Classical Greek Continuers 2016 HSC exam pack (archive)
2016 Classical Greek Continuers HSC paper (archived)
Marking guidelines
Marking guidelines are developed with the examination paper and are used by markers to guide their marking of a student's response. The table shows the criteria with each mark or mark range.
Sample answers may also be developed and included in the guidelines to make sure questions assess a student's knowledge and skills, and guide the Supervisor of Marking on the expected nature and scope of a student's response. They are not intended to be exemplary or even complete answers or responses.
HSC marking feedback
Select from the link(s) below to view feedback about how students performed in this year’s examination.
Use the feedback to guide preparation for future examinations. Feedback includes an overview of the qualities of better responses. Feedback may not be provided for every question.
Feedback on written examination
Characteristics of better responses:
- translations of the texts were in fluent and idiomatic English, whilst accurately reflecting the Greek syntax, with particular care taken with tenses (Q1)
- responses to short-answer questions clearly focused on the extracts given (Q2)
- a clear assessment was provided rather than just a retelling of the content of extracts (Q2b and Q3)
- a perceptive understanding of Herodotus’ methods as a historian and an explanation based upon analysis of the extract was provided (Q2c)
- clearly stated an overall theme of Book VI, rather than a topic or event, and argued for the effectiveness of Herodotus’ focus based upon a discussion of each extract and evidence drawn from the rest of Book VI (Q3).
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- an inability to deal with the many participles in the set translations, both in terms of the long sense units they create and their syntactical function, for example, temporal and causal (Q1)
- a lack of understanding of ou phemi was evident (Q1a)
- a weaker grasp of the extracts given, providing instead information loosely relevant to the question (Q2)
- little or no understanding of the meaning of the Greek extracts and their significance for the question was shown (Q3).
Characteristics of better responses:
- accounted for every word in the set translations and provided meanings appropriate to the context; in particular, the full force of the demonstrative adjectives to give the sense that the speaker is pointing at different groups (Q4a) and the concessive nature of the genitive absolute (Q4b)
- a thorough understanding of the Greek by referring closely to the extracts was demonstrated (Q5)
- showed a significant understanding of the contemporary issues relevant to the play (Q6)
- offered examples of a range of different types of humour, not just the use of humour in general, and clearly linked these examples to Aristophanes’ purpose of poking fun at contemporary issues (Q6).
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- omission of words or even whole clauses in the set translations, for example leaving out ‘What are those men doing …’ (Q4a)
- misunderstanding of entire constructions or sentences, for example the idea of three parts (to men … to de … to de) (Q4b)
- a tendency to over-complicate questions and introduce irrelevant material (Q5 and Q6)
- a misunderstanding of the Greek in the extracts given (Q5).
Characteristics of better responses:
- an accurate rendering of the protasis of the conditional sentence (Q7d)
- a more idiomatic rendering of line 188, for example, ‘why do you not go yourself and offer a defence’ (Q7d)
- the ability to handle well the long sense units made up of multiple clauses and the accusative and infinitive constructions dependent upon verbs or participles of command (Q8d).
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- misunderstanding of line 183, the conditional sentence, and lines 188 and 189 (Q7d)
- limited knowledge of vocabulary (Q8d)
- a very limited understanding of the overall sense of the extract (Q8d).
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