A396 Ancient Greek Examination Results 2007

Drum roll, please .... !

Results
Okay, the results came in a few days ago for my A396 Continuing Ancient Greek course with the Open University, but I've been waiting for a spare moment to post up the good tidings and here they are - yes, I passed!

In spite of missing ten weeks of the course - through eviction, followed by general apathy - I managed to achieve a Grade 3 Pass. Within that, my tutor marked assignments gave me an average of 86% (I missed the third assignment and had to accept a substitute score) with an exam percentage of 64%.

Results Breakdown
I lost most marks in the English to Greek section - no surprises there! I imagine that I wrote utter rubbish and can only apologise to whichever bewildered examiner had to pick their way through my unlikely Greekage.

And although I ran out of time for the translation and had to write down the first things that popped into my head, however nonsensical, scribbling at a furious rate in the last few minutes, I got somewhere between 40 and 54% for that section. Yeh!

But my best performance, bringing in marks of between 85 and 100% in that section, were the questions on Plato's Symposium. They included a brief extract for translation, comprehension questions on a 'seen' passage, and two short essays on character / structure / plot / Greek society etc.

Nearly Threw in the Towel
So that's another 30 points under my belt - and to think I nearly threw in the towel halfway through the year and didn't bother completing the course!

Naturally I would have liked a higher mark, but you have to put in the grammar work for that, and I didn't. Considering how difficult 2007 turned out to be, I am happy enough with a Grade 3 Pass, which is perfectly respectable and roughly equates to about a 'C' at A Level.

My next learning adventure with the Open University is their first year Latin course, which should be much easier, as I already have an A Level in Latin (from my dark and distant past), and don't have to adjust to a different alphabet!

Not Bad for an Idiot
I shall continue - and indeed have already continued - with my Greek studies, but at a more leisurely pace. It will be more of a gentle pastime now, and less of a psychotic race towards a high cliff, which is how A396 felt at times. No doubt it's just my own inability to organise my study time, and to grasp fundamentals in grammar and syntax, but I'm sorry to say I won't be looking back on A396 with fond memories. Indeed, it often felt like I'd climbed onto the back of an insane horse and didn't know how to make it STOP!

Lastly, many thanks to my tutor Robert, who encouraged me to keep going when I couldn't see a way through the mire, and whose careful advice helped me prepare for an examination in a subject I'd only studied piecemeal. Excellent job!

So ... 64% in Ancient Greek. Not bad for an idiot.

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Examination Results & What To Do Next

I've just checked the Open University site, and apparently my Greek A396 examination results are due on December 14th. Eek!

Last year I received them in the post a little earlier than expected, and the results weren't posted on my Student OU page until a few days later. So the dreaded grade may come in earlier than the 14th.

I've just been looking ahead to what I might study after the Latin course I've already signed up for in 2008. 'World Archaeology' looks fun, a shorter but highly intensive thirty point course - and I need a thirty point course, I believe, for my point tally - that next runs from September 08 to January 09.

I have to check first about my credit transfer scores - from my time completed at Oxford - before I can say for certain whether I need a thirty point course. It's a very complicated business, requiring different calculations according to which qualification you want from the OU. But certainly, once I've completed the second year of Latin (i.e. in the autumn of 2009, probably) I will have a Diploma in Classical Studies.

After that, I'll be working towards the full OU degree. Though in what, precisely, I'm still not sure at this stage. Probably Humanities with Classical Studies.

Homer - and why he's so damn difficult

Back to the Greek

It's far enough away now from the examination for me to be able to glance at some Greek without experiencing that sick sensation in the pit of my stomach, so I've been leafing through the A396 course again this week, noting down roughly what I missed - rather a lot! - and what I'd like to revise - practically all of it!

I'm short on time, as always, but have decided to start my 'third year of Greek' - which is essentially what this will be, as I swing back through my second year course at more leisure and with less panic - with some poetry. During the period of my eviction, mid-year, I was reliably informed by my tutor that I could miss all of the work done on Greek poetry and still manage to pass the course, as poetry doesn't figure in the examination.

