Advanced Placement (AP) Latin, formerly Advanced Placement (AP) Latin: Vergil, is an examination in Latin literature offered to American high school students 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.
Material previously tested (before 2012)
Students were expected to be familiar with these following lines of the Aeneid:
Book 1: Lines 1–519
Book 2: Lines 1–56, 199–297, 469–566, 735-804
Book 4: Lines 1–449, 642–705
Book 6: Lines 1–211, 450–476, 847–901
Book 10: Lines 420-509
Book 12: Lines 791–842, 887-952
Students were also expected to be familiar with the total content of Books 1 through 12.
Abilities tested
The exam tests students' abilities to:
Translate a Latin passage from the syllabus into English literally
Explicate specific words and phrases in context
Identify the context and significance of short excerpts from the works specified in the syllabus Identify and analyze characteristic or noteworthy features of the authors' modes of expression, including their use of imagery, figures of speech, sound effects, and metrical effects (in poetry only), as seen in specific passages Discuss particular motifs or general themes not only suggested by passages but also relevant to other selections Analyze and discuss structure and to demonstrate an awareness of the features used in the construction of a poem, thesis, or an argument Scan the meters specified in the syllabus
Reading and translation
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 tense, voice, number, and mood of verbs need to be translated literally
Subject-verb agreement must be correct
Participles should be rendered precisely with regard to tense and voice
Ablative absolutes may be rendered literally or as subordinate clauses; however, the tense and number of the participle must be rendered accurately Historical present is acceptable as long as it is used consistently throughout the passage.
Exam
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:
20–30% grammar and lexical questions (10–15 questions) 35–45% translation or interpretation of a phrase or sentence (17–23 questions) 2–5% metrics: that is, scansion of the dactylic hexameter line (1–3 questions) 2–5% figures of speech (1–3 questions) 20–30% identification of allusions or references, recognition of words understood but unexpressed, explication of inferences to be drawn (10–15 questions) 2–5% background questions on the Aeneid passage only (1–3 questions)
The free-response section includes translation, analysis, and interpretation of the Latin text from the syllabus. The format is as follows: