I am having the struggle of my life in a 3rd year Latin course. I study my butt off, do all the translations twice, and meet with the TF every week to get extra help (and I have since the beginning of the semester) but none of that seems to be working. Over the course of the semester, my grades have declined, at mid-semester, I had a 91% quiz average and an A on the first midterm, now I have an 80% quiz average and got a B+/A- on the second midterm. I honestly don’t know what else to do! I need to get an A- in this class for my concentration, but that seems like a lost dream. There is no way for me to drop it, as I need 4 years of Latin to graduate, and I am not allowed by my concentration to take it pass/fail. Is there a better way to study for Latin that I have just been missing? Should I just give up?
Do you really need an A- to move on? That seems like a rather high requirement.
Why so desperate for the A-? A B is a perfectly respectable college grade.
Sorry for not being clear! I need an A- to stay in the concentration, they have a 3.9 GPA requirement.
That’s pretty strange, but if that is indeed the case then I guess you’re right that fixing whatever’s wrong is your next step. What types of questions do you miss? Why do you miss them?
I seem to have trouble with word recognition. Like on our last midterm I saw “sine genibus” and thought it said “without a race/species” (which would have actually been "sine gentibus, from gens) when really it was “without knees” (so, from genu. I know, I know, those are really different, but in context its an understandable mistake). This is a really embarrassing type of mistake to make after 3 years of studying, but I make them ALL the time. My TF and my friends who read Latin say you just have to practice and word recognition will come in time, but I’m starting to get impatient. Are there any tools to help with this?
Have you tried flash cards to help with the memorization? Then once you have the words down pat, it may just be a matter of working calmly and carefully on the test so as to read each word as it’s actually written.
That kind of reading error is completely understandable when you’re going fast. I just did a review problem wrong because I thought it gave me one temperature when it really gave me another. If I had been working more slowly / reading more carefully, and perhaps circling / underlining the problem statement as I sometimes do to keep all of the information straight, I wouldn’t have made that mistake.
It’s also a good idea to look back at past Latin stuff just to see if you missed anything or need to hone essential skills, in which they’re the base for Latin 3, declensions, tones, adverbs, all that boring stuff. Extra random vocab doesn’t hurt 
Yasss, @bodangles - flash cards, flash cards, flash cards. Actually WRITE them, don’t just use electronic ones. The act of writing puts it into your memory better. My D swears by flash cards - they got her high school and are getting through difficult term-heavy STEM classes in college (she is a bit salty about having to buy them herself now - haha). Yes, it’s time consuming, and yes, you will have to buy a lot of packs of 3 x 5 cards, but take them with you and pull them and review them whenever you have a free moment. Have someone else go over them with you.