Final Exam for Italian High School Students of Classics

[bedwere]

Italian high school students of "Liceo classico" found the following text of Lucian to translate:

Ignorance blinds men

It doesn't seem impossible.

[mwh]

Most entering graduate (i.e. post-graduate) students in the US, in my experience, would have a very hard time with this.

[Qimmik]

You can use a dictionary and you have four hours. Still, you might have a lot of trouble passing this test if you can't write Italian.

[Scribo]

Four hours!? I really hope the students are allowed to leave once finished otherwise that is some intense psychological torture. It really doesn't seem like much cf to the A level in the UK which has a few similar sized sections to translate but also grammar and "composition" sections in, iirc, three hours. Odd, given the high standard of Latinity I've seen from Italian grad students I'm actually kind of surprised at this.

[Qimmik]

It looks like this may only be part 2 of the test.

[bedwere]

No Qimmik, that was it. I did Liceo Scientifico, not Classico, but that's how it works. On the first day, you have 4 hours to write an essay in Italian on some subject you don't know in advance. On the second day, you have 4 hours to deal with something related to your area of studies. So students at the Classico have to translate Greek or Latin, we had to solve some mathematical problems. Finally, on the third day, you have an oral exam on the remaining subjects.

[C. S. Bartholomew]

I assume they are not allowed to keep their gadgets (iPhone, iPad, …) on hand while doing this. With a dictionary this would be doable in four hours if you know Greek.