He noted, of course, the irony behind this advice, given that I am a poet by profession and that my original reason for studying Ancient Greek was to provide myself with a more informed foundation from which to attempt translations of the Greek poetry classics, e.g. Homer and Sappho.

But now, with no examination to frighten me, I can look back on the poetry elements of the course with complete sanguinity (which the dictionary tells me should be 'sanguineness', though it doesn't sound as elegant). Well, more or less complete. From the first thirty lines of the Iliad given in the study guide (from Book 16), I can see that it isn't easy to read and translate Homer, even when under no pressure to do so brilliantly.

Homer: a split-personality?

Firstly, Homer was probably not one man, as most subsequent ages have assumed. The poems we attribute to 'Homer' may well have been the work of several or even many poets, some of whom used quite ancient and difficult dialect forms. For a start, there's no augment. Then some common words have additional letters added or just look and sound plain different, occasionally because of the prior existence of the digamma - a letter which has now disappeared from Greek, but left its mark behind on the language forms.

There are also various conventions associated with Greek verse which entail certain words being truncated (for metric reasons) or unusual compounds being scattered about in an unreasonably ad hoc manner (that sounds pretty and poetic, thought Homer, even if it doesn't make a great deal of sense).

This means a whole new way of reading Greek has to be developed if I'm to make any headway with Homer. Luckily, of course, there is an upside.

Firstly, I already have experience reading Latin verse, so I'm not that easily thrown by nouns separated from their adjectives or difficult-to-recognise poeticisms being trundled out to add drama or 'prettiness' or for the convenience of the metre - here, the grand but flexible hexameter.

Secondly, I've studied Anglo-Saxon poetry too, including those highly lugubrious pieces The Wanderer and The Seafarer. This means that odd poetic compounds like Homer's 'wine-dark' sea are no stranger to me. Besides, those 'stock poetic phrases' do tend to get repeated a fair amount too, the Iliad being (or is at least assumed to be) a written form of an earlier oral poetry, which makes the student's life somewhat easier.

I shall type up some Homer for you at some stage (it takes ages to get the right letters!) and then maybe do a little translating, to demonstrate what I mean.

Meanwhile, do please leave some helpful Comments below if you're interested in any of this. Not that the terminal lack of Comments has ever been a block to my writing this blog. I just carry on, speaking aimlessly into the void, like a nervous cyber-tic ....

Finding a Use for Plato

I was finally able to put my new-found knowledge of Greek - well, of Plato, at least - to good use today, so I thought I'd celebrate that fact by sharing it with my blog readers. All two of you!

I was at a conference today at Warwick University on Poetry & Philosophy. At the coffee break, inspired by references to Plato during the papers given that morning, I gingerly insinuated myself into a conversation between the speaker on Thomas Wyatt (Eirik Steinhoff, University of Chicago) and a thoroughly erudite man - the sort with leather patches on the elbows of his jacket - who were discussing connections between sixteenth & seventeenth century English poetry and Platonic philosophy.

I interrupted these earnest fellows with my usual boldness - okay, brashness - and asked whether the Platonic personification of Love in the Symposium (as described by the character of Diotima) could be seen as a forerunner or prototype of the Elizabethan love poem - its descendants being the short lyrics now found everywhere in Western contemporary poetry. In other words, that the idea of love as some rough-living barefoot beggar, scrounging for scraps and never able to hold onto anything he gets, has informed our poetic vision ever since, with particular reference to the tradition of courtly (i.e. unrequited) love.

The answer was a bemused 'possibly', a response which, whilst not exactly enthusiastic, did make me feel I hadn't wasted my time studying the Symposium this year! For at least I am now able to look less like a spare part at these august academic gatherings.

Here's a link to my Raw Light blog entry about my visit to the Conference.

The best part though, was when a woman of about my own age, who had been sitting near me and with whom I'd exchanged a few words about Thomas Wyatt and the Petrarchan sonnet form just before that paper was introduced, came up to me at the end and asked if I'd like to give a paper on poetry at a university conference in France that she's organising next year.

I now await her email with bated breath!

End of the Road?

The exam is now two weeks behind me and my result isn't due until the middle of December.



