Tentative Grades

Here are the tentative grades for the two parts of the final exam and then for the year. Once again, because of university privacy regulations, the student numbers have been reduced to their final four digits and then sorted in ascending order. That means that if your number were 1234567 it would be given here as 4567.

                Unseen Trans.       Final Exam     Final Grade

4061                   D                   A-                 C+
5150 B-                  B+                 A-
5846 A                   A                  A
6269 A                   A+                 A+
6272 A                   A+                 A+
6360 C                   C                   C
6739 B-                  C                   B-
7298 B+                 A+                 A
7969 D                   D+                 C+
8453 C                   C                   C+
8645 B                   C                   C+
9149 A-                  A-                 A-

Final Grades

I will not be able to post the tentative final grades until Saturday. They are tentative because they will take several days to work their way through the system and become official.

If, after the grades are posted, you wish to see your exam, send me an e-pistle and we can make an appointment.

Nunc dimittis

I wish everyone a sound sleep (very very important for processing information--brain specialists advise putting sleep above cramming) and a fresh morning.

I regret the need to have final exams, believe me. As an undergraduate I suffered from monstrous exam anxiety, and, after waking up on the morning of an exam one of the first things I would do was go into the bathroom and throw up. I wish there were another way to assess each student's individual ability at the end of the year, without any opportunity for collaboration or using resources. Virtually every language studied at university expects students to learn some grammar and vocabulary by heart, and the final exam is intended to test that knowledge. I believe it's an unpleasant necessity.

So I will see you tomorrow. I won't wish anyone good luck, since I think you make you own luck. But I will hope that everyone finds calmness and clarity of mind tomorrow morning.

Office hours

My office hours for next week will be Wed., Thurs., Fri. (April 9 - 11), 8:30-10:30.

You may, of course, always send questions to be by e-mail.

Oh yes....

Don't forget to look at my extra notes while reviewing for the exam. They were intended to help you understand the texts and they deal with most of the more difficult bits. So even if you did not use them to help you prepare for class (which seemed to be the case with most students today), they can still be of use.

Final Exam Information

The exam is scheduled for Apr. 14, 9:00 a.m. (3 hours), KIN 205. But check the official schedule closer to the date in case there is any change to the room. Of course those of you who need special accommodation will have received from the Exam's Office specific information about the duration of the exam and the room.

It will cover everything we have read since the last exam, with the exception of the "Epitaph of Agapius". That means:

R.M.L. 9.1: Charlemagne’s Capitulare episcoporum.
9:3 Paul the Deacon
11.1: William of Poitiers
11.3: The book of Winchester
13.1: Baudri of Bourgueil

M.M. 148-150: Robert the Monk

R.M.L. 17.3: Peter Abelard
17.4: Heloise

R.M.L. 15.1: Carmina Cantabrigensia
M.M. 136-7 Cambridge Songs
M.M. 224 ff.: Carmina Burana [I - IV]

As I have said before, don't try to second-guess me. If it is on the list above, it could appear on the exam.

The format will be the same as the previous exams: Latin 327 students will have three passages to translate, plus questions to answer, and Latin 411 students will have on extra passage. As before, I want you to know the authors, titles, and rough dates of all that we have read: once again, you will have to use your intelligence to deal with apparent anomalous information (i.e., if the work doesn't have an author, you can't know it; if a work is dated to a wide possible period, then that's all you can give, etc.). The other questions will be like those on the previous three exams.

In addition, there will be one passage for unseen translation. I expect you to know all vocabulary on the list I gave you at the start of the year [the first link in the first blog entry takes you to an electronic version; here is the link again ]. Words that have occurred several times in what we have covered in class will generally not be glossed, unless they are very strange. Some other words whose definitions you can be expected to deduce from their roots, Latin cognates, English derivatives, etc. will also not be glossed, nor will typical medieval orthographical divergences from classical Latin.

The prepared part of the exam will be worth approximately 70%, and the sight 30%.

I have not decided on my office hours for the exam period: I will post those by the weekend. Of course you are, as always, welcome to send me questions by e-mail, and I will (within reason) answer as many as you need to ask.

Two very short poems from the Carmina Burana

Here are two of my favourites, perfect in their simplicity.

Stetit puella

Stetit puella    rufa tunica;
si quis eam tetigit    tunica crepuit.
Eia!

Stetit puella,    tamquam rosula;
facie splenduit,    os eius floruit.
Eia!

A girl stood in a red dress;
if anyone touched her, the tunic rustled.
Ahhh!

A girl stood, like a rose;
Her face shone, her mouth bloomed.
Ahhh!


Dulcissime

Dulcissime,
totam tibi subdo me!

Oh my sweetest,
I give myself completely to you.