Prose literature: Group 1 set text

You have two hours for Component 03 and 75 marks. Work out what each section is worth in time, and what kind of writing each demands.

1. 01Establish the shape

   Three sections. Section A on the Group 1 text: translation, comprehension, and a 15-mark analytical question. Section B on the Group 2 text: the same three tasks. Section C: an essay on the Group 2 text together with the material read in translation. The 75 marks are distributed across those three sections, and the mark allocation is printed on the paper — check it in the first minute and do not rely on a remembered distribution from a past paper.

2. 02Convert marks to minutes

   Two hours is 120 minutes for 75 marks, so a mark is worth about a minute and a half. Reserve five minutes at the start to read the paper and choose an essay question, and five at the end to check. That leaves 110 minutes to distribute in proportion to the marks actually printed on your paper. The arithmetic is worth doing on the question paper itself, in pencil, in the first two minutes: write a finishing time beside each section.

3. 03Match the register to the task

   The translation wants literal accuracy and complete coverage of every Greek word — the same standard as Component 01, on a text you have prepared. The comprehension wants short factual answers, as many facts as there are marks. The 15-mark question wants continuous prose arguing a case, with short Greek quotations translated as you go. Section C wants a structured essay with an argument that develops. Four registers, and switching between them cleanly is a skill worth rehearsing under timed conditions.

4. 04Decide the order of attack

   Answer in the order printed unless you have a strong reason not to, because the sections are keyed to passages printed in that order and moving about wastes time. The one defensible exception is the Section C essay: some candidates plan it in the first five minutes, while fresh, and write it last, so the argument has been forming in the back of the mind through the other sections. If you do this, write the plan on the answer booklet where you can find it.

5. 05What to protect when time runs short

   Protect the 15-mark questions and Section C, because they carry the AO3 marks, which outweigh AO2 in this paper. A translation that is four words short loses those four words; a 15-mark answer that never reaches its second paragraph loses far more. If you are behind, shorten the translation's checking, not the analysis's writing.

Result: Component 03 is two hours for 75 marks, about a minute and a half a mark, with the actual distribution printed on the paper. Section A and Section B each demand three registers of writing — literal translation, short factual answers, and continuous analytical prose — and Section C demands a fourth. Marks are protected in the order AO3 first, because analysis carries 40 marks against knowledge's 35.

Constructed teaching Greek in a Herodotean narrative manner, not a quotation. Work the passage into four quotation-bank entries. — ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς ταῦτα ἤκουσεν, ἐγέλασέ τε καὶ εἶπεν· ὦ ἄνθρωπε, οὐκ οἶσθα ὅ τι λέγεις. ὁ δὲ γέρων οὐκ ἐφοβήθη, ἀλλ' ἀπεκρίνατο ὅτι πολλοὶ ἤδη τῶν μεγάλων ἔπεσον. καὶ ὁ μὲν βασιλεὺς ἀπῆλθεν γελῶν, ὁ δὲ γέρων ἔμεινε σιγῶν.

1. 01Entry one — the king's laugh

   Greek: ἐγέλασέ τε καὶ εἶπεν. Translation: he both laughed and said. What it does: the two actions are yoked by τε καί into a single gesture, so the laugh is not a reaction that precedes the speech but part of it. Theme index: characterisation of the king, arrogance. Note also the accent thrown back onto ἐγέλασέ by the enclitic τε, which is the printed proof that τε belongs with it.

2. 02Entry two — the address that condescends

   Greek: ὦ ἄνθρωπε. Translation: man, or my good man. What it does: ἄνθρωπος in the vocative from a king to an old adviser is dismissive — it names the hearer by his species rather than his name, his rank or his age. Theme index: characterisation, the gap in status between the two speakers. Two words, and they carry a whole relationship.

3. 03Entry three — the adviser's answer

   Greek: πολλοὶ ἤδη τῶν μεγάλων ἔπεσον. Translation: many of the great have already fallen. What it does: a general sententious statement offered in place of a direct reply, which is how a wise adviser in Greek narrative characteristically speaks; ἤδη, already, quietly implies that the king will be one of them. Theme index: the wise adviser, the mutability of fortune, foreshadowing.

4. 04Entry four — the closing balance

   Greek: ὁ μὲν ... γελῶν, ὁ δὲ ... σιγῶν. Translation: the one laughing, the other keeping silent. What it does: a μέν and δέ antithesis with two present participles in the same metrical and grammatical position, so the sentence sets the two men side by side and leaves the reader to weigh them. Theme index: narrative technique, characterisation by contrast, the narrator declining to judge. This is the entry that would earn most in a 15-mark answer, because it is a feature that carries a meaning.

5. 05What the four entries have in common

   Each is short enough to write out under time. Each has a literal translation attached, so no thinking is needed in the examination about what it means. Each has a note saying what it DOES, not merely what it says. And each is filed under a theme rather than a line number, so that a question about characterisation retrieves the second and fourth entries at once. Build the bank this way from the first week and the 15-mark question stops being a memory test.

