Notes · Greek (Modern)UK · A-Levels

Reading: Paper 1 Section B, and the written source in Paper 3

This topic carries Paper 1 Section B, the reading assessment, and the reading half of Paper 3 Section B. Paper 1 Section B is 20 marks with a recommended forty-five minutes, four questions mixing multiple choice with open response, on texts that are authentic or adapted from authentic sources and that mix factual with abstract content — contemporary, historical, literary, fiction and non-fiction, written for different purposes and audiences, drawn across all the sub-themes and including an extended passage. All the questions are set in Greek and must be answered in Greek, and no dictionary is permitted. Reading matters out of proportion to that one section, because AO2 is 30 per cent of the whole qualification and 25 of those percentage points sit inside Paper 1, spread across Section B and the ten AO2 marks of the research question in Section C. A candidate who reads Greek quickly and accurately is therefore protected across the largest paper in the qualification, and one who does not is exposed twice in the same two and a half hours.

5 sections~32 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 2 · Advanced 3

T·0999 / 12

Exam profile

AO2 · Understand main points, detail and inference in written Greek across factual and abstract, literary and journalistic registersAO3 · Respond to written Greek in accurate written Greek, re-encoding rather than transcribingAO4 · Bring knowledge of Greek and Cypriot society and culture to bear so that inference is informed rather than guessedAO1 · Combine a read source with a heard one on the same sub-theme in Paper 3 Section B

Operators:εντοπίζωσυμπεραίνωσυνοψίζωεξηγώαναλύωαιτιολογώσχολιάζωαποδίδω

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is that main points and stated detail are found reliably and reported in correct Greek that is not lifted from the text.

higher level

The full A-Level expects the argument as well as the content — what the writer is refusing, conceding, implying — and the ability to answer an inference question with evidence rather than with a guess.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Reading: Paper 1 Section B, and the written source in Paper 3

Where Section B sits, and what the whole paper costs in time#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 1 — Translation into English, reading comprehension and writing (research question) in Greek, 2 h 30, 80 marks, 40 per centDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Paper 1 section by section

Fig. 1Two and a half hours, 80 marks, 40 per cent of the A-Level, and the only place in the qualification where anything is written in English. Note the mark density: Section A pays a mark a minute and Section C pays roughly a mark every two minutes, while Section B sits between them; and note that Sections B and C together account for two hours and ten minutes of the two and a half available. No dictionary is permitted, and no documentation relating to the research may be brought into the room.

Paper 1 is the largest component in the qualification — 80 marks and 40 per cent — and Section B is the smallest of its three parts by marks and the second largest by time. The recommended allocation is twenty minutes for the twenty marks of Section A, forty-five minutes for the twenty marks of Section B, and an hour and twenty-five minutes for the forty marks of Section C. Notice the implication: Section B pays roughly a mark every two and a quarter minutes while Section A pays a mark a minute, so a candidate who overruns on Section A pays for it in the section where the recovery is slowest. Notice also that Sections B and C together consume two hours and ten minutes of the two and a half hours available, and that both are written entirely in Greek.

The texts are described in the specification with unusual specificity and the description is worth reading as a syllabus for what to practise on. They are authentic or adapted from authentic sources; they contain both factual and abstract content; they are contemporary, historical, literary, fiction and non-fiction; they are written for different purposes and audiences; they draw on vocabulary and structures across all the sub-themes; and they include an extended passage. That list rules out a preparation diet of news articles alone. A candidate should read, over two years, Greek journalism, Greek opinion writing, some Greek fiction, some historical narrative and some official or institutional prose, because all five registers are advertised.

The four questions are a mixture of multiple choice and open response, and all of them are set in Greek and must be answered in Greek. That last fact reshapes preparation more than anything else in this section, because it means reading practice must always terminate in Greek writing. Reading a Greek article and understanding it perfectly develops nothing that is assessed unless you then write about it in Greek. The most efficient exercise is also the smallest: after every text you read, write two sentences in Greek — one stating the writer's main claim and one stating what the writer is arguing against. Those two sentences are, in miniature, what most Section B open-response questions ask for.

