<p>i know this is an sat/act discussion board, but people have posted questions about ap tests on here so i was wondering if any of you have taken IB biology or IB latin exams and how i would study for those, how hard they were, etc...</p>
<p>CC is not the place to go to about specific IB questions. These kids are pretentions little jackasses who think AP is where its at. :P</p>
<p>Go to ibscrewed.com and see the forum.s</p>
<p>Go download past tests (takes awhile but google will yield some results) and do them...do as many as you can. Also, I find using the IB syllabus to study from also works.</p>
<p>i took the IB latin exam junior year. i took it while taking the AP latin lit course, and the AP course covered everything on the IB except for a few catullus and horace poems. but if this is not your case, i would say just try hard in class throughout the year. make sure you have a solid base on grammar because that is helpful in tricky situations (when you only remember part of a translation, not at all, and case uses). one tool that was helpful in class was the most common word list for the aeneid. you can find these online, make sure you know all of them. the nice thing about this class was that it is largely poem by poem (except for the aeneid). so just make sure you note the key points of these poems and a little something the remember them by. since you have a whole year of this class (i assume), take your time and pick out a few favorites. if they occur at all interesting to you, embrace that. you never know when you will be like "oh this is the ones with the cool liquid imagery," and then find yourself using that tidbit to squeeze out answers. noticing patterns in the poems is also helpful because you will most likely be asked to compare poems. while they may ask you to contrast them as well, usually you can use your general info to support the similarities and hopefully hone in on a few key words to suggest differences in the specific poems. i found the IB test to be a bit more like a narrative than the AP (if that is a useful comparison for you). in a big way they guide you along and give you as many opportunities as they can to explain yourself, so make sure you are aware of the author's goals and themes so you can make some sense everywhere. IMHO i dont think it is useful to do many past tests. i would definitely definitely look at them periodically and see their format and what types of questions they ask, but i think in the scheme of things it is not worth it to take many practice tests for latin, esp. with so many other tests in mind. well thats my advice and thats pretty much what helped me get a 7. </p>
<p>i heard from my friends who took IB biology higher level that it is really not difficult. very hard to get a 7 (only 3 in my school's history), but 6's were pretty common at my school every year (prob 30 or so per year out of maybe 75 or 80).</p>
<p>oh wow thanks a lot sreis, that really helped (you have no idea :). now i can actually begin focusing on what to concentrate on this year in latin and what to materials i could use to prepare. my teacher passed out an example of a previous latin exam earlier, do you mind if I ask you periodically about some of the questions? BTW good job on your 7 in latin!! that is terrific.
another thing, i've been reviewing on past latin grammar and such, and i can usually nail down the techniques when they're in sentence forms or in ovid poems that the author gives to use with practice, but when I have to translate line by line from an actual translation, i find myself flustered and I can't seem to translate as quickly on those. any suggestions?
thanks again for your comments!! they are really helpful!</p>
<p>burnsk8ter the real url is ibscrewed.net</p>
<p>arbortrees, i often got stuck translating poetry and had a lot of problems going from grammar books to actual poetry. there are a lot of quirks in poetry that the authors have to use to conform to the meter, and in some more conversational poems, grammar takes a back seat. the biggest problem that hit me at first was adjective(s) modifying a noun. in grammar guides, it is always one or two words away from the noun and usually after it. but in poetry, anything goes. the adjective could be at the end of the line, on the next line, and sometimes two lines away. ive seen two adjectives on different lines that still modify a single noun. you will find yourself naturally getting better at identifying what makes sense, and always remember the thought has to make decent sense in context. when you translate something incorrectly, and your teacher or whoever gives you a correct translation, you will almost always think "oh yeah, that makes more sense." you can use that relationship to your advantage, just always be on the look out for fishy translations. </p>
<p>more technically, i almost always look at the verb first for its number. if its plural, look for a plural noun or adjective. if it is just an adjective, it is probably modifying the understood pronoun, as in "they joyous lit the fire." if you spot a noun, look for any words that are in the same case, because if they agree grammatically, 99% of the time they are supposed to be together in your translation. so i guess i was taught to do something like:</p>
<p>verb (look for person+number) > nouns (nominative case that agree with person+number) > adjectives (agree with nouns) > accusative anything (if verb in transitive)</p>
<p>this might sound basic, but if you do this all the time, the other stuff you have to fill in should flow together nicely. i recommend this because you really do have to scan all around to see everything that is happening sometimes. once you get ahold on what it happening (using above), then that is where you'll see your case uses esp. all those ablatives, dative references/dir, genitive possession, etc. </p>
<p>perhaps the most important thing to remember is that you have a whole year ahead of you. it is a long time to train yourself and get quicker. at the beginning of the year, everybody in my class was really slow. as your vocab naturally builds and the grammar rules become familiar, your speed will definitely improve. in fact, a lot of times you will translate something correctly, and completely forget the grammar name of what you just used. this is great because they never ask you things like "passive periphrastic" or "gerundive" on the IB, they ask you to translate, that is all. so try to remember what things look like and slowly but surely you'll get where you want to be, as long as you're interested or motivated otherwise. feel free to ask me any questions you have in the future.</p>
<p>sreis, thanks a lot, i'm going to try your advice on just finding the basic verbs, then matching it with nouns, then the accusative. i realize that most of the time when i translate i take the whole sentence in and become nervous because the line looks so long. i also have a terrible habit of translating the way i translate from grammar translations, a habit that i really need to learn to let go. usually the verbs and nouns will be so obvious in grammar books because they go in the correct order or sometimes deviate by placing the verb at the end or such, so then I just trained myself to that method. your post, however, has made me realize that i shouldn't get so scared because the line is so long, but just to piece things together, so i will just focus on those basics. thanks! i'm glad i made this thread lol</p>
<p>:)</p>
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