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OCR GCSE Latin revision

These activities are mapped to OCR GCSE Latin J282. Seventeen of them, eighteen to twenty-six minutes each, covering the compulsory language component and all five optional components, so every combination a department can enter is here. **Latin is more revisable than most language subjects, for a reason worth knowing.** OCR publishes a Defined Vocabulary List of about four hundred and fifty headwords, and a Restricted list of exactly a hundred and twenty-five for the composition option. Anything outside those lists is glossed on the paper, and there is no dictionary. So the memorising half of this subject is a closed, finite, published set, which is precisely the sort of thing revision activities are good for. Five of these seventeen work the language component directly, and two of those work the list.

This page lists what we actually have for OCR GCSE Latin J282. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

The list is finite, and that changes what revision can do

Most language revision runs into the same wall: vocabulary is effectively unbounded, so a student never knows when they have done enough, and a resource never knows what to include.

Latin at GCSE does not have that problem. OCR publishes a Defined Vocabulary List of about four hundred and fifty headwords, required for every Latin-to-English task on every component. For the English-to-Latin composition option there is a Restricted Vocabulary List of exactly a hundred and twenty-five words, a genuine subset of the first. Words outside those lists that appear in an exam passage are glossed on the paper, and no dictionary is allowed.

A closed list with a published size is the best possible target for spaced recall. A student can be told, truthfully, that learning these four hundred and fifty words is the single highest-value thing they can do, and that there is a point at which the job is finished.

Two of these activities work that list directly, one on nouns and adjectives and one on verbs sorted by conjugation, and the noun one uses a word search, which is the only one in this subject on the site.

What cannot be memorised, and the three activities for it

The rest of the language component is not a memory problem. An unseen passage is a reasoning problem: which word is the subject, what does that ending do, why is this verb in the subjunctive.

Three activities go at that. Syntax recognition practice works on identifying constructions in a sentence before translating it. Restricted composition practice goes the other way, English into Latin, within the hundred and twenty-five word list. Unseen translation practice uses historical passages of the kind the paper sets.

The order matters if you are setting them. Vocabulary first, then syntax recognition, then unseen translation, because the third depends on the first two and setting it early produces frustration rather than progress.

All six components, and the rotating texts

Students take the compulsory language component plus any two of the other five. All five optional components have activities here, so whichever pair your department entered is covered: prose literature A and B each have a translation activity and a literary analysis activity, and so do verse literature A and B, with two more on literature and culture.

The set texts rotate. The literature activities here are written against the current cycle, and when OCR moves the prescription they will be about a text your students are not sitting.

What survives the rotation is the method inside them: how to translate a prescribed passage you have already met, and how to write about style, word order and effect rather than retelling the story. That half transfers. The passages do not, and a literature activity on last cycle's text is worth nothing to a class sitting this one.

The two literature and culture activities, on Roman entertainment and on myths and beliefs, are the longest at twenty-six minutes and do not rotate in the same way.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

Departments running Latin alongside Classical Civilisation will find that course at OCR GCSE Classical Civilisation, which needs no Latin at all.

What this page does not do

It is not the vocabulary list. The activities work the list; OCR publishes it and your department distributes it.

It does not follow the rotation automatically. When the prescribed texts change, the literature activities here will need rewriting, and until they are, treat them as method practice.

It does not mark translations. A translation is a judgement, and there is no auto-marking here that would survive contact with a real Latin sentence.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Latin activity for OCR

17 activities, all mapped to Cambridge OCR GCSE (9-1) Latin (J282).

See all 17, by topic

Try it with your class

OCR Latin 18 minutes

Building Vocabulary: Verbs by Conjugation

15 steps, 10 interactive, 9 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Independent study Intervention
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.

Try one question

Your list gives custodio, custodire (guard). Which conjugation is it?

OCR Latin 22 minutes

Unseen Translation Practice: Historical Passages

15 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

You turn to the translation. What is the best use of the first two minutes?

OCR Latin 26 minutes

Roman Entertainment: The Amphitheatre and Theatre

14 steps, 9 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Independent study Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A visitor to Pompeii finds a building with tiered seating in a full oval around a central space. What was it for?

Common questions

How big is the vocabulary students have to learn?

Four hundred and fifty headwords on OCR's Defined Vocabulary List, and a hundred and twenty-five on the Restricted Vocabulary List used for English-to-Latin composition, which is a subset of the first. Anything outside those lists is glossed on the exam paper itself.

Does that make Latin unusually revisable?

More than most language subjects, yes. There is no dictionary in the exam and no open-ended vocabulary, so the thing a student has to memorise is a finite published list rather than an open field.

Which components are covered?

All six: the compulsory language component, both prose literature options, both verse literature options, and literature and culture. Students take language plus any two of the other five, so every combination is covered.

The set texts change, don't they?

Yes, on a rotating cycle, and the literature activities here are written against the current one. The translation and analysis method inside them transfers to a new text; the specific passages do not.

Is composition covered?

One activity, on restricted composition, which uses only the hundred and twenty-five word list that option allows.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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