Two tasks wearing one passage

Component 1 gives you a Latin storyline and then asks you two quite different things about it. Some short comprehension questions in English, and a translation of a passage into English. They look like one skill. Read the Latin, understand it, write what it says. ⚠️⚠️ THEY ARE MARKED BY OPPOSITE RULES, AND THE MOVE THAT WINS MARKS IN ONE LOSES THEM IN THE OTHER. ⭐ COMPREHENSION ASKS WHAT THE PASSAGE SAYS. If a word defeats you, you may read around it, use the story so far, and answer the question anyway. That is not cheating and it is not a last resort. It is a real reading skill, it is what people do in any language, and it scores. ⚠️⚠️ TRANSLATION ASKS SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY. IT ASKS YOU TO PROVE YOU READ THE LATIN. And the same skip that was fine a moment ago is now a lost mark, because the mark scheme is checking whether each word and each ending has been accounted for. ⭐⭐ WHICH LEADS TO THE MOST USEFUL AND MOST SURPRISING THING IN THIS TOPIC: IN A TRANSLATION YOU ARE NOT BEING ASKED FOR GOOD ENGLISH. A version that reads beautifully while quietly dropping a word scores LESS than a clunky one that gets everything in. Not because the examiner dislikes fluent writing, but because fluency is not the evidence being looked for. Here is the failure this produces, and almost every student does it at some point. ⚠️ YOU RECOGNISE TWO WORDS IN A SENTENCE. YOU KNOW ROUGHLY WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE STORY. SO YOU WRITE AN ENGLISH SENTENCE THAT USES BOTH WORDS AND FITS THE SITUATION. It feels like translating. It reads well. And it proves nothing, because you have not accounted for a single ending, and the endings are where the Latin actually is. ⭐ THAT MOVE HAS A NAME WORTH GIVING IT: SMOOTHING. AND THE CHECK THAT CATCHES IT IS ONE QUESTION. ⭐⭐ COULD I POINT AT THE LATIN WORD THAT GIVES ME EACH ENGLISH WORD I HAVE WRITTEN? If yes, the translation is doing its job. If there are English words floating free with no Latin behind them, those are the ones that came from the story rather than from the page. One more thing about the passage itself. Your specification says the translation has a GRADATION OF DIFFICULTY, which means it is built to get harder as it goes. ⚠️ SO THE EARLY SENTENCES ARE NOT THE WARM-UP TO RUSH THROUGH. THEY ARE THE MARKS YOU ARE MOST CERTAIN OF, AND THEY SHOULD BE BANKED COMPLETELY BEFORE THE HARD PART STARTS.

What each task forgives

The same passage, two questions, two sets of rules. Knowing which one you are in is the first decision you make.

Tap the two that follow

Tap the TWO statements that follow from comprehension and translation being marked by different rules.

Reading around a word you do not know is a legitimate move in comprehension and a lost mark in translation
An awkward translation that accounts for every word can score more than a fluent one that does not
A student who is good at comprehension will be equally good at translation
The main thing being assessed in a translation is the quality of the English produced

Fluent, and worth fewer marks

Two students translate the same sentence. One writes elegant English that leaves out a word they did not recognise. The other writes something clumsy that includes everything. The clumsy one scores higher. Why?

Because a translation is evidence that the Latin was read, so every word and ending has to be accounted for, and fluency is not the thing being measured
Because examiners prefer literal translations as a matter of style
Because the longer answer contains more material
Because the clumsy student happened to guess the missing word correctly

Five terms for the translation paper

Five terms, each defined by what it is. The first is the one worth naming, because naming a habit is how you stop doing it.

Match each slip to what it costs

A translation that leaves out a word the student did not recognise
A translation that turns a plural into a singular
A comprehension answer that gives the gist without naming the detail asked for
A translation assembled from two recognised words and the general situation
A translation that treats the receiver of an action as though it were the one acting

Loses that word's mark even though the sentence still reads perfectly well without it
Loses the mark for an ending that was there to be read and was not read
Answers a narrower question than the one set, so the specific thing wanted is missing
Reads plausibly and proves nothing, because no ending has been accounted for at all
Reverses who is doing what to whom, so the sentence now says something different

Two that follow from accounting for every word

Select the TWO statements that follow from a translation being evidence that you read the Latin.

