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Yesterday, after the Latin lesson, one day before the Latin exam today, a small group of diligent students met downstairs in the Great Hall and, when our wonderfully batty teacher had walked past and wished us good luck for today, hurriedly stuck their heads together and had a whispered conversation.
"The paragraph she'll use in the Latin exam is going to be one that deals with a battle, and it can be understood as a whole without loads of info about stuff that happened before?"
"Yes. And judging from the vocab she had us practise, it's going to have the words "acies", "collis", "impedimenta", "homo", "equitates" and the like in it, too. Right?"
"Yep."
"And it is definitely going to be from the first book, right?"
"Yes, she said so."
Frantic page turning and silence followed as furrowed brows bent over bilingual versions of the work of the great commander.
"Heeey...the only paragraphs he does have that actually discuss a battle are 24, 25 and 52." Members of the Secret Service could not have been more proud.
"Yes! That's true. Oh! Oh!"
Frantic counting ensued.
"Paragraph 24 has only 97 words! That's SO going to be it. It also has "acies", "collis", various horsemen and "montes" in it. Oh! And remember how she said that she had to change one of the "uti"s Caesar keeps using instead of "ut" into "ut" to make it easier for us to understand?"
A triumphant finger was thrust at the offending sentence and six hopeful faces stared down at the page. The huddled congregation was joined by other students with various books and printed pages.
"Paragraph 24?"
"Paragraph 24."
And the despairing recovered hope, the busy felt as though they were going to manage it after all, the lazy relished the human kindness, and the meeting dispersed.
Did I want to believe that? Did I think that this most convenient solution for all our problems was, in fact, going to be the solution? Nooo. What did they do? They learnt the German translation of §24 by heart, and what did I spend my day with? Grammar, grammar, the content of the first book, translating a couple of paragraphs that could have been meant as well (24, 25, 51 and 52). I feel dumb. It was sooo obvious it was going to be that one, but for some reason, those hints always seem to be too convenient for me and I don't dare believe them.
Today, everybody had ominous white sheets of paper that bore the words Postquam id animadvertit, copias suas Caesar in proximum collem subducit equitatumque, qui sustineret hostium impetum, misit.
"If that text is not going to start with a "postquam", I am going to faint," came various whispered sighs, reading and re-reading their translations and asking last-minute questions to the learned.
The exam began, the first test sheets were distributed and anxious eyes followed our teacher as she gave out the sheets, hopeful whispers were heard everywhere in the room.
"Postquam?"
"Yep."
And a sigh of relief washed through the room, when at the far back people unfolded their smuggled German translation and started copying, word for word.
Too bad that I never manage to cheat properly and did not learn the German translation of the paragraph by heart like others. I could KICK myself.
Why do I have to be so utterly incapable of cheating?
I already found two possible mistakes, although I personally do not see why they should be treated as such - I hope they do allow us to turn the Latin text into a grammatical German translation instead of expecting an ungrammatical word-for-word translation. Hm. And I have the sneaking suspicion that some of those alleged ablativi absoluti might not have been, in fact, abl abs's. Damnit.
Well, we pass or we fail. But I don't think I'm going to fail.
"The paragraph she'll use in the Latin exam is going to be one that deals with a battle, and it can be understood as a whole without loads of info about stuff that happened before?"
"Yes. And judging from the vocab she had us practise, it's going to have the words "acies", "collis", "impedimenta", "homo", "equitates" and the like in it, too. Right?"
"Yep."
"And it is definitely going to be from the first book, right?"
"Yes, she said so."
Frantic page turning and silence followed as furrowed brows bent over bilingual versions of the work of the great commander.
"Heeey...the only paragraphs he does have that actually discuss a battle are 24, 25 and 52." Members of the Secret Service could not have been more proud.
"Yes! That's true. Oh! Oh!"
Frantic counting ensued.
"Paragraph 24 has only 97 words! That's SO going to be it. It also has "acies", "collis", various horsemen and "montes" in it. Oh! And remember how she said that she had to change one of the "uti"s Caesar keeps using instead of "ut" into "ut" to make it easier for us to understand?"
A triumphant finger was thrust at the offending sentence and six hopeful faces stared down at the page. The huddled congregation was joined by other students with various books and printed pages.
"Paragraph 24?"
"Paragraph 24."
And the despairing recovered hope, the busy felt as though they were going to manage it after all, the lazy relished the human kindness, and the meeting dispersed.
Did I want to believe that? Did I think that this most convenient solution for all our problems was, in fact, going to be the solution? Nooo. What did they do? They learnt the German translation of §24 by heart, and what did I spend my day with? Grammar, grammar, the content of the first book, translating a couple of paragraphs that could have been meant as well (24, 25, 51 and 52). I feel dumb. It was sooo obvious it was going to be that one, but for some reason, those hints always seem to be too convenient for me and I don't dare believe them.
Today, everybody had ominous white sheets of paper that bore the words Postquam id animadvertit, copias suas Caesar in proximum collem subducit equitatumque, qui sustineret hostium impetum, misit.
"If that text is not going to start with a "postquam", I am going to faint," came various whispered sighs, reading and re-reading their translations and asking last-minute questions to the learned.
The exam began, the first test sheets were distributed and anxious eyes followed our teacher as she gave out the sheets, hopeful whispers were heard everywhere in the room.
"Postquam?"
"Yep."
And a sigh of relief washed through the room, when at the far back people unfolded their smuggled German translation and started copying, word for word.
Too bad that I never manage to cheat properly and did not learn the German translation of the paragraph by heart like others. I could KICK myself.
Why do I have to be so utterly incapable of cheating?
I already found two possible mistakes, although I personally do not see why they should be treated as such - I hope they do allow us to turn the Latin text into a grammatical German translation instead of expecting an ungrammatical word-for-word translation. Hm. And I have the sneaking suspicion that some of those alleged ablativi absoluti might not have been, in fact, abl abs's. Damnit.
Well, we pass or we fail. But I don't think I'm going to fail.