One structural feature of the paper is worth planning around. Because Section C is the research question, and because it is worth forty marks, a candidate arrives at Section B knowing that the largest task is still ahead. The temptation is to hurry Section B in order to bank time for Section C. This is a mistake in both directions: the recommended forty-five minutes for Section B is not generous, and Section C's recommended eighty-five minutes assumes a candidate who is not exhausted. The better plan is to protect Section A's twenty minutes ruthlessly, since it is the only section whose length is genuinely fixed by the passage, and to treat the boundary between B and C as the one place where five minutes may legitimately migrate.

Worked example

Deciding a Paper 1 timetable before the paper starts

You have two hours thirty minutes and three sections of very different mark density. Plan the paper, including what you will do if Section A takes longer than expected.

Fix Section A first, because it is the only section with a hard floor
A translation of a fixed passage takes as long as it takes; you cannot answer half of it and move on the way you can with a comprehension question. Twenty minutes is the recommendation and it is realistic for a passage of the usual length if you have practised. Decide in advance that at twenty-two minutes you stop, whatever state the last sentence is in, and return only if time remains at the end. The cost of running Section A to thirty minutes is eight minutes taken from the section where marks are hardest to earn back.
Split Section B by question and hold five minutes back
Four questions, twenty marks, forty-five minutes, so about ten minutes and five marks each, with five minutes unallocated. Read all four questions before reading any text, because knowing what is being asked changes how you read. Then take them in order, but skip immediately past any question you cannot start within a minute; the unallocated five minutes at the end exists for exactly that question.
Protect Section C's planning time, not its writing time
Eighty-five minutes for forty marks. A defensible split is fifteen minutes reading the unseen text and planning, fifty-five writing, and fifteen checking — and the fifteen at the end is not optional, because ten of Section C's forty marks are the AO3 accuracy and range grid and those are the marks a check recovers. Candidates who arrive at Section C late almost always take the time from the check, which is precisely the wrong place, because it is the only part of the answer whose marginal value is knowable in advance.
Decide the contingency in advance, once, and then follow it
The single rule: time migrates from B to C, never from C to B, and never from anywhere into A. If Section B runs to fifty minutes, Section C gets eighty and the check shrinks to ten. If Section B finishes in forty, Section C gets ninety and the check grows to twenty. Making that decision in the examination room costs concentration; making it now costs nothing.

Result: Section A twenty minutes, hard stop at twenty-two. Section B forty minutes on the four questions and five held back. Section C eighty-five minutes split fifteen planning, fifty-five writing, fifteen checking. Time migrates from B to C only.

Typical mistakes

Preparing by reading only news articles, when the specification advertises literary, historical and fictional texts too.
Reading Greek for two years without ever writing about it in Greek.
Rushing Section B to buy time for Section C, and losing more marks than the time is worth.
Treating the extended passage as a longer version of the short ones rather than as a different task.

Active revision

For a month, read one Greek text a day from a different register each week — journalism, opinion, fiction, history, institutional prose — and after each write exactly two sentences in Greek: the writer's main claim, and what the writer is arguing against. Keep them. At the end of the month you will have sixty sentences, and the second of each pair will be the harder and the more useful.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

The five text types the specification names, and reading for register#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 1 Section B — texts containing both factual and abstract content, authentic or adapted, contemporary, historical, literary, fiction and non-fiction, written for different purposes and audiencesDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Register in Greek is not a matter of politeness but of vocabulary layer, and it is unusually visible because Modern Greek carries a large stock of learned words inherited from the older written language. A formal Greek text will use λόγιες λέξεις and learned constructions where an informal one uses everyday equivalents: επιθυμώ against θέλω, δύναμαι against μπορώ, εντούτοις against όμως, εξαιτίας against λόγω or because of, ούτως ή άλλως against έτσι κι αλλιώς. Learned prepositions govern the genitive where their everyday counterparts govern the accusative — υπέρ του, κατά της, εν όψει των — and Appendix 2 names common prepositions of learned origin explicitly. Recognising the layer tells you the text's purpose before you have read its argument.