Result: Four bank entries from four lines: ἐγέλασέ τε καὶ εἶπεν, the laugh yoked to the speech; ὦ ἄνθρωπε, the dismissive address; πολλοὶ ἤδη τῶν μεγάλων ἔπεσον, the adviser's sententia with its quiet ἤδη; and ὁ μὲν ... γελῶν, ὁ δὲ ... σιγῶν, the balanced closing antithesis. Each is two to six words, each carries its translation, and each is filed under a theme.

Constructed teaching Greek in a Herodotean narrative manner, not a quotation. ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς ταῦτα ἤκουσεν, ἐγέλασέ τε καὶ εἶπεν· ὦ ἄνθρωπε, οὐκ οἶσθα ὅ τι λέγεις. ὁ δὲ γέρων οὐκ ἐφοβήθη, ἀλλ' ἀπεκρίνατο ὅτι πολλοὶ ἤδη τῶν μεγάλων ἔπεσον. Compare a fluent remembered version with an accurate one and name what the first has lost.

1. 01The remembered version

   The king laughed at this and told the old man he did not know what he was talking about. But the old man was not frightened and replied that plenty of great men had come to grief. It reads well. It would be a perfectly acceptable paraphrase for a book review. As an examination translation it has lost a great deal, and each loss is a mark.

2. 02Loss one — the temporal clause

   ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς ταῦτα ἤκουσεν is a subordinate temporal clause with its own subject and its own aorist verb: when the king had heard this. The remembered version has compressed it into at this, which deletes both the clause and the fact that hearing preceded laughing.

3. 03Loss two — the yoked verbs

   ἐγέλασέ τε καὶ εἶπεν is two coordinated aorists, he both laughed and said. The remembered version turned the second into a reporting verb, told, which converts direct speech into indirect and loses the τε καί construction entirely.

4. 04Loss three — the direct speech and its address

   ὦ ἄνθρωπε, οὐκ οἶσθα ὅ τι λέγεις are the king's own words, and the vocative ὦ ἄνθρωπε is in them. Turning them into reported speech deletes the vocative, deletes the second-person verbs, and deletes the indefinite relative ὅ τι. The examiner is looking for four things here and the remembered version supplies none of them.

5. 05Loss four — the negative and the connective

   οὐκ ἐφοβήθη, ἀλλ' ἀπεκρίνατο is a strong negative followed by ἀλλά, but on the contrary. The remembered version keeps the sense but weakens the ἀλλά to a plain and. And ἤδη, already, has vanished altogether from plenty of great men had come to grief, although it is the word that turns a general observation into a warning.

6. 06The accurate version

   When the king had heard this, he both laughed and said: Man, you do not know what you are saying. But the old man was not afraid, but answered that many of the great had already fallen. Less elegant, and worth several more marks. Notice that the accuracy costs nothing in comprehensibility: it is not a stilted translation, merely a complete one.

Result: The remembered version lost the temporal clause, the τε καί coordination, the whole of the direct speech with its vocative and its indefinite relative, the force of ἀλλά, and the word ἤδη. The accurate version keeps all six and reads perfectly well. The lesson is that on a set text fluency is not evidence of accuracy and is very often evidence against it.

Constructed teaching Greek in a Platonic manner, not a quotation. Identify five features and convert each into a claim. — ΣΩ. εἰπὲ δή μοι, ὦ Κρίτων· ἆρα δεῖ τῷ τῶν πολλῶν λόγῳ πείθεσθαι ἢ τῷ τοῦ ἐπισταμένου; ΚΡ. τῷ τοῦ ἐπισταμένου δήπου. ΣΩ. οὐκοῦν καὶ περὶ τῶν δικαίων ὁ αὐτὸς λόγος; εἰ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα τῷ ἰατρῷ ἐπιτρέπομεν, πῶς οὐ τὴν ψυχὴν τῷ περὶ ἀρετῆς ἐπισταμένῳ;

1. 01Feature one — the imperative that opens

   Greek: εἰπὲ δή μοι, ὦ Κρίτων. Translation: tell me now, Crito. The aorist imperative with δή and the vocative opens the exchange by placing the burden of speech on the other man, and the enclitic μοι makes it personal rather than formal. Claim: the questioner sets himself up as the one who receives answers rather than the one who supplies them, which is the position from which the whole method works.

2. 02Feature two — the disjunctive question

   Greek: ἆρα δεῖ ... ἢ τῷ τοῦ ἐπισταμένου. Translation: must one obey ... or that of the man who knows? Claim: the question is a forced choice, and the alternatives have been arranged so that only one of them can be chosen without absurdity. The interlocutor is not being asked what he thinks; he is being offered a route with one exit.

3. 03Feature three — the interlocutor's minimal assent

   Greek: τῷ τοῦ ἐπισταμένου δήπου. Translation: that of the man who knows, I suppose. Claim: the reply is two words and a particle. δήπου concedes while hedging, so the assent is real but reluctant, and the characterisation is done entirely by length: an interlocutor who answers in four syllables is not driving the conversation.

