AP Latin: Vergil
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The AP Latin: Vergil exam is part of the College Board's Advanced Placement Program. Over one million high school students from the United States and Canada participate in AP exams annually, and schools from over 30 countries offer placement or credit for the exams. Policies on acceptance of AP exams for college credit vary from university to university, but many schools will accept a high score on an AP exam for college credit, and schools that do not give credit for AP exams often have very competitive admissions (where the majority of accepted applicants will have taken one or more AP exams).
Material Tested
The AP Latin: Vergil exam is based upon Vergil's Aeneid.Students are expected to be familiar with the following 1,856 lines of the Aeneid:
- Book 1: lines 1-519
- Book 2: lines 1-56, 199-297, 469-566, and 735-804
- Book 4: lines 1-448, 642-705
- Book 6: lines 1-211, 450-476, and 847-901
- Book 10: lines 420-509
- Book 12: lines 791-842, 887-952
Abilities Tested
The exam tests students' abilities to:
- Literally translate a Latin passage from the syllabus into English
- Explicate specific words and phrases in context
- Idenitfy 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 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 construction. In general, however, students are reminded to remember 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.
Grade Distribution
In the 2005 administration 4,362 students took the exam from 653 schools. The mean score was a 3.00. The grade distribution for 2005 was:
| Score | Percent |
|---|---|
| 5 | 18.7% |
| 4 | 17.2% |
| 3 | 28.6% |
| 2 | 16.3% |
| 1 | 19.1% |
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