Journalism has its own conventions and they are testable. A Greek news report will front the source of a claim with σύμφωνα με or όπως ανακοίνωσε, will use the aorist for events and the imperfect for background, and will mark unverified information with φέρεται να or λέγεται ότι, both of which mean is said to and neither of which commits the writer. An editorial or a column, το κύριο άρθρο or η στήλη, will use the first person plural, rhetorical questions and the δεν είναι X, αλλά Y frame. Knowing that φέρεται να signals an unconfirmed report is worth a mark whenever a question asks whether the writer states something as fact.

Literary and fictional prose brings two things a candidate should expect. First, the historic present, used for narrative vividness, so a past-tense story may be told in present-tense verbs; a candidate who reads that as commentary on the present has misread the text. Second, free indirect speech, where a character's thoughts are reported in third person without a verb of saying, which means a sentence may express a view the narrator does not hold. Older or literary texts may also carry occasional learned forms, and, if genuinely old, polytonic accents; neither is a reason for alarm, and neither changes what the words mean.

Historical and institutional prose is the fifth register and the most predictable. It is dense in dates, in passive constructions and in nominalisations — η υπογραφή της συμφωνίας rather than η συμφωνία υπογράφηκε — and it uses the pluperfect heavily to establish sequence. The reading skill it demands is the ability to unpack a nominalisation back into its verb, because the question will usually be about who did what, and the text will have hidden the agent inside a noun. Practise the operation explicitly: η αναθεώρηση των στοιχείων από τη νέα κυβέρνηση means the new government revised the figures, and answering a question with the noun rather than with the action is one of the commonest ways to lose an open-response mark.

Worked example

Paper 1 Section B: reading an institutional paragraph and finding the agent

Read and answer in Greek. Η αναθεώρηση των δημοσιονομικών στοιχείων από τη νέα κυβέρνηση, τον Οκτώβριο του 2009, οδήγησε σε άμεση επιδείνωση των όρων δανεισμού. Η ανακοίνωση δεν συνοδεύτηκε από σχέδιο αντιμετώπισης, γεγονός που ερμηνεύτηκε από τις αγορές ως ένδειξη αβεβαιότητας.

Unpack the first nominalisation into its verb
Η αναθεώρηση των δημοσιονομικών στοιχείων από τη νέα κυβέρνηση. The head noun η αναθεώρηση is a nominalised verb, and the two phrases attached to it are its object, in the genitive, and its agent, marked with από. Unpacked: η νέα κυβέρνηση αναθεώρησε τα δημοσιονομικά στοιχεία, the new government revised the fiscal figures. Doing this conversion mentally before answering means that a question of the form Ποιος έκανε τι; is already answered; a candidate who works only from the noun will write about a revision and never name who made it.
Follow the causal verb and note what it links
οδήγησε σε άμεση επιδείνωση των όρων δανεισμού. Οδηγώ σε, to lead to, is the standard causal verb of institutional Greek and it takes σε plus the accusative. Its subject is the whole nominalisation from the first half of the sentence. Η επιδείνωση is a second nominalisation, a worsening, again with a genitive attached, των όρων δανεισμού, of the terms of borrowing. So the sentence is a causal chain between two nominalised events, which is exactly how this register works and exactly what makes it hard to read quickly.
Read the second sentence's passive and its γεγονός που
Η ανακοίνωση δεν συνοδεύτηκε από σχέδιο αντιμετώπισης, γεγονός που ερμηνεύτηκε από τις αγορές ως ένδειξη αβεβαιότητας. Συνοδεύτηκε is an aorist passive, was accompanied; ερμηνεύτηκε another, was interpreted. Γεγονός που attaches a comment to the whole preceding clause: a fact which. The agent of the interpreting is marked with από, τις αγορές, and the complement with ως, as. So it was the absence of a plan, not the revision itself, that the markets read as a sign of uncertainty — a distinction any well-set question will probe.
Write the answer in Greek with the agents restored
For Τι ακριβώς ερμηνεύτηκε ως ένδειξη αβεβαιότητας και από ποιους;, answer: Οι αγορές ερμήνευσαν ως ένδειξη αβεβαιότητας όχι την ίδια την αναθεώρηση των στοιχείων, αλλά το γεγονός ότι η ανακοίνωση δεν συνοδευόταν από σχέδιο αντιμετώπισης. Note three things: the passive has been turned back into an active with a named agent; the όχι … αλλά frame makes the distinction explicit; and συνοδευόταν, an imperfect, replaces the text's aorist because the answer is describing a state rather than an event.

