General Thoughts: Latin Continuers (1 Viewer)

[iluvGG]

It's overr!! How did you find it? Discuss.

 

[u-borat]

thought it was alright.

translations were a breeze, commentaries were a breeze cept the palanteum question, totally forgot that.
grammar was a breeze.

unseens fucked me, like they always have.

hoping for ~90 raw mark.

 

[Yamiyo]

I thought it was pretty good...
Translations were fine... commentaries were pretty predictable (Mettus to Manlius, come on), but i didn't really know what they were looking for in the question about Brutus' speech (part i) and I think i screwed up the Hercules and Cacus question... .
Unseens were pretty good, lots of vocab, and half of the Livy unseen was the word purple. =P

 

[u-borat]

yeah the livy unseen was rather easy, but i missed how the negative clause goes all the way to the warning about evil, it goes something like, 'so that no evil could happen' or something to that effect.

dammmmmmit

brutus' speech part i), was that the lucretia question?

yeah i didnt know if they were after lucretia's context (they were all grieving at the horrors of wat tarq had done) or livy's context( moral exemplar)

what did people write for the big 7 marker of vergil; the question about mettus to manlius?

 

[iluvGG]

yes! what was the answer to the pallanteum question?
and also the thing about the connection between lucretia's fate and the current condition of the Roman people. that kind of threw me.
Also the romulus as a moral exemplar. im not sure if i came up with enough for a 7 mark question. i thought it was kind of a random passage to choose for that question. what did people write?

 

[Yamiyo]

I thought that bit for the Virgil unseen just meant "Lavinia, the cause of all the trouble" i.e. because Turnus and Aeneas are fighting over her.

For the shield question i talked about the exemplification of Roman virtues and connected them to patriotic/political motives as i went along.

For Romulus, mainly talked about how he's proactive, diplomatic, support of gods and about how under his leadership the Romans are making "a great name". And also "virtus" because i ran out of things that were actually about him. It would've been nice if they had asked a question like "analyse Romulus in terms of historical aims" because they we could have just blabbed on about generalities...

For Pallanteum, i wrote that it was the future site of Rome... then had no idea what to write for two marks so i said that it was a popular residential area in virgil's time but "res inopes" then.. which is quite irrelevant but meh.

 

[tomfelix]

Section I was fine except for stupid last question, I had no idea how to write 7 marks of answer to that. especially because that was the bit right before the rape of the sabines. In what way is a man who thinks mass rape is the solution to all his problems a moral exemplar?

Same with last question in Section II; I just said the bad guys like Mettus were typologically linked to Antony and the good guys like Manlius were typologically linked to Virgil. Not really a very good answer but bah.

Section III was alright I thought; heaps of vocab, but the Livy one was so boring! I was hoping for a punchline or a moral like in the other years, but no, just a long, boring, meaningless catalogue of presents.

All in all, I was very disappointed in that exam. I wish I'd done extension, at least then there'd be more involved than just reading about envoys giving togas to people.

 

[iluvGG]

Section I was fine except for stupid last question, I had no idea how to write 7 marks of answer to that. especially because that was the bit right before the rape of the sabines. In what way is a man who thinks mass rape is the solution to all his problems a moral exemplar?
.

i know! i have no idea what you would need to come up with for 7 marks! I just wrote about how livy presents the reasons for Romulus' actions and shows that he is only doing it to preserve the greatness of Rome etc etc. but yeh, they could have given us a more suitable passage. grr.

 

[u-borat]

re moral exemplar; i blabbed on about whatever i could find, his virtue, his piety, his attempts at diplomacy before the rape, his humbleness through the polyptoton of men equal with men etc etc etc. basically crap.

re shield question, i talked about how vergil has chosen the worst aspects of roman history, like the dragging of the entrails to paint his concerns about caesar, and whether the sacrifice to their freedom and democracy is worth the stability and peace that augustus brought, and contrasted with the heroic characters like horatius to provide vergil's morally ambigious tale.

pallanteum was future site of rome but i completely forgot about that. stupid dammmit.

 

[anthropoestin]

i agree with nearly all of these comments - i felt it was a very odd exam.

The translations were fine, but the commentary questions seemed very out of left field and all the historical facts and context we studied, we never really got to show off. The seven marker for Romulus was in my opinion the hardest part of the entire paper, and reconciling his "moral emplar" character with the rape of the Sabines to come was difficult, and there was little to talk about other than the credit he gives to the gods and his leadership style.

Virgil was largely fine. I think the point of the Pallanteum question is the connection between Evander's history and the town he founded from the name of his grandfather Pallas, and the fact that Aeneas was prophesied by Tiberinus to come to this place which was to become the very heart of Virgil's Rome - The Palatine Hill. Pallanteum is the ancient Palatine Hill.

Grammar was ok, except for the pulchritudine Q which i know now i got wrong, somehow convincing myself in the exam that i had read somewhere it was of description instead of respect.

The unseens were ridiculously easy, it was so piss poor. I spent ages studying for unseens and they were so uninspiring. The livy one amounted essentially to a long list, devoid of any plot line, subordinate clauses or anything else of contextual or grammatical interest.

Maybe they were running out of steam after 3 years of Livy and 2 of Virgil...oh well hopefully Ext is better. Anyway, goodluck everyone for their exams remaining!

 

[tomfelix]

Grammar was ok, except for the pulchritudine Q which i know now i got wrong, somehow convincing myself in the exam that i had read somewhere it was of description instead of respect.

argh me too dammit

 

[iluvGG]

i agree with nearly all of these comments - i felt it was a very odd exam.

The translations were fine, but the commentary questions seemed very out of left field and all the historical facts and context we studied, we never really got to show off.

oh im so glad some people feel that way too!! the commentary questions were so out of left field. I did most school's 2008 trial papers before this exam and they all asked the same kind of questions as our school did, so i was surprised with the questions in the paper today. anyway im glad some others agree.

damn. that pallanteum question seems so simple now! i should have gotten it!

 

[Yamiyo]

The unseens were ridiculously easy, it was so piss poor. I spent ages studying for unseens and they were so uninspiring. The livy one amounted essentially to a long list, devoid of any plot line, subordinate clauses or anything else of contextual or grammatical interest.

+1. the only thing mildly interesting in grammatical terms was the syncopated perfect... and they told us what it was!

 

[tillyf]

... Isn't latin a dead language?

 

[anthropoestin]

+1. the only thing mildly interesting in grammatical terms was the syncopated perfect... and they told us what it was!

exactly!

and yes it is dead, but go somewhere else to provoke a reaction - you don't think we've been through that lame comment a couple of times already in the past few years?

hopefully ext is better!

 

[nymphae]

... Isn't latin a dead language?

Not according to the Board of Studies.

As for the Continuers exam, I left it at thought: "No more Livy for me. Ever."

My class then had a ceremonial "let's-rip-up-every-translation,-exam-paper,-essay,-Latin-Continuers-Sheet-we've-ever-received-and-throw-them-out-with-cheering-and-applause".

It was the most satisfying experience of my Latin Continuers life.

 

[iluvGG]

does anyone know what raw hsc exam mark will get you a band 6??

 

[u-borat]

i thought latin didn't really scale, so like 90 raw =90 scaled?
idunno.

 

[iluvGG]

okay, cool thanks

 

[SimonLee13]

i thought latin didn't really scale, so like 90 raw =90 scaled?
idunno.

There are only 4 subjects that scale up. MX1 MX2 Latin and classical greek. Therefore it has awesome scaling.