For the Virgil, if you can't do scansion, try and learn. It is the easiest 4 marks in the whole paper. Also, concentrate on similes, and description of Charon (compare the two times that he is met) and other minor Characters (the Sibyl and Palinurus).

As for Cicero, essay wise, humour is about the only many theme running through them. For example, "how does Cicero entertain the jury whilst making Verres appear guilty". Apart from that, weaknesses in Cicero's arguments.

Hope this is somewhat of a help.

Reply 7

katbro20

And with regards to Bassmonkey's post, once the basics are mastered in Latin, it is not that hard (also helps that there are not that many words). And also, lain does help somewhat with English and other languages. But directly compared to English, Latin in quite a bit harder that English.

Reply 8

reappears

Bassmonkey

I wish I could of, they don't do it anymore at our school. What's like compared to, say, english?

latin's a gem. it's basically two latin texts which come up to around 330 lines of latin, and god knows like 500 or so lines of english altogether, for the interputation that is. i got taught about cicero's speech against verres, and aeneas' journey in the underworld written by virgil. in the exam you have two sections, one page of questions on the virgil text and another on cicero text, which vary in marks given, a bit like english close reading. but at the end of it you get two 10 mark essays, one on each text. this is in paper 1, and it's a 2hr paper.

for translation, you learn loads of verb and noun endings and tenses and all these endings which mean different things and it's actually something i find a bit confusing. in the exam you get a page to translate, in which you need to know all the endings and tenses otherwise you cant expect to get that good a mark. it's a 45min paper, oh and you get a wordlist, but not all words are in there.

english i find easier, as in english there's only two essays that'll come up. i only revised one drama text and learnt two poems, and that was fine. revising for the text you only need to know basically the main parts and the main themes, and the *important quotes* which can be up to say, 20. in latin you need to know as i said 330 lines of latin off by heart basically(that's what i am trying to do this weekend anyway :shock:

) because the questions are really unpredictable and if you don't know one 'minor' section well, you could drop aloot marks if they concentrate on it in the exam. well, that's my opinion anyway. i hope this makes sense. :smile:

p.s ive realised ive made it sound some what sucky, but it's a good course.

Reply 9

reappears

katbro20

I am doing latin, however, the higher latin that I am doing is on Wednesday. Are you sure that you got the date right.

oh right yeah, found out yesterday that 4th of june is wednesday. doh.

though kinda wish i hadn't so i would be (hopefully) prepared for it on tuesday. :rolleyes:

Reply 10

011091

yeah i normally do well in translations like 46/50

i do ok in virgil
but ciciero i jst can't get it!!

Reply 11

011091

thanks reappears its just our teacher wanys us to do another cicero nab on monday really worried do u think its a gd idea to do a passage of cicero them all the qs on that psg from past papers and then do another psg and all qs ? and same for virgil?

Reply 12

reappears

011091

our teacher wanys us to do another cicero nab on monday really worried do u think its a gd idea to do a passage of cicero them all the qs on that psg from past papers and then do another psg and all qs ? and same for virgil?

i think it's katbro that helped you(and me, thanks kat btw :smile:

) with the essays if that's why you were saying thanks, but if it wasn't then cool.. glad i could help in whatever way i did lol.

anyway, well, it depends on the time that you have. if you already know most of the passages, then your method of doing questions on one passage at a time sounds very effective. it'll help you remember the passage better, and will deffinately help with your understanding.

however this will take quite a while to do, but as long as you're dedicated to it then it should be good. cicero's only about 110 lines, so if you spend about 30 minutes on about 10 lines (correct if im wrong) but it should take you about 6 hours to get through the whole of cicero.

since your nab is only on cicero, i would make sure that you have a sound understanding of cicero and not skip anything out so you can get onto virgil for the exam(as it's the longer one). for example in the prelims i skipped out the section on the stone quarries and ended up loosing, what was it, 4-6 marks on that.

what im planning to do is spend today learning the sections of cicero, and then using tomorrow from 6pm onwards(i have work until 6) to do questions on it and then do some revision for drama hopefully. then monday and tuesday working my butt off for virgil and hopefully ive be somewhat ready for the exam! hope i helped even though im not really sure i answered your question :s-smilie:

Reply 13

011091

yeah thanks very much and to katbro as well
well i know my straght translation off anyway i just have to look over the notes btw see line
line 9 in passge 3

quod ubi isti nuntiatum est..

when the message was sent to him...

i'm not sure

Reply 14

reappears

011091

it says in the "proper" translation- "when this information was announced to that man", but to me i would translate that as "when this was announced to him"... same thing really.

Reply 15

katbro20

Does anyone got any tips on translation? I am OK at them, I mean, usually about 39/50, but I would be happier i I could improve that.

Reply 16

reappears

i normally get just over half marks for translation, and tips would really be useful yeah.

Reply 17

011091

em well obviously know your grammar really well

then well i've got a great atin teacher who always gives us translatin we have a book of old ones going back 1989 - try the easier ones and he hard ones once u can do them u might not do so well (like me)but they are way harder than the exam!

do the specimen question paper on the sqa website mark it yoursel/ or get your teacher to mark it

go in to school and do translation nabs ther - can be used for appeal

i mean im not that good at them and my grammer is rusty but it has to be gramatically correct but also make sense in english and go with story of the passage

its more important to get the grammer right

my teacher always says
subject then verb then object - if you get that you can't go wrong!!

i hope this helps!

Reply 18

011091

if anyone is good at essays could they post theirs somehow esp. Cicero

Reply 19

katbro20

Thanks, it is amazing how hard the old ones are (and how long).

My teacher has had me do all of the ones from 1988 to 2007 - not nice. I usually feel quite depressed after the harder ones. However, the exam will now seem a little easier.

I suppose, use do get used to Cicero's style of writing after a while - oh, I do so hate it.

Sorry, no, I do not have any example essays. However, this is what the marking scheme has for 2004 Cicero.

a) To what extent do you consider Verres' actions to be against the law rather than simply wicked and immoral?

•

spending winter in bed

•

being carried around in a litter

•

conduction legal business from his bed

•

accepting bribes to influence his legal decisions

•

having women available to him wherever he travelled

•

having wild parties

•

not checking on the slaves' work in the summer

•

ignoring legal duties in the forum

•

exempting the Mamertini from supplying a warship

•

making a deal with them the supply a boat and warehouses for his loot

•

mismanaging the finances of the fleet

•

allowing sailors to go home for a bribe

•

capture of pirate ship

•

disposing of the contents of the hip as he liked

•

possibly accepting a bribe to free the pirate chief

•

not allowing the people the pleasure of seeing prisoners being paraded and executed

•

sending pirate to Centuripa and not the quarries

If this is useful, I will put up the answers to the other question

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