Result: Model answer in Greek: Οι αγορές ερμήνευσαν ως ένδειξη αβεβαιότητας όχι την ίδια την αναθεώρηση των στοιχείων, αλλά το γεγονός ότι η ανακοίνωση δεν συνοδευόταν από σχέδιο αντιμετώπισης.

Typical mistakes

Reading a narrative historic present as a statement about the present day.
Attributing a view expressed in free indirect speech to the narrator.
Answering an institutional-prose question with the nominalisation rather than with who did what.
Treating an unfamiliar learned word as unknowable, when its everyday equivalent is usually recoverable from the root.

Active revision

Take one Greek text in each of the five registers the specification names. For each, write in Greek one sentence identifying the register and one piece of evidence for it — a learned preposition, a hedging verb, a historic present, a nominalisation. Then, for each, translate one sentence into English and note what the register cost you in the translation.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Question types, and answering in Greek without lifting#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 1 Section B — four questions, multiple-choice and open-response; all questions set in Greek and answered in GreekDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Answering in Greek is the constraint that shapes everything in this section, and it creates a specific trap: the temptation to lift. A candidate who copies the sentence containing the answer has produced Greek that is certainly correct and has demonstrated nothing, and a marker cannot tell a lifted answer from a transcribed one. The technique that solves it is re-encoding, and it has three moves that can be applied to any sentence. Substitute a synonym for the key noun or verb. Change the grammatical shape — a passive into an active, a verb into a noun, a relative clause into a participle. And add the attribution the text did not need but your answer does: κατά τον συγγραφέα, όπως επισημαίνεται στο κείμενο.

The question stems are a small closed set and each demands a specific shape of answer. Τι…; wants a thing. Ποιος…; wants a person or agent. Γιατί…; wants a cause, so the answer must contain επειδή, καθώς, λόγω or διότι. Πώς…; wants a manner or a mechanism, not a reason. Ποια είναι η άποψη του συγγραφέα…; wants a stance, not a summary. Τι εννοεί ο συγγραφέας λέγοντας…; wants an explanation of a phrase, which means restating it in different words and saying what it is doing. Σε τι διαφέρουν…; wants a stated point of difference, and an answer that describes both things without naming the difference does not answer it.

Multiple choice in a reading paper is easier than in a listening one, because the text is there to check against, and that is exactly how it should be used. Do not choose the option that feels right; find the words in the text that make one option true and the other three false, and if you cannot find them, you have not yet chosen. The distractor types are the same as in listening — true of the text but not an answer to the question, a reasonable inference the writer did not draw, and a real phrase from the text in a false relation — and the third of these is defeated only by checking the relation rather than the vocabulary.

Inference questions are where the top of the section is decided and they are answerable rather than guessable. An inference in a well-set paper is always supported by something in the text: an implication of a word choice, a contrast the writer sets up, a concession the writer makes, or something the writer conspicuously does not say. So an inference answer should contain its evidence: Ο συγγραφέας δεν το δηλώνει ρητά, αλλά η χρήση της λέξης Χ και η αντίθεση με το Υ υποδηλώνουν ότι …. Υποδηλώνω, to imply, and αφήνει να εννοηθεί, gives to be understood, are the two verbs this kind of answer needs, and having them ready is the difference between an answer that reads as reasoning and one that reads as a guess.