A useful self-check is whether you can point at the Latin word behind each English word you have written
Since the passage gets harder as it goes, the early sentences are worth finishing completely rather than rushing
Writing more natural English will improve a translation mark
Working out the sense from context is as good as translating in both tasks

Proving you read it

You may already have met the idea that a Latin ending tells you what a word COULD be doing, and that the sentence around it settles which of those it IS doing. ⚠️ THIS IS WHAT TO DO WITH THAT WHEN THERE IS A TRANSLATION IN FRONT OF YOU AND A CLOCK RUNNING. ⭐⭐ FIND THE VERB FIRST, EVERY TIME. It tells you what is happening and how many people are doing it, and until you have it you are only collecting words. THEN ASK WHO IS DOING IT. Look for the word with the subject ending rather than the word that comes first, because Latin does not promise you the subject at the start. THEN ASK WHO OR WHAT IS ON THE RECEIVING END. ⭐ THEN DEAL WITH EVERYTHING LEFT OVER, AND THIS IS THE PART STUDENTS ABANDON. Every remaining word is worth a mark and is doing a job: describing something, saying where, saying to whom, saying when. WRITE THE SENTENCE OUT, THEN RUN THE CHECK. ⭐ POINT AT THE LATIN BEHIND EACH ENGLISH WORD. ANY ENGLISH WITH NOTHING BEHIND IT IS A GUESS THAT CAME FROM THE STORY. ⚠️ THREE HABITS THAT COST MARKS HERE. ⚠️ THE FIRST IS TRANSLATING IN ENGLISH WORD ORDER. Latin puts the verb where it likes. Taking the words strictly left to right produces confident nonsense, and confident nonsense is harder to spot than obvious confusion. ⚠️ THE SECOND IS STOPPING AT A WORD YOU DO NOT KNOW. ⭐ DEAL WITH EVERYTHING AROUND IT FIRST, BECAUSE THOSE MARKS ARE STILL AVAILABLE, AND THE ENDINGS EITHER SIDE OFTEN NARROW DOWN WHAT THE MISSING WORD MUST BE DOING. THEN PUT DOWN YOUR BEST ATTEMPT AND MOVE ON: A BLANK SCORES NOTHING WITH CERTAINTY. ⚠️ AND THE THIRD IS POLISHING. Time spent making the English elegant is time not spent on the harder sentences at the end, and the elegance earns nothing. ⭐ AN UNFINISHED TRANSLATION LOSES FAR MORE THAN AN INELEGANT ONE. One last thing about the comprehension questions, since the rules there are different. Answer the question that was actually asked, give the detail if detail was asked for, and let the mark allocation tell you how much is wanted. Two marks is not an invitation to write a paragraph.

