<p>Hi CCers,</p>
<p>Currently I am taking Latin 1 at school. On the National Latin Exam for people taking the Latin 1 test, I recieved an "Honorable Merit <em>Magna Cum Laude</em>". I don't know if this means much, but this is just to give a sense of my backround. I was wondering if at Deerfield I should repeat Latin 1, or if I should just go straight to Latin 2. Can any of the current Latin students inform me of what students learn during Latin 1 so I can know where I stand right now? Thanks!</p>
<p>I assume that for Latin, as for other languages, the school will send a placement test. Generally they do a pretty good of sorting out what level you should take. If it is not right you can move in the first few weeks of school.</p>
<p>We use Ecce here at Deerfield, but my old school used Cambridge and I was on the purple book by the end of the year there. I believe they talk to your teacher for a placement (there’s no test) and I was placed into Latin III, which is where I should have been. There were a few new students in my class who dropped down to Latin II after a few days in the class though, so its really no big deal if you feel the class is too hard for you. Read the course descriptions too, if you have the chance, I feel like everyone who takes Latin ends up reading basically the same thing at some point and so its a lot easier to place people correctly.<br>
I’ve never taken the National Latin Exam (both my old teacher and my teacher here at Deerfield don’t really like it), but we did fill out the level three in class one day this year as an activity, but it wasn’t graded or anything. I find that Latin teachers either really like the National Latin Exam or hate it because of the heavy cultural/mythological components.</p>