Worked example

Re-encoding one sentence four different ways

The text contains: Η κυβέρνηση ανακοίνωσε ότι τα μέτρα θα εφαρμοστούν σταδιακά, ώστε να μην επιβαρυνθούν υπερβολικά τα χαμηλότερα εισοδήματα. Show four ways to answer a question about it without lifting.

Move one: substitute the key words
Η κυβέρνηση γνωστοποίησε ότι η εφαρμογή των μέτρων θα γίνει βαθμιαία, προκειμένου να μην πληγούν δυσανάλογα τα χαμηλά εισοδήματα. Five substitutions — γνωστοποίησε for ανακοίνωσε, βαθμιαία for σταδιακά, προκειμένου να for ώστε να, πληγούν for επιβαρυνθούν, δυσανάλογα for υπερβολικά — and the sentence is unrecognisable as a copy while saying exactly the same thing. Building a stock of such pairs is the single most useful vocabulary work for this section.
Move two: change the grammatical shape
Σύμφωνα με την ανακοίνωση της κυβέρνησης, η σταδιακή εφαρμογή αποσκοπεί στην προστασία των χαμηλότερων εισοδημάτων. Here the reported clause has become a prepositional phrase, the passive future has become a nominalisation, and the purpose clause has become a verb with a prepositional object, αποσκοπεί σε, aims at. The content is identical and not one grammatical structure survives from the original, which is precisely what demonstrates understanding.
Move three: add the attribution the answer needs
Κατά την κυβέρνηση, ο σταδιακός χαρακτήρας της εφαρμογής έχει προστατευτικό σκοπό. Κατά plus the accusative, according to, is three characters of Greek and it does two jobs: it makes clear that this is the government's stated intention rather than an established fact, and it signals to the marker that you have understood the sentence as a report rather than as a statement of what will happen. Any question about a claim in a text should be answered with an attribution.
Move four: answer the inference the question may actually be asking
If the question is Τι υποδηλώνει η φράση «ώστε να μην επιβαρυνθούν υπερβολικά»;, the answer is not a paraphrase but an inference with its evidence: Η διατύπωση αφήνει να εννοηθεί ότι τα μέτρα θα επιβαρύνουν τα χαμηλότερα εισοδήματα σε κάποιον βαθμό, καθώς το επίρρημα «υπερβολικά» περιορίζει την επιβάρυνση αντί να την αποκλείει. That is a real inference, drawn from a single adverb, and it carries its evidence in the same sentence — which is what separates the top band from the one below.

Result: Four answers, none of them lifted: a synonym substitution; a grammatical recasting; an attributed version; and an inference that names the adverb it rests on. The last is the one that distinguishes a candidate, and it costs one clause more than the others.

Typical mistakes

Copying the sentence that contains the answer, which cannot be distinguished from transcription.
Answering a πώς question with a cause, or a γιατί question with a description.
Writing more than the question asked, which in a points-based scheme can introduce an error that cancels a correct element.
Guessing an inference without saying what in the text supports it.

Active revision

Take any Greek opinion piece and write four questions on it in Greek, one of each type: a τι, a γιατί, a ποια είναι η άποψη and an inference question. Answer them a week later, and then check each answer against one rule only — does it share any phrase of more than three words with the text? Every such phrase is a place where the answer proves nothing.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

The extended passage, and reading for argument rather than for content#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 1 Section B — texts vary in length and include an extended passageDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The specification says the texts vary in length and include an extended passage, and the extended passage is a different task rather than a longer one. On a short text a candidate can hold the whole thing in mind while answering; on a long one they cannot, and the skill that matters becomes navigation. Read the extended passage once for its architecture before answering anything, and mark the architecture in the margin as you go: where the writer states the position they are arguing against, where they state their own, where the examples begin, where the concession is made, where the conclusion arrives. Five marginal marks and you can find anything in it in seconds.