4. 04Feature four — the analogy

   Greek: εἰ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα τῷ ἰατρῷ ἐπιτρέπομεν. Translation: for if we entrust the body to the doctor. Claim: the argument moves from an undisputed case, medical expertise, to the disputed one, moral expertise. Nothing about the soul has been proved; what has happened is that the hearer has been made to grant a principle in a setting where it costs him nothing, and the principle is then carried across.

5. 05Feature five — the closing rhetorical question

   Greek: πῶς οὐ τὴν ψυχὴν τῷ περὶ ἀρετῆς ἐπισταμένῳ; Translation: how not the soul, to the man who knows about virtue? Claim: the conclusion is never stated. It is left as a question whose only possible answer completes the argument, so the interlocutor draws it himself and cannot easily disown it. Notice also the ellipsis of the verb, which makes the sentence quick and gives it the feel of an obvious inference rather than a new claim.

6. 06What turns five observations into an answer

   Each of the five above is written as feature, Greek, translation, claim. That is the paragraph unit of a 15-mark answer. What is still missing is an argument that connects them, and it is available here: all five features work in the same direction, which is to make the conclusion look like the interlocutor's own. Stating that in a first sentence and then proving it through the five observations is the difference between a list and an essay.

Result: Five features: the opening imperative with vocative, the disjunctive question, the interlocutor's minimal hedged assent, the analogy from medicine, and the closing rhetorical question with its ellipsis. All five push in one direction — towards a conclusion the interlocutor appears to reach himself — and naming that direction in a first sentence turns the five observations into an argument.

The question: how does the writer characterise the two men in this passage? [15] The passage is the constructed Herodotean narrative used earlier: ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς ταῦτα ἤκουσεν, ἐγέλασέ τε καὶ εἶπεν· ὦ ἄνθρωπε, οὐκ οἶσθα ὅ τι λέγεις. ὁ δὲ γέρων οὐκ ἐφοβήθη, ἀλλ' ἀπεκρίνατο ὅτι πολλοὶ ἤδη τῶν μεγάλων ἔπεσον. καὶ ὁ μὲν βασιλεὺς ἀπῆλθεν γελῶν, ὁ δὲ γέρων ἔμεινε σιγῶν.

1. 01The opening claim

   Write it first, in one sentence: The two men are characterised almost entirely by contrast, and the writer arranges the passage so that the reader is invited to prefer the one who says least. That sentence is now the thing the rest of the answer proves, and every unit below is chosen because it supports it.

2. 02Unit one — the king's laugh

   The king's first response is not speech but laughter, and the two are yoked into one action by τε καί: ἐγέλασέ τε καὶ εἶπεν, he both laughed and said. Because the laughter is coordinated with the speaking rather than reported before it, the king's amusement is not a reaction to the argument but a substitute for engaging with it, and the reader sees a man who has dismissed the old man before answering him.

3. 03Unit two — the vocative that ranks the hearer

   The address confirms it: ὦ ἄνθρωπε, man. A Greek speaker with any respect for his interlocutor has a name, a title or an age to use; the king reaches instead for the word that means human being, which places the old man in a species rather than a relationship. Two words do the work that a paragraph of narrative characterisation would otherwise have to do.

4. 04Unit three — the adviser's reply, and what it declines to do

   The old man does not defend himself. The narrator marks the refusal with a negative and a strong adversative — οὐκ ἐφοβήθη, ἀλλ' ἀπεκρίνατο, he was not afraid, but answered — and what he answers is not a personal claim but a general one: πολλοὶ ἤδη τῶν μεγάλων ἔπεσον, many of the great have already fallen. The generality is the characterisation. He speaks in the manner of a man reporting how the world works, and ἤδη, already, lets the warning apply to the king without ever naming him.

5. 05Unit four — the closing balance

   The final sentence sets the two men in the same grammatical frame: ὁ μὲν βασιλεὺς ἀπῆλθεν γελῶν, ὁ δὲ γέρων ἔμεινε σιγῶν, the king went away laughing, the old man stayed in silence. The μέν and δέ antithesis, the two aorist main verbs and the two present participles in the same position make the comparison unavoidable, and the writer offers no comment on it. The judgement is left entirely to the reader, which is why it feels earned rather than imposed.

6. 06The link outward and the close

   One sentence connecting to the wider work: the wise adviser who is dismissed and proved right is a recurring shape in Greek historical narrative, so a reader who knows the form is already expecting the king's laughter to be answered by events. Then return to the opening claim, sharpened: the characterisation is achieved not by description but by arrangement, and the man who is given the fewest words is the one the passage leaves standing.

Result: Four units, each built as claim, Greek, translation and explanation of how, framed by an opening claim and a closing return to it, with one connection to the wider tradition. Total Greek quoted: four phrases, none longer than seven words, all translated. That is the shape of a full-mark answer, and it takes about twenty minutes to write.