Advanced Placement Latin
Advanced Placement Latin (known also as AP Latin), formerly Advanced Placement Latin: Vergil, is an examination in Latin literature offered by the College Board's Advanced Placement Program. Prior to the 2012–2013 academic year, the course focused on poetry selections from the Aeneid, written by Augustan author Publius Vergilius Maro, also known as Vergil or Virgil. However, in the 2012–2013 year, the College Board changed the content of the course to include not only poetry, but also prose. The modified course consists of both selections from Vergil and selections from Commentaries on the Gallic War, written by prose author Gaius Julius Caesar. Also included in the new curriculum is an increased focus on sight reading. The student taking the exam will not necessarily have been exposed to the specific reading passage that appears on this portion of the exam. The College Board suggests that a curriculum include practice with sight reading. The exam is administered in May and is three hours long, consisting of a one-hour multiple-choice section and a two-hour free-response section.
The AP Latin exam was based upon Vergil's Aeneid and Caesar's De Bello Gallico.
Students were expected to be familiar with these following lines of the Aeneid:
Students were also expected to be familiar with the total content of Books 1 through 12.
The exam tests students' abilities to:
Critical appreciation of the Aeneid as poetry implies the ability to translate literally, to analyze, to interpret, to read aloud with attention to pauses and phrasing, and to scan the dactylic hexameter verse. Students should be given extensive practice in reading at sight and in translating literally so that their translations not only are accurate and precise, but also make sense in English.
The instructions for the translation questions, "translate as literally as possible," call for a translation that is accurate and precise. In some cases an idiom may be translated in a way that makes sense in English but is rather loose compared to the Latin. In general, however, students are reminded that:
The three-hour exam consists of a one-hour multiple-choice section and a two-hour free-response section that includes fifteen minutes of reading time and one hour forty-five minutes of writing time. The multiple choice section includes approximately fifty questions that relate to four passages: three read at sight and one from the syllabus. The multiple choice questions test the many skills learned and practiced throughout the year, including:
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