So, is this the end of the road for me and Ancient Greek?

Although I'm not keen to look at any Greek just at the moment, I'm not sure it should be the end of the road. It seems pointless to spend nearly two years learning a language - especially, perhaps, a dead language - if you are then never going to put that hard-won knowledge and those linguistic skills to any use.

The likeliest is that I shall look back on those parts of the course I had to miss - due to my eviction - which were mainly to do with reading Greek verse, and begin to learn how to scan and translate classical poetry. Homer, for instance.

I first read Latimer's translation of the Iliad - or parts of it, at least, in curious browsing - when I was about ten years old. It will be particularly enjoyable, then, to revisit that translation with an awareness of the original Greek behind it, no longer ten years old but forty-plus and at last a classical scholar - of sorts!

As for the examination itself, and my pending result in December, although I'm pretty certain I've passed (40%), I can't say with any conviction that I'll be awarded more than 50%.

I'll be very happy to get 56% though, which would just scrape me a Pass Three. So that's about the mark I've been aiming at - bearing in mind my lost weeks - and hoping for.

How did it go? Well, firstly I made a major mistake in the way I tackled the paper, and that's where I will have lost marks. I should have done the translation first, as the hardest part of the paper and correspondingly carrying the most marks. Instead, I stupidly lost courage in the first few moments of the exam and chose to do the grammar section first, even though it carries the fewest marks.

I then compounded my error by doing the Symposium section next, instead of the dreaded translation. Scared of what lay ahead, perhaps, I over-wrote the Symposium essays and found myself with only 45 minutes to attempt what is essentially an hour's worth of Greek translation. This, in spite of the fact that I know perfectly well that the two short essays on Plato only carry about 25 points together, but the translation comprises, I believe, 40% of the paper.

Secondly, my mind went blank when writing about Plato's Symposium, so although I actually over-wrote on both short essays, it was mainly a page or two of rambling without many point-gathering thoughts.

Bizarrely, I actually chose to do the essay topic I hadn't already tackled, instead of one which I'd written about during preparation for the exam. I think this was because I'm easily bored and the question I chose - on a topic I had never before considered - seemed unusual and interesting in comparison. I can only hope the examiner thought my answer was interesting too. Because he or she certainly won't think it was a razor-sharp analysis of Plato's Symposium!

So basically, when I finally came to the dreaded translation - an obscure piece from Xenophon, as predicted by our tutor - I was in a terrible rush. There was no time to look through the piece before beginning to translate it, and I even found myself unable to bring my mind to bear on the English introduction or to keep more than a hurried eye on the given vocab., as I had to race through at top speed, just throwing words down in whatever order they occurred to me.

For instance, this is the sort of thing I might have scribbled down: 'and then he coming to the mountain said 'Know well, you that eat here, the soldiers' horses are dead, for that is the end of the torches.'

Utter nonsense, in other words. And probably illegible in parts, as my handwriting began to disintegrate as the clock spun away the minutes towards the end of the time allotted. You may think this is mere exaggeration, but in fact, I was still writing the last sentence of this insane translation, my jaw set hard and sweat on my palms, as the guy at the front said 'One minute left.'

That's how close it was. No time to look over the paper for stupid errors, no time to do anything but put down my pen and check my name on the front.

Next year, Beginners' Latin with the OU. Thank goodness. Having done Latin to A Level at school, this next course should be a walk in the park. Which means I'll get the same amount of OU points as I did for this year's excessively thorny Ancient Greek studies, yet still have plenty of time left over for reading and writing poetry. Which is precisely what I need at the moment, as everything seems to be happening for me in poetry at the moment, plus I have a new collection due out in 2008 which I have not quite finished writing!

If you're interested in following my adventures in Latin, my new OU blog is already up and running in preparation for the new course, which starts in February 2008.

Here's the link to Jane Learns Latin. Hope to see you there - and maybe even get some comments this year!

On the Eve of Battle

In the interests of economy, on this, the last day of revision before my examination, I am not blogging here about the horror of it all, but posting up this link instead, to a Greek Examination post already written on my other main writing blog, Raw Light.

