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Hebrew (Biblical)

A-level Biblical Hebrew is an ancient-language qualification and AQA is its sole provider: specification 7677, for teaching from September 2018 and for examination from June 2020. It is not shaped like a modern-languages A-level. There is no speaking assessment, no listening assessment, no contemporary-themes syllabus and no individual research project; all materials are in English and everything a candidate writes is in English apart from the Hebrew written in one section of Paper 1. Three components are taken in a single May or June series at the end of the course, and no dictionary is allowed in any of them. Paper 1, Translation, comprehension and composition, carries 150 marks and 50 per cent of the qualification over three hours, and all three of its sections are compulsory: Section A translates an unseen passage of Biblical Hebrew prose into English for 20 marks, answers comprehension and grammar questions on a second unseen prose passage for 25, and points approximately 25 words - about two lines - of unseen narrative prose for 5; Section B translates an unseen passage of Biblical Hebrew poetry into English for 25 marks and answers comprehension and grammar questions on a second unseen poetry passage for 25; Section C translates a prose passage of approximately 100 words from English into pointed Biblical Hebrew for 50 marks, the single largest question in the qualification. Paper 2, Prose literature, and Paper 3, Poetry, each carry 75 marks, 25 per cent and two hours, and each has the same three-section shape: Section A takes the first set text of the pair for 10 marks of comprehension and grammar, 5 marks of translation and a 15-mark question analysing literary style, characterisation, argument and literary meaning; Section B takes the second set text for 5, 5 and 15; Section C is a 20-mark essay drawing on the second set text together with the material the specification requires to be read in English translation. The assessment objectives are three: AO1, knowledge and understanding of the language, carries all 150 marks of Paper 1 and 50 per cent of the qualification; AO2, knowledge and understanding of literature, carries 23.3 per cent; AO3, critical analysis, evaluation and response to literature, carries 26.7 per cent. The total raw mark is 300, scaled at one to one. Two features of the specification shape the whole course and both reverse the assumptions that hold for the other ancient languages. First, the set texts do not rotate: 3.4.1 states that the four set texts will remain valid for the lifetime of the specification, so I Samuel 1-7 omitting 2:1-10 and II Kings 9-13 are the prose texts, and Jeremiah 13-18 and Psalms 50-59 the poetry texts, together with two blocks of prescribed additional reading in English translation that supply the narrative context of set texts 2 and 4. Second, pointing is examined, and examined twice: the 5-mark pointing question in Section A and the requirement that the 50-mark composition be written in pointed Hebrew, where the mark grid states that an answer with no attempt at pointing cannot gain more than 2 marks out of 5 for any of its nine phrases. There is no defined vocabulary list at A-level; students build on the words in the Core Vocabulary List for Biblical Hebrew through wider reading of original material. Grammar, by contrast, is prescribed in detail: 3.3 sets out the accidence, the pointing rules and the syntax a candidate must be able to form, and then a separate list of the grammatical terminology a candidate must be able to use, marking for each term the acceptable alternatives and the alternatives that will not be accepted. The specification also settles a matter of presentation: it follows the Orthodox Jewish tradition for Divine names, writing the four-letter Divine name as two yods and adding a dash after the first letter of other Divine names, while stating that a candidate is free to approach the qualification from a Christian or other perspective.

0/45 Texts7 Chapters~382 min total

Continue reading — Chapter I Table of contents

AQA 7677 section 3.3 Grammar — the general principle of this list is to cover all forms which may be examined in Paper 1AQA 7677 section 3.3.2 Grammatical terminology — Term, Acceptable alternative/s, Examples of unacceptable alternative/sAQA 7677 section 3.2 — as well as all the grammatical forms defined in Grammar, students should study more complex grammatical forms where they appear in the set textAQA 7677 section 3.3.1.1 — gender, number and state of regular and irregular nouns; nouns formed with preformative letters and afformative nun; agreement of adjectives; comparatives and superlatives; cardinal and ordinal numbers; pronominal suffixesAQA 7677 section 3.3.2.1 — construct form, preformative, cardinal, ordinal, dual form, mappiq, pronominal suffix, singular, plural, comparative, superlativeAQA 7677 section 3.3.1.2 — all persons and numbers of the perfect and imperfect tenses/aspect including the imperative; cohortative, jussive and polite imperative; participles in all conjugations; formation and function of qal, niphal, piel, hiphil and hithpael; commonly occurring formations of hophal and pual; commonly occurring formations of polel, hithpolel, pilpel and hithpalpel; infinitive construct; infinitive absolute+101 moreFoundationStandardAdvanced