Greek argumentative prose signals its architecture generously if you know the signals. Καταρχάς or πρώτα απ' όλα opens; αφενός … αφετέρου sets up a two-part structure; από τη μια … από την άλλη does the same more informally; επιπλέον and εξάλλου add; ωστόσο, όμως, εντούτοις and παρ' όλα αυτά turn; βέβαια and ασφαλώς concede; συνεπώς, επομένως and άρα conclude; εν κατακλείδι, τέλος and συμπερασματικά close. Learning that list of about fifteen words does more for reading speed on an extended passage than a hundred nouns, because it lets you predict the function of a paragraph from its first three words.

The distinction that the hardest questions turn on is between what a text says and what it argues. A passage may contain a great deal of information and make one claim, and a question asking Ποιο είναι το κεντρικό επιχείρημα του κειμένου; is asking for the claim, not for the information. The test is: which sentence, if removed, would leave the passage without a point? That sentence is usually near the start, restated near the end, and everything between them is evidence. Candidates who summarise the evidence have answered a question about content when they were asked one about argument, and the mark scheme will not reward it.

Two habits protect a candidate on a long text under time pressure. First, answer the questions in the order that suits the text rather than the order they are printed: locate first the questions whose answers you noticed while reading the architecture, and bank them. Second, when a question sends you back to a specific line, read the sentence before and the sentence after as well, because Greek argumentative prose distributes a claim across a group of sentences more often than English does, and the pronoun or connective at the start of the target sentence usually points backwards. Αυτό, αυτή η άποψη, το γεγονός αυτό, μια τέτοια προσέγγιση all refer back, and answering without knowing what they refer to is answering half a sentence.

Worked example

Finding the argument in a paragraph that is mostly evidence

Identify the central claim and say why the rest is evidence. Τα τελευταία χρόνια όλο και περισσότερα χωριά αποκτούν σύνδεση υψηλής ταχύτητας, νέους δρόμους και, σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις, ιατρείο. Ο πληθυσμός τους, ωστόσο, συνεχίζει να μειώνεται. Αυτό δείχνει ότι το πρόβλημα της ερήμωσης δεν ήταν ποτέ μόνο ζήτημα υποδομών· ήταν, και παραμένει, ζήτημα εργασίας.

Identify the function of the first sentence
Τα τελευταία χρόνια όλο και περισσότερα χωριά αποκτούν σύνδεση υψηλής ταχύτητας, νέους δρόμους και, σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις, ιατρείο. Three items in a list, all of them improvements, all of them infrastructure. Όλο και περισσότερα is a comparative intensifier, more and more. This sentence is evidence, and specifically it is the evidence for a claim that has not yet been made. A candidate who summarises the paragraph as being about rural investment has stopped here.
Register the turn at ωστόσο, which is where the argument starts
Ο πληθυσμός τους, ωστόσο, συνεχίζει να μειώνεται. Ωστόσο is the turn, and it is placed inside the clause where English would front it. Συνεχίζει να plus the subjunctive is continues to. The sentence sets a fact against the previous one and thereby creates the puzzle the paragraph exists to solve: investment has arrived and the population is still falling. The pairing, not either sentence alone, is the evidence.
Find the claim after the backward-pointing αυτό
Αυτό δείχνει ότι το πρόβλημα της ερήμωσης δεν ήταν ποτέ μόνο ζήτημα υποδομών· ήταν, και παραμένει, ζήτημα εργασίας. Αυτό refers back to the whole pairing, which is why the two preceding sentences had to be read together. Δείχνει ότι, shows that, introduces the inference. Then the δεν ήταν ποτέ μόνο X· ήταν Y frame delivers the claim, and the ano teleia marks the pivot. Remove this sentence and the paragraph is two facts with nothing joining them, which is the test.
Write the answer as the claim, with the evidence subordinated
Το κεντρικό επιχείρημα είναι ότι η ερήμωση της υπαίθρου δεν οφείλεται πρωτίστως στην έλλειψη υποδομών αλλά στην έλλειψη εργασίας· ως τεκμήριο ο συγγραφέας επικαλείται το ότι ο πληθυσμός συνεχίζει να μειώνεται παρά τη βελτίωση των υποδομών. Note the shape: the claim first, in one clause, and then the evidence explicitly labelled as evidence with ως τεκμήριο. That labelling is what tells a marker you know the difference, and it costs two words.

