Excelability in Advanced Latin: A Workbook for Students

by Marianthe Colakis

Book Overview

This workbook has been designed with the needs of the advanced high school Latin student in mind. A complete review of Latin grammar is included with exercises and short reading passages along with a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865165122
• ISBN13: 9780865165120
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A great help to any Latin student!!

I've owned this book for a while now, and I find it very helpful for a number of things, including practicing grammar and developing a broader vocabulary. I think that it's very well written and organized, so it's quite easy to use. This really is the simplest way to perfect your studies in Latin. I highly recommend this book to anyone, even beginners! A+++!

Solution to Student Woes

Having taken two AP Latin exams, I can attest to the difficulty of the first half of the exam, covering grammar and Reading Comprehension. Often, students do not get much grammar review after progressing to reading actual texts in 3rd year Latin. Thus, my classmates and I were faced with trying to recall rules and endings from two years ago. We could write essays on Catullus, Horace, and Virgil, but it was the multiple choice questions that made the test extremely hard. Moreover, the traditional AP review sources, such as Princeton Review, Barron's, and Cliff's, do not provide an AP Latin Prep book. Finally, we have "Excelability." The text reviews Latin grammar chapter by chapter, NOT in paragraphs, but in outline form, which makes review much easier. Each use of a case or mood is illustrated in an example, and "Excelability" lists even the exceptions to the rule, such as in poetry. An appendix contains all the charts and rules in condensed form for final review. Unlike other Latin grammar texts, "Excelability" is truly a workbook. The exercises, testing grammar, comprehension, and identification help to prepare students for the exact type of questions on the AP test or other Entrance exam. The passages in the exercises, though, all come from actual Latin authors, exposing students to a variety of writing styles and topics in the format of the AP test--selected vocabulary words but no other footnotes. After the first 10 chapters, the text helps students with the second part of reading Latin literature: comprehension and analysis. There is an entire chapter devoted to figures of speech, with examples from actual works on the AP syllabus and suggestions of what the figures of speech may imply in a work. The workbook also covers meter and scansion, again describing what authors suggest by using a certain meter. At the end of the workbook are two final review chapters, simulating the actual test: the first is multiple choice Reading Comprehension, and the second asks typical essay prompts. My classmates and I would have done much better on the AP Latin exams, had this review workbook been available to us. The workbook reinforces grammar with exercises and multiple choice questions, but it also strengthens the literary analysis skills necessary to do well on the Free Response section of the AP test. Most importantly, it gets students accustomed to the format of the test, with all the passages from actual Latin authors. The collaboration of two high school Latin teachers, one with a Ph.D., leaves out hardly anything of conceivable need to appreciate these authors and their epic themes.