Table of contents · 7 ChaptersT·07

Ch. IAccidence and syntax7 texts · 0 read

Ch. IIVocabulary and linguistic range6 texts · 0 read

Ch. IIIUnseen translation7 texts · 0 read

Ch. IVComprehension and grammar7 texts · 0 read

Ch. VPrescribed prose literature6 texts · 0 read

Ch. VIPrescribed verse literature6 texts · 0 read

Ch. VIILiterary and cultural context6 texts · 0 read

Instrument · 01Recommended study order

Instrument · 02Exam structure

Paper 1 — Translation, comprehension and composition (language): Three hours, 150 marks, 50 per cent of the A-level, externally assessed and testing AO1 alone. There are three sections and all of them are compulsory; no dictionary is allowed. Section A works on unseen PROSE and carries 50 marks in three parts: translate a passage of unseen prose into English (20 marks), answer comprehension and grammar questions on a passage of unseen prose (25 marks), and point a passage of unseen prose (5 marks). The specification adds detail the section headings do not: the translation passage and the comprehension passage are two DIFFERENT unseen passages; one or two sentences of background information are given in English before each Hebrew text; names of people and places are glossed, as are words that are very rare or used unusually where the meaning cannot be derived from the text; the split between comprehension questions and grammar questions is approximately even; and the pointing task is approximately 25 words, described elsewhere in the specification as approximately two lines of narrative prose. Section B repeats the pattern on unseen POETRY for 50 marks: translate a passage of unseen poetry into English (25 marks) and answer comprehension and grammar questions on a second unseen poetry passage (25 marks), again with English background, glossed names and an approximately even comprehension-grammar split. There is no pointing question on the poetry. Section C is the composition: translate a prose passage of approximately 100 words from English into pointed Biblical Hebrew (50 marks). The passage will be based on a suitably ancient text and may be adapted; it is written primarily in third-person narrative prose with some direct speech; and names of people and places are supplied in POINTED Hebrew in a glossary. At 50 marks Section C is the largest single question in the qualification, worth a third of Paper 1 and a sixth of the whole A-level.
Paper 1 — how the three question types are marked: Three distinct mark schemes, all AO1, and each rewards something different. TRANSLATION: the passage is divided into sections each worth 5 marks and the principle is the proportion of sense achieved out of 5 — 5 for an accurate translation with one slight error allowed, 4 for mostly correct, 3 for more than half right, 2 for less than half right, 1 for little recognisable relation or meaning to the Biblical Hebrew, 0 for no response or none worthy of credit. POINTING: errors are counted, not marks awarded, and the count is converted by a grid: 1-5 errors scores 5, 6-10 scores 4, 11-20 scores 3, 21-30 scores 2, 31-45 scores 1, and more than 45 scores 0. The specification defines what counts as one error: an incorrect vowel; a vowel on a letter that should be unpointed; a missing vowel or dagesh; and a dagesh in a letter that should not have one. COMPOSITION: the 100-word passage is divided into nine sections each worth 5 marks, and up to 5 further marks are awarded for individual instances of idiomatic and stylish Biblical Hebrew writing — nine fives plus five is the 50. Each of the nine phrases is marked on a two-column ladder, grammar in one column and spelling-and-pointing in the other, with the examiner starting at the bottom and climbing, and a best-fit judgement where the two columns disagree. The pointing column is where the qualification's most consequential single sentence sits: an answer with no attempt at pointing cannot gain more than 2 marks for the phrase. 5 requires pointing 75 per cent or more correct with all spelling correct; 4 requires pointing 50 per cent or more correct with one or two minor spelling errors; 3 requires any attempt at pointing with minor spelling errors.
Papers 2 and 3 — Prose literature and Poetry: Two two-hour written papers of 75 marks each, 25 per cent of the A-level each, testing AO2 and AO3. Their architecture is identical, which means one revision method serves both. Paper 2 examines the prose set texts: Section A on set text 1 gives 10 marks of comprehension and grammar, 5 marks of translation and a 15-mark question analysing literary style, characterisation, argument and literary meaning — 30 marks; Section B on set text 2 gives 5, 5 and 15 — 25 marks; Section C is a 20-mark essay drawing on set text 2 together with the material read in English translation. Paper 3 has exactly the same shape on the poetry set texts, with set text 3 in Section A and set text 4 in Section B and C. Note the asymmetry inside each paper: the FIRST text of the pair carries twice as much comprehension and grammar as the second, while the SECOND text carries the essay as well as its own 15-mark question, so set texts 2 and 4 must be known well enough to argue from, not merely to construe. On the 15-mark questions students are asked to refer both to the content and to the language of the passage, and are advised to write approximately 300 words; on the Section C essays they are advised to write approximately 500 words. Everything written is marked and there is no word limit, but the specification states that students who write the recommended number of words will have access to the full range of marks. No dictionaries are allowed and there is no access to the set texts in the exam, except for the extracts quoted on the question paper itself.
The set texts, the additional reading and the marking grids: The four set texts are fixed for the lifetime of the specification, which is unusual among ancient-language A-levels and removes the cycle-checking that Latin and Classical Greek candidates must do. Prose: Set text 1 is I Samuel 1-7, omitting 2:1-10; Set text 2 is II Kings 9-13, with prescribed additional reading in English of I Kings 11:28-40, 12:19-33, 16:29-34 and 21, and II Kings 8:25-29. Poetry: Set text 3 is Jeremiah 13-18; Set text 4 is Psalms 50-59, with prescribed additional reading in English of I Samuel 19:9-17, 21:2-16, 22:7-19, 23:14-28 and 24:1-8, and II Samuel 12:1-24. The additional reading is not optional background: the specification says it covers events referred to in the set texts and enables students to understand and appreciate their literary context, and it is the material Section C of each literature paper requires the essay to draw upon. Hebrew verse counting is used throughout, which matters most in the Psalms, where a superscription is counted as a verse. Marking: the 5-mark translation blocks in Papers 2 and 3 use the same proportion-of-sense grid as Paper 1. The 15-mark questions are marked on a five-level AO3 grid running 13-15, 10-12, 7-9, 4-6 and 1-3, rewarding the quality of the points made and the range and quality of the examples selected from the passage. The Section C essays are marked on a five-level grid over 20 marks, 17-20 down to 1-4, carrying 10 marks of AO2 and 10 of AO3, equally weighted and awarded by best fit — the specification states explicitly that a mark of 14 made up of AO2 11 and AO3 3 should not be achievable, so a brilliant analysis of a text a candidate does not know, or an accurate summary that argues nothing, both fail.

Instrument · 03Official sources