Now what is that supposed to mean? Even if I translate it back to English I don’t get it…
I’m French Canadian, and some private schools here still teach Latin, although there’s only a few. And it’s been put back in university (yup, it was no longer available in university for a while!). In fact, I’m thinking about going for a Minor on top of doing Wheelock on my own.
As for the subjonctif imparfait, I know quite a few French speaking persons who couldn’t conjugate that. I’m not sure I can! Gulp! (its been too long since I’ve needed it )
En fait, il faut que je parle que je cherche un livre de la grammaire pour l’imparfait du subjonctif (quand je broutais dans? la bibliothèque). J’étais très choqué quand j’ai écouté qu’il y a des {euh…comment dit-on “tenses” en français?} que je (not nous) n’ai pas appris, comme le passé simple- je me sens honteux pour l’apprendant tard. Et je suis d’accord, les examens deviennent plus facile (en mon GCSE examen de lecture, je pense que j’ai un faut seulement).
(pourquoi, je lamente, pourquoi mon cerveau m’a décevu, pourquoi mon cerveau a oublié “poubelle”, pourquoi, je lamente, pourquoi)
I want to take my Greek exams in England! I want an A too, not fair. We have bloody hard 3 to 4 hour exams here, and we certainly have to know all the irregular verbs. I’ve messed up my mark because of the irregualr verbs though… we had a one hour test on 160 irregular verbs I’d had no time to learn them… only read through their principle parts once. Oh well… at least I wrote something on my paper unlike some other people.
In languages the standards in the UK seem to be dropping, but I don’t feel that is so other subjects especially sciences. But I’m a bit uncertain about this too now, as I had a look at my cousins’ AS Chemistry paper. I only have chemistry minor, but if I had as much time as they have to learn for Chemistry I could still take that exam easily I think. I was very impressed with their geography exams though …
The languages are easier. Modern ones particularly, to the point that an old O Level will equal a modern A Level. Classics are easier but they are still the hardest ones about. Maths are still Especially those OCR people again Even gcse is as hard as it ever was, I have exam on wednesday and, having failed the previous one, I have to do far more than the usual 3 questions which every one usually attempts.
I can’t believe that Greek though They are too kind nowadays. They even give you the genitive for the latin
I agree with Thucydides on that… I have to take… uh how many subjects? See, so many I don’t even know how many with out counting them… hmmm… I’m taking 12 subjects. And I didn’t really have that much of a choice, so I’m stuck with subjects I don’t want and that bore me to death (Ethics, German, Sociology, Sport, Geography and so on) and I have to do well in all of them to get a good abitur.
Also it seems that the standard of teaching has not dropped everywhere, only the exams have. Otherwise Terentia wouldn’t be complaining about how easy the exam is…
Ah, the Abitur. That sounds like a nightmare emoige. Not only do you gave to take a million subjects, but you also have do loads of really random ones like Sociology…
I hear that US universities value UK candidates… don’t know how true that is
The worst thing about the German abitur is not the million subjects, Thucydides. It’s the fact that your exams (and there are loads of exams, like a 3 hour exam nearly every week, because of all the subjects) only count 30 - 50%. The rest is how well you work in class, and oh, have I mentioned the ‘sudden’ tests, which don’t have to be announced before hand and which I always fail miserably at? These tests actually count quite a bit, that’s the real problem… and if the teacher doesn’t like you, well…
We british are so badly educated and have kind little tests which welcome this. I mean, even whiteoctave had full marks on some of his tests, and he’s not exactly the best.
On the other hand: you’re not completely dependent on one big exam. In The Netherlands, the system is similar to what you describe for Germany. When I did my finals (long, long ago ), I could easily fail some of the exams, and still pass because of the marks gained earlier in the year.
The only reason I did work hard, was that I planned to do a “numerus fixus” study at university, which means that you have better chances to get a place if your marks are higher.
Still, those sudden tests were a nuisance, indeed .
Yeah, I like the fact that my mark is not based on just one exam too, but only to a certain extent. There is really no time to do anything else except learn (useless) stuff for school, because you have to be prepared for every lesson, you every week there’s an exam. I think I’ll enjoy uni, lol, cause I’m already use to working each day, so that won’t be a shock, plus there won’t be exams every few days.