Result: Model answer in Greek: Το κεντρικό επιχείρημα είναι ότι η ερήμωση της υπαίθρου δεν οφείλεται πρωτίστως στην έλλειψη υποδομών αλλά στην έλλειψη εργασίας· ως τεκμήριο ο συγγραφέας επικαλείται το ότι ο πληθυσμός συνεχίζει να μειώνεται παρά τη βελτίωση των υποδομών.

Typical mistakes

Reading the extended passage straight into the first question and then re-reading it for every subsequent one.
Summarising the evidence when asked for the argument.
Answering from a single sentence when the sentence opens with a backward-pointing pronoun.
Working through the questions in printed order when two of them were already answered by the architecture read.

Active revision

Take a Greek opinion piece of at least eight hundred words. Read it once and mark five things in the margin: the position argued against, the writer's own position, the start of the examples, the concession, the conclusion. Then, without re-reading, write in Greek one sentence stating the central argument. Then check by removing that sentence from the article in your head and asking whether anything is left.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Reading without a dictionary: building the vocabulary the paper assumes#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Papers 1, 2 and 3 — students are not permitted access to a dictionary during the examinationDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

No dictionary is permitted anywhere in this qualification, which makes the recovery of an unknown word from its parts a first-order examinable skill rather than a study habit. Greek is unusually generous here because its word formation is transparent and largely inherited. A prefix carries a reliable meaning: αντι- against, υπο- under or sub-, υπερ- over, προ- before, μετα- after or change of, δια- through, συν- or συμ- with, ανα- again or up, κατα- down or thoroughly, εκ- or εξ- out, εν- or εμ- in, α- or αν- not. A root recurs across dozens of words: γραφ- write, λογ- word or reason, φερ- carry, βαλ- or βολ- throw, δεικ- show, κριν- judge, πραγ- do, στασ- stand.

The suffixes tell you the part of speech and often the shade of meaning, which is what lets you place a word in a sentence even when you cannot define it. Nouns in -ση and -μός name a process, η αναθεώρηση, ο δανεισμός; in -τητα a quality, η ποιότητα, η ισότητα; in -μα a result, το αποτέλεσμα, το πρόβλημα; in -της or -τής an agent, ο εργάτης, ο μαθητής. Adjectives in -ικός relate to something, οικονομικός, πολιτικός; in -τός are capable of or done, ορατός, γραπτός; in -μένος are past participles, γραμμένος. Verbs in -οποιώ make something into, ιδιωτικοποιώ; in -ίζω often do something with, φωτίζω. Given a prefix, a root and a suffix, an unknown word is a puzzle with three clues.

Two further recovery routes are worth having. The first is the doublet: Greek very often has a learned word and an everyday word sharing a root, so an unfamiliar formal term may be a relative of one you know — ύδωρ and νερό, οίκος and σπίτι, άρτος and ψωμί, οδός and δρόμος, ίππος and άλογο. If you know that η οδός is a road, then οδικός, η διοδία and ο οδηγός all become guessable. The second is the international layer: Greek supplies the learned vocabulary of English, so a great many abstract English words have a Greek relative that is spelled predictably — δημοκρατία, ανάλυση, μέθοδος, κρίση, σύστημα, πρόγραμμα, θεωρία, πολιτική. That door swings both ways and it is worth pushing.

The vocabulary that actually needs learning by heart is therefore not the abstract layer, which is largely recoverable, but the ordinary one, which is not. The everyday nouns and verbs of Greek — φτιάχνω, βάζω, πιάνω, ρίχνω, κρατώ, γυρίζω, πετυχαίνω, χαλάω — have wide, idiomatic ranges and are not guessable from roots. So are the small function words that carry argument: μάλλον, τουλάχιστον, ωστόσο, εξάλλου, δηλαδή, πάντως, άλλωστε, ίσα ίσα. A candidate's revision time is better spent on those two lists than on the technical vocabulary of the themes, because the technical vocabulary can be recovered in the examination room and these cannot.

