It is currently possible to take Latin and/or Greek at Higher or Standard Level in the IB.
The language courses consist of a mixture of language and literature. The classical author from whom passages for unseen translation in the examination are specified: Xenophon for Greek, Cicero or Ovid for Latin. Students practise reading widely in these authors and build on the grammar and vocabulary they learnt for GCSE. Dictionaries are allowed into the examination. At both levels, the examination consists of a long passage with the beginning and end translated into English: candidates translate the middle section into accurate and fluent English. For Higher Level, there are also questions on grammatical usage and on aspects of the author’s style.
The literature paper requires extensive reading in Latin/Greek and in English. The topics currently offered are:
- Greek tragedy (Euripides’ Medea in Greek and Hekabe in English, with Sophocles’ Electra in English)
- Plato’s portrait of Socrates (Apology in Greek, Crito and Euthyphro in English)
- Roman epic (Virgil’s Aeneid 2 in Latin, other books of the Aeneid in English)
- Roman Love Poetry (selections from Catullus’ Poems, Horace’s Odes and Ovid’s Amores in Latin, further Ovid and Propertius in English)
Standard level candidates are required to read less literature. There is a range of prescribed topics and the choice is made to reflect the experience and interests of the candidates.
At higher level, there is a third element. This may be an Oral Presentation on a subject of classical interest chosen by individual students, or a Research Dossier in which they research a topic of their choice and produce a dossier of annotated source material. Recent examples have included:
- What did the River Tiber mean to the Romans?
- How did the emperor Augustus use architecture to express the ideology of his regime?
- Why did Cicero hate Clodius?
- Why did Nero murder his mother?
Alternatively, candidates may offer prose or verse composition. Instead of being given an English passage to translate into Latin or Greek in an examination, they choose their own author and passage and translate it into Latin or Greek in the style of a particular, appropriate Latin or Greek writer (this year, for example, one candidate is offering Robert Byron in the style of Xenophon).
Several girls choose to write their IB Extended Essay on a classical theme (and all who have done so up till now have achieved the highest mark). Topics have included Roman expectations of women, the worship of Cybele (the Phrygian Mother-Goddess) in Rome and how Catullus has been translated into English over the centuries.