Three sentences, two translations

Here are three short Latin sentences of the kind this paper opens with. regina in villa habitat. nauta gladium portat. regina nautam videt. ⚠️ NOW SUPPOSE A STUDENT RECOGNISES ONLY SOME OF IT. THEY CAN SEE regina, villa, nauta AND gladium. THEY KNOW ROUGHLY WHAT A STORY WITH A QUEEN, A HOUSE, A SAILOR AND A SWORD IS LIKELY TO BE ABOUT. ⭐ SO THEY WRITE: "THE QUEEN AND THE SAILOR ARE IN THE HOUSE WITH A SWORD." Read that again, because it is a good piece of work in one sense. It uses four words correctly. It is plausible. It might even be roughly what the passage is about. ⚠️⚠️ AND AS A TRANSLATION IT IS WORTH ALMOST NOTHING, BECAUSE NOT ONE OF THE THREE VERBS HAS BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR, AND NOT ONE ENDING HAS BEEN READ. Run the check on it. Point at the Latin behind each English word. "Queen" has regina behind it. "Sailor" has nauta. "House" has villa. "Sword" has gladium. ⭐ AND "ARE IN" AND "WITH" HAVE NOTHING BEHIND THEM AT ALL. THEY CAME FROM THE STUDENT'S IDEA OF THE STORY. Now the version that scores. ⭐ regina in villa habitat IS "THE QUEEN LIVES IN THE HOUSE". The verb is habitat, it is one person doing it, and regina has the subject ending. ⭐ nauta gladium portat IS "THE SAILOR CARRIES A SWORD". ⚠️ AND NOTICE THE TRAP: nauta LOOKS LIKE THE KIND OF WORD THAT OUGHT TO BE ON THE RECEIVING END, AND IT IS THE ONE DOING THE CARRYING. gladium HAS THE RECEIVING ENDING. ⭐ regina nautam videt IS "THE QUEEN SEES THE SAILOR". ⚠️⚠️ AND THE SAILOR HAS JUST CHANGED SHAPE, FROM nauta TO nautam, BECAUSE HE HAS CHANGED JOBS. HE WAS DOING THE CARRYING; NOW HE IS THE ONE BEING SEEN. ⭐⭐ THAT LAST CHANGE IS THE WHOLE PAPER IN ONE WORD. THE SMOOTHED VERSION COULD NEVER HAVE CAUGHT IT, BECAUSE THE STORY DOES NOT TELL YOU WHO IS LOOKING AT WHOM. ONLY THE ENDING DOES, AND READING IT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE MARKS ARE FOR. Clunky? Slightly. Complete? Yes. And that is the trade this paper wants you to make.

Order how to build a translation

Put these six moves into the order that turns a line of Latin into a translation that scores.

Find the verb, since it tells you what is happening and how many are doing it
Find who is doing it by looking for the subject ending, not for the first word
Find who or what is on the receiving end
Deal with every word left over, since each is worth a mark and is doing a job
Write the sentence out, accepting awkward English if that is what accuracy costs
Point at the Latin behind each English word, and treat anything unaccounted for as a guess

Build the English for one sentence

The Latin is servus dominum audit. Only the endings can tell you who is doing what, so read them rather than the order.

The comprehension and translation run

Five questions on which task you are in and what it demands. Three lives.

Complete the translation

dominus servo pecuniam dat means the master gives the money _____ the slave. puella librum amat means the girl _____ the book. femina in silva ambulat means the woman _____ in the wood. rex urbem videt means the king _____ the city.

to loves walks sees from carries lives hears

Where the time actually goes

A student finishes the translation with time to spare and spends it making the English of the opening sentences read more naturally. What would have been worth more?

Going back to any word or ending left unaccounted for, since polish earns nothing and an unaccounted word is a mark still sitting there
Nothing: improving the English is the best use of spare time
Rewriting the whole translation more literally from the start
Adding extra detail to the comprehension answers beyond what was asked

Marking three attempts

Three students hand in translation work. Each has done something real, and each is one habit away from scoring what they could.

A student produces fluent English for a whole passage, but three words they did not recognise have quietly vanished from it. What would you tell them?
A student translates strictly left to right in English word order and produces a confident sentence that says the wrong thing. What has gone wrong?
A student writes a full paragraph for a comprehension question worth two marks, and then runs short of time on the translation. How would you advise them?

Explain what a translation has to prove

Explain how answering a comprehension question differs from translating a passage, and set out the method you would use to make sure a translation earns every mark available.

Say what each of the two tasks is actually asking for, and why that makes them different pieces of work
Explain why reading around an unknown word is a legitimate move in one task and a lost mark in the other
Name the habit of writing plausible English from the situation, and say exactly what is wrong with it
Set out the order you would work in, starting from the verb and ending with everything left over
Give the check you would run on a finished translation, and say what it catches
Finish by explaining why a clumsy complete translation beats a fluent incomplete one, and what that means for how you spend spare time

Comprehension and Translation

Practise it before the paper, not after

What you'll cover