Worked example

Recovering four unknown words from their parts

You meet these in a text and know none of them: η αποκέντρωση, ο ανασχηματισμός, δυσανάλογος, η αναδιανομή. Work each one out.

Η αποκέντρωση
Απο- means away or off; the root is κεντρ-, centre, which you know from το κέντρο; and -ωση is the nominal suffix naming a process. So: the process of moving away from the centre — decentralisation. In a sentence about local government or administration that is enough to answer any comprehension question, and the exact English word is a bonus rather than a requirement.
Ο ανασχηματισμός
Ανα- means again or re-; the root σχημ- is shape or form, from το σχήμα; and -ισμός names a process. So: a re-forming or reshaping. In a political text it means a cabinet reshuffle, and even without knowing that the general sense places it correctly. The suffix also tells you it is a masculine noun in -ος and therefore that του ανασχηματισμού is its genitive, which is what you need in order to write about it.
Δυσανάλογος
Δυσ- is the negative or ill- prefix, the opposite of ευ-; ανάλογος means proportionate and is itself transparent, from ανα- plus λογ-. So δυσανάλογος is disproportionate, and the -ος, -η, -ο ending tells you it is an adjective of the commonest class. Note that δυσ- does not mean not, which is α- or αν-; it means badly or with difficulty, so δυσανάλογος is out of proportion rather than simply not proportionate — a shade worth having.
Η αναδιανομή
Three elements this time: ανα- again, δια- through or across, and the root νεμ- or νομ-, distribute, which also underlies η νομή and ο νόμος. Plus -ή, a nominal ending. So: a distributing-across-again, that is, redistribution. This word is a good example of why the prefix list is worth the hour it takes to learn: a word of five syllables that looked opaque is transparent once it is cut in three places, and it names one of the central concepts of Θέμα 4.

Result: Η αποκέντρωση, decentralisation, from απο- plus κεντρ- plus -ωση. Ο ανασχηματισμός, a reshaping or reshuffle, from ανα- plus σχημ- plus -ισμός. Δυσανάλογος, disproportionate, from δυσ- plus ανάλογος. Η αναδιανομή, redistribution, from ανα- plus δια- plus νομ- plus -ή. None was known; all four are placeable, and three are exactly translatable.

Typical mistakes

Leaving a gap because a word is unknown, when its prefix and suffix would have placed it well enough to answer.
Learning theme vocabulary exhaustively while the ordinary verbs remain shaky.
Assuming a Greek word that resembles an English one means the same thing. Some do not, and the safe check is the sentence.
Ignoring the small argument words, which are what a reading question about stance actually turns on.

Active revision

Take twenty words you do not know from any Greek text. For each, write the prefix, the root and the suffix, then your guess at the meaning and the part of speech, then check. Count how many you placed correctly even where the exact meaning eluded you. That number, not the number you knew, is what predicts your performance in a dictionary-free examination.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel) · GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Pearson Edexcel

Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Reading: Paper 1 Section B, and the written source in Paper 3

5 sections~32 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 2 · Advanced 3

The five text types the specification names, and reading for register#

Advanced

Pearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 1 Section B — texts containing both factual and abstract content, authentic or adapted, contemporary, historical, literary, fiction and non-fiction, written for different purposes and audiences

DfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Reading: Paper 1 Section B, and the written source in Paper 3

Key points

Deciding a Paper 1 timetable before the paper starts

Key points

Paper 1 Section B: reading an institutional paragraph and finding the agent

Key points

Re-encoding one sentence four different ways

Key points

Finding the argument in a paragraph that is mostly evidence

Key points

Recovering four unknown words from their parts

Sources

Reading: Paper 1 Section B, and the written source in Paper 3

Key points

Deciding a Paper 1 timetable before the paper starts

Key points

Paper 1 Section B: reading an institutional paragraph and finding the agent

Key points

Re-encoding one sentence four different ways

Key points

Finding the argument in a paragraph that is mostly evidence

Key points

Recovering four unknown words from their parts

Sources