I still haven't actually read through all the 'set' passages from Plato's Symposium, and as for committing the 101 most common irregular verb forms to memory, that is a starry ambition far beyond my ability to complete before tomorrow at 10am.

I may have a nervous breakdown before then, though.

Exam on the 10th October

This has been a crazy year for me. I've been evicted from a home I was really beginning to love, I've been away from home and my kids more often than I'm comfortable with, I've given more poetry readings than ever before in a single year, I've got back into regular reviewing for poetry magazines, I've been writing a novel - several novels, truth be told - and on top of all the stressful activity, I've been working hard to write new poems towards my third collection, due out June 2008.

As far as my Ancient Greek's concerned, it's been like a yo-yo for the past six months - off, then on, then off again. Now it's back on, after my tutor kindly encouraged me to continue, with the Open University examination looming in less than two weeks on October 10th.

But how well can I genuinely expect to do in this examination? I've missed about ten weeks of the OU course due to being evicted - and snowed under with poetry work - then, just as I was finishing my last Tutor Marked Assignment, there was a family bereavement, which was a great shock and affected my efforts to catch up on that missed work.

Luckily I managed to get 91% in that final TMA, which has kept my average over 90% for the whole course. Now all I need to do is get about 50% or more in the exam. The pass mark is 40% but it would be nice to do slightly better than that, for the sake of my pride! Logically, though, all that missed work must have an effect somewhere and it is bound to show up in the exam. So I'm steeling myself for a poor mark in the exam, but one which will enable me to pass the course.

I haven't yet managed to catch up on the 'set passages' from Plato's Symposium, so that's what I'm doing this week. Not so much revision as first vision. I anticipate finishing that mid-week, then spending the last six days prior to the examination in revising the 101 most important irregular verbs, formation of adjectives and adverbs, noun declensions and last, but not least, various purpose, result and other special clauses.

Phew!

Note to self: do an easier course next year!

Back in the Race (more or less)

It all looked a bit grim last week on the Greek-front, because I haven't been able to tackle much studying in the past month, and so have fallen dangerously far behind in my course. This is largely due to the impending eviction. But there are other elements at play here, of course, one being that I simply don't have the energy to take yet more Greek grammar on board at the same time as everything else that's happening in my life.

Faced with that problem, I decided, more or less, that I was going to throw in the towel and tackle A396 Continuing Classical Greek another year. I wrote an email to that effect to my tutor, and another to my Regional Centre, and thought 'Right, that's an end to it.'

My Regional Centre was not exactly helpful. After three or four days, I got what appeared to be a standard reply to all emails of this nature, telling me I might want to discuss it with my Regional Study Support team but otherwise just saying 'So long and thanks for all the money.'

However, my tutor came back to me in a flash, giving me some extremely good advice. He told me to push on with the course at all costs, to drop the next Tutor Marked Assignment (due the week of my eviction) and take a 'substitute mark' in its place - using an average taken from my other completed TMAs - and to skip all non-essential studying.

He admitted that, ironically, this will mean skipping most of the work on Greek poetry, as it doesn't appear in the final examination. Most importantly though, he felt I could still pass the course - and possibly even scrape a good 2nd - even if I lose ground now, as long as I can catch up with my studies once I've moved to a new house.

This decision will mean cramming like crazy during most of August and all through September (the examination is in early October). Never an ideal way to approach the study of a language, especially an ancient language with limited opportunity to 'speak' it. It does seem worth the added pressure, though, if it means I don't lose my financial investment in this course - not inconsiderable! - and can still manage to gain a reasonable pass grade.

And I can always look back on the poetry element of the course later, since I get to keep all the course materials.

So all bets are on again!

Right, all bets are off!

Well, I got my last TMA back at long last. I scored 93% AGAIN! Not dreadful then, but not staggeringly brilliant either.

Once again nearly all the faults were to be found in that fudging - nearly swore there! - grammar section. I tried really hard to avoid any mistakes but somehow - due to tiredness, an inability to read properly or just plain stupidity - I still cocked up enough to drop my mark. The translation was okay, just the odd half point off for not making clear which 'he' was the subject. Which is a bit of a swizz, as it's not clear in the Greek either. But apparently we lose marks for not being more precise than the original Greek authors.