I’d like a system where you can specialise (so no 12 subjects!) and the mark is based on the exam, but also on coursework and similar. But it’s just one exam at the end of the year, spreading it out may sound better at first, but I think it’s more stress, because instead of haveing to learn all the time for the last few months, you’re learning for exams all the time, plus that fact that you actually forget what you’ve learned with exam spread out through the year, I can only guess why, but it’s a fact. The English system comes pretty close to what I’ve described actually, but I don’t like the application system to uni in the UK at all, it sucks so much, plus you’d need an examination board which doesn’t let standards drop in French for example .
I don’t think it’s such a shame that standards have dropped for Latin and Greek really, I mean up to a certain point. If the exams are a joke then of course that’s terrible. But I don’t think that examiners can expect the same as they could 50 years ago. We only learn half the vocabulary my Latin teacher had to learn at school, but we just wouldn’t learn all that vocab, we have other subjects to concentrate on, Latin is still a compulsory major subject, but the school knows hardly anyone will really need it in their studies like before. So naturally students prefer to put their efforts into more useful subjects.
I think the standards for Latin had to drop, because it’s just not as important that you know it and others are more important. You can ask too much of students. But as I’ve already said, there is a certain standard which should still be maintained, otherwise you can just forget it totally.
This is an interesting topic: which is better, one exam at the end of the year or multiple tests during the year? The way it is in Denmark, the Ministry will choose (randomly) for each high school student which exams to take. Basically, you have to do a total of six oral exams during high school. For the rest of the classes, you just get your current grade transfered. For instance, during the previous year I knew that I might have an exam in biology, chemistry, either, or neither. Then in late May I was told to forget about biology and concentrate on chemistry, since I was going to have an exam in this class. Even though I like chemistry better than biology, this bothered me, since my grade in biology is lower than in chemistry and I know I’ll most likely score a better grade at an exam. Taking this into account, and considering that exams by their very nature are much more fair to the students than individual teachers’ assessments, I think a system with an exam for each class taken would be ideal. Of course, an overall workload similar to the current would have to be maintained, meaning that the expectations for each exam might have to be a little lower. Still, I think the students as well as society would gain a great deal from this, since it would ensure both a fair grade given to the studets and even attention to each class given from the students.
Oh, I don’t like the Danish system at all… that sounds horrible, not knowing what to concentrate on. At least here I know what’s going on, even if the workload is ridiculous.
I’m pathetic at math. I haven’t used it consistently in some time. I recently retook the SAT and figured I’d completely bomb the math portion and even I got average. Evidently, the standards here for that are ridiculously low!
Well in the US the system is totally different of course. It seems that either you work or you don’t work, no one (maybe parents, but not teachers) will make you learn anything. You have to want to learn something there it seems, but if you are interested and you do do your work, basically that will be rewarded, no matter how intelligent you are - if you don’t want to work you’ll be ignored. For uni that’s not a good idea maybe, but for high-school I think that’s not bad at all, and if it means lowering the standards of maths exams… well basically maths in my best subject (next to Ethics), but I don’t agree with the German system, where maths is a compulsory subject for everyone doing the Abitur. No one in the maths minor courses is interested in maths and will never need to know how to analyse a function like f(x)=e^(3x+7)*7x/(8x+9x^2).
But still they have to learn it. Maths is a tool, only mad people learn maths for maths sake, if you need to know how to use this tool in detail then you’ll learn what you need know during your studies or apprenticeship.
I think the American system is better when it comes to that. Standards for maths maybe lower there than here, but instead they learn it at uni if they have to. Later at uni the standards in the US universities are higher and everything is specialised, it’s not only because of all the money they receive that the US universities are ranked highest in the world.
The AQA decision to drop Greek and Latin from the list of subjects offered has been condemned in Parliament by both Labour and Conservative politicians:
I want to take my Greek exams in England! I want an A too, not fair. We have bloody hard 3 to 4 hour exams here, and we certainly have to know all the irregular verbs. I’ve messed up my mark because of the irregualr verbs though… we had a one hour test on 160 irregular verbs I’d had no time to learn them… only read through their principle parts once. Oh well… at least I wrote something on my paper unlike some other people.
…
They are too kind nowadays. They even give you the genitive for the latin 
), I could easily fail some of the exams, and still pass because of the marks gained earlier in the year.