<p>I am thinking about self-studying it, but am not sure of the difficulty... I have Wheelock's Latin, but will working through the entirety of that be enough to pass the SAT Latin test with a nice high score? I've heard it's not an easy test, and I want to make sure I learn everything I need to. </p>
<p>I'm also thinking of using Excelability after working through Wheelock's Latin, as extra review/practice before the test. </p>
<p>Should I do anything more? Also, do you think about a year is enough for preparation? (I already know a lot of Latin grammar and vocabulary from studying it lightly for about a year, so the first few chapters of Wheelock's will not take very long.)</p>
<p>Any tips/pointers would be appreciated. Thanks in advance ;)</p>
<p>I realize that the test was yesterday (I took it) . Not sure if you decided to or not. Anyways I can help point out some stuff. I’m a sophomore and I’ve taken 2 years of Latin. However, all the stuff I learned in class doesn’t really amount to that much info. I read through the entirety of the new version of Wheelock’s (twice) excluding the passages at the end. It took a while for me to really grasp the subjunctive, dependent clauses, and all of that stuff. But since I’m a 2nd year my teacher and all the exercises we did in class helped to affirm my learning. I got the REA review book (yellow and black one) and found it to be very very useful. There are a few errors here and there but in the end the REA book really helped to strengthen my confidence. I found that it helped point out the simple tricks in the test and patterns. </p>
<p>I suggest you take the test end of sophomore year or end of junior year, it all depends on how good you are personally at Latin. </p>
<p>The test itself is pretty hard, but after long hours of diligent study, and deep understanding of the language, you begin to see how easy it is to find the patterns in the questions. The test is not really ambiguous, but you should have a strong basis of syntax, and all the types of clauses/uses of case/forms/exceptions … </p>
<p>Amount of info u should know:
Vocab: All basic vocab (know 1st year inside and out), 2nd year well, and basic advanced words (for example, patior, mordeo, etc)
Grammar: All basic forms, Most important uses of cases (REA does a great job), Verb forms, Clauses, Subjunctive clauses, Most important exceptions (Again, REA)
Reading Comp: Practice, practice, practice : In class, my school does a lot of RC prep, nearly a translation every 2 or 3 days.
Scansion: There’s bound to be one or two scansion/ellision questions (REA simplifies it, I learned through the book itself)
Deriv’s : Mostly simple stuff, Know the most popular ones they test on like caedo </p>
<p>I second all caufield suggested. I think RC is the most important – my class translates all class long, every class period, and we stop for a minute or two when we come across an important grammar point.</p>