But because of having to move house, and not getting the TMA back for ages and so losing interest in the score, and just because I'm yakked off with the whole tedious and repetitive process of learning Ancient Greek, I haven't actually bothered to look at the course for over 3 weeks now. And you all know what that means ... yep, when it comes to the July TMA (not to mention the exam in October) I won't have a clue what's going on.

Perhaps I'll give up. But I've paid so much money to do this course. Yet how can I possibly push on when I'm so busy with other things and I'm so now hideously far behind? I even missed the only face-to-face tutorial we were allocated, on Saturday morning in Birmingham, because I was taken up with house moving crap and completely forgot about the letter I'd received, with dates etc.

So I don't know what to do now. Push on and start really struggling, or give up and lose money and OU points for this whole year. Why am I telling you all this? Good bloody question.

Bored and Restless

Still no sign of my TMA 02 being returned. Blimey, it feels like weeks ago that I did it and yes, it IS weeks ago. Still waiting.

And whilst waiting, I'm feeling very restless and can't-be-bothered-with-Greek, so it's now about 10 days since I last sat down with my Greek Study Guide and attempted to follow the gist of it. We were doing poetry last week, which I ought to LOVE, being a poet myself, but I just kept thinking, this is pretty complicated and we DON'T need to know it particularly for the exam, as far as I know, so why am I wasting my time and effort on it?

So I didn't bother, and now I haven't picked up my Greek since that time. I did a few classes of New Testament Greek in the interim, which may have helped vaguely, but I am feeling extremely bored now. It must be that difficult halfway point that I remember from my first year of the Greek course.

And we're having to start packing soon and cleaning the house in preparation for our move, so even less Greek will be done in the weeks ahead, I fear.

Oh dear ...

Greek TMA O2 and the ludicrously unjust administration fees of property rental agents

I can't believe it's almost a month since I last posted to this blog. But the blog date never lies, so ...

My second Tutor Marked Assignment has now been completed and sent off to my tutor. I think I made a bit of a dog's dinner of the translation, mainly in terms of clumsiness and lack of fluency in my English versions of the Greek. This is simply because I was so tired by the time it came to writing up my notes of the translation, so my first draft was poor and my finished version wasn't much better. But if you're not looking for brilliant English, it might give me reasonable marks for overall accuracy. At least, I hope so!

The grammar section of this TMA was fearsome, but having made a serious mess of the last TMA in the grammar section, I made a huge effort to check and double-check all my answers this time. It's hard to be sure that what you've put down on the final sheet is right, but if any of it is horribly wrong, then I'm going to be extremely depressed about the whole grammar situation. Because I worked very hard to get those answers right and I don't think I can work any harder than that without having a nervous breakdown. It took me several weeks to complete the whole TMA (extended grammar and translation passage) as it was, and the next two TMAs are even longer and more complicated ...

I was planning to post up some more Greek this week, using my UniGreek text thing, but I had an eviction notice out of the blue less than 48 hours ago and I'm still reeling from the shock. The landlord has unexpectedly decided to sell the house, so we have to pack up and move on within the next 6 - 8 weeks.

With five kids and only one steady income, shifting the whole family to a new property is going to be hugely expensive, complicated and time-consuming. And the agency we rent from charges the most incredible fees for people applying to rent new properties, even when they're already tenants at one of their other properties.

It hardly seems fair to charge hundreds of pounds in administration fees for a new rental application, especially under those circumstances. Is there no watchdog or regulatory company to monitor these fees, which seem to be getting bigger right across the board, along with these horribly inflated house prices which basically mean that thousands of perfectly normal working people like us can't afford to abandon the constant indignity of renting and get a mortgage?

And we've been here three years, so the amount of stuff we've accumulated since the last move is frightening and the cost of a removal van will be through the roof.

In other words, I don't have much energy or passion available at the moment for Greek, and it will have to be put on the back burner along with my writing etc. until this house move has been sorted out.

God, my nerves are frazzled.