learn the translations in english, because then in the exam when it asks you to translate a section, you can. also - look at past papers to see if there's anyway you can guess which few may come up and really study those ones - although make sure you study them all!

Roman Life - for us this was only a 45 minute paper and was about 20% of the exam, plus the whole thing is in english, so don't stress too much over this section! Try and write out the main facts on each topic, learn them, maybe write a few essay's and stuff - hopefully you'll find this the easiest paper!

But yea - all I can really say is start learning vocab now - you'll be sick of it come june, but it's so worth it! Good Luck!

Reply 11

Abzigail

Hey, I did this course at GCSE. In all honesty I didnt do that much revision, I spent most of my revision learning all the vocab (major effort but pays off) and doing practice translations. This worked alright for me as i got an A xx

Reply 12

amphitrite

carolinesayer

and THANKYOU for posting this!

Hi,
I'm doing this course at GCSE. It's the first exam Ive taken for years! I am spending hours revising. I go over it hundreds of times, but it doesn't always stick! I think the advice about learning all the vocab is really good. I try to go through most of the vocan list each night before I go to sleep. I am getting so scared already though!

Reply 13

carolinesayer

Yeah, I'm doing more revision now but I'm still relying on the week we have holiday before the exam! I'm trying with the vocab by pretty much repeating each word out loud 10 times or so and then looking over them every day - I made cool flash cards :biggrin:

!

The set texts I think I may have to cram in that week.. I get the general gist but that's all... oh noes!

Same for background.. getting scary close now! :redface:

Good luck everyone :smile:

Reply 14

Sam-I-Am91

rikku_

Does anyone with any experience of Latin GCSE have any revision advice or know how to condense it all a bit? Would appreciate (+rep) any help... :smile:

Btw, I'm doing OCR, and the Cambridge Latin Course thing. With no coursework (so it all rests on four exams in the summer.. :s-smilie:

).

Cheers!

I'm due to do the same exam. Here's a definitive vocab online tester which helps miles :biggrin:

It's just like the little vocab tester you get on the CLC wesite, but it covers all the vocab you'll need for the exam :biggrin:

http://www.cambridgescp.com/ws2_tlc/vocab/ocrgcse/OCR_GCSE_Higher_vocab.html

Hope this helps!!

Sam

Reply 15

Abirr.aa

Your tips seem so useful 😍 but I'm doing GCSE Latin and I find it really hard to do the translations.Like I would study the grammar points and revise them but I wouldn't be able to recognise them in a text .Any tips???☺️

Reply 16

ScoutLeopard

This has been really helpful! I know that this thread is really old and that the exam spec has changed, but I feel like it is still helpful.

Also, flashcards are helpful as well as Latin literature tests. My teacher has been testing us throughout the year on our set texts so we know how to do the paper.

Poor everyone on this thread, I have to do 3 papers as opposed to 4. (Latin literature, Latin prose and Latin language).

Reply 17

ligmaAss

guys i'm doing my latin gcse (eduqas) pretty soon and i know none of the language or literature content. I think i can learn the grammar but idk how to learn the vocab. SOMEONE PLS GIVE ME ADVICE

Reply 18

ScoutLeopard

Original post by ligmaAss

guys i'm doing my latin gcse (eduqas) pretty soon and i know none of the language or literature content. I think i can learn the grammar but idk how to learn the vocab. SOMEONE PLS GIVE ME ADVICE

For Lit, put your set texts on flashcards and learn each text sentence by sentence. Once you've gone through all, lay them all in front of you and use a random number generator to pick what sentence number to do. Test yourself on the sentence and if you get it right, tick it off so you remember not to test it again. Continue with that until you have completed your set text and repeat with the other set texts.

For Language, use Quizlet. Either type up the words yourself or find the correct set online. I've done one for OCR, but I'm not sure how similar the words are to Eduqas. Also, go over the words bit by bit and constantly review.

I hope this helps! I am doing my GCSE right now too and this is what I am doing.

How do you do revise grammar?

Reply 19

ligmaAss

Grammar isn’t so bad - there is an abundance of similarities between all the endings so I find these relatively easy to remember. I literally look at them and attempt to write them out from memory. Easiest way imo.