FACULTY OF MEDIEVAL AND MODERN LANGUAGES

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HONOUR SCHOOL OF

MODERN LANGUAGES 2014

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STATISTICS

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

EXAMINERS’ REPORTS

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TRINITY TERM 2014

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Contents

I. STATISTICS p. 3-15 1. ENTRIES p. 3-11 2. RESULTS (MAIN SCHOOL) p. 12 3. GENDER STATISTICS p. 13 4. ORAL EXAMINATION (INCLUDING JOINT SCHOOLS) p. 14-15

II. CHAIRMAN’S REPORT p. 16-28

III. EXAMINERS’ REPORTS p. 29-80 French p. 29-37 German p. 38-46 Italian p. 47-49 Portuguese p. 50-53 Russian p. 54-57 Spanish p. 58-65 Celtic p. 66 Czech with Slovak p. 67-68 Modern Greek p. 69-70 Linguistics p. 71-73 Polish p. 74 Special Subjects (XII) p. 75-80

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I. STATISTICS

The following statistics have been provided by the Central Administration. Some disparities remain between these figures and the reports of individual languages.

1.1. ENTRIES

TABLE 1: Total Entries, Main Schools and Joint Schools

2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 Total Entry 204 186 196 188 191 200 Withdrawals 12 6 3 4 2 2 Sat Exam 192 180 193 184 189 198

TABLE 2: Modern Languages; (Main School; Joint Schools separately below)

Linguistics 22 16 18 18 18 26 13

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TABLE 3: Numbers offering the various languages or equivalent subject. Numbers offering languages singly or in combination.

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TABLE 4: JOINT SCHOOLS WITH MODERN LANGUAGES

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TABLE 5a: ENTRIES FOR PAPERS 1-IX (INCLUDING JOINT SCHOOLS)

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TABLE 5b: PAPER XIII GENERAL LINGUISTICS

PAPER XIII 2013/14 33 2012/13 18 2011/12 21 2010/11 19 2009/10 25 2008/09 37 2007/08 18

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TABLE 5c: ENTRIES FOR PAPERS X -XI (INCLUDING JOINT SCHOOLS)

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TABLE 6: Special Subjects (XII) [All Schools]

Paper Language Code Special Subject 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 2009/10 2008/09 2007/08 FRENCH 2002 Late Medieval Responses to the Roman de la Rose 1 2016 French Poetry of the Mid-Sixteenth Century 1 3 2013 Anglo-Norman Language and Literature 1 1 2014 The Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Grail Romances 5 1 1 1 2 2019 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 5 3 4 3 7 6 5 2020 Honore de Balzac 5 1 4 1 5 2 10 2021 French Poetry 1870 to 1918 3 3 7 3 4 4 2022 French Literature and the Modern War 5 5 5 10 11 9 2023 Marcel Proust 8 5 8 13 7 10 13 2024 French Poetry from Surrealism to the Present 2 2 2 3 2 2026 Literature and the Visual Arts 1 5 2026 Literature and the Visual Arts from Diderot to Zola 3 10 2026 Literature and the Visual Arts in France 5 6 6 9 2027 French Women Writers 6 11 11 8 7 8 7 2028 Advanced French Translation: Theory and Practice 22 30 18 12 18 14 9 2034 The Old French Epic 1 1 1 2 1 2035 French Satire from Rabelais to Beaumarchais 5 2 4 5 1 4 4 2039 Francophone Literature 7 4 Francophone Literature: Colonial and Post-colonial 2039 perspectives 6 11 9 4 10 2040 Old Occitan 1 3 1 Z 2002 Late Medieval Responses to Le Roman de la rose 1 2 2 1 GERMAN Old High German: Gothic 1 2005 Cinema in a Cultural Context: German Film 1930-70 4 4 3 1 2006 Drama and theatre since 1960 3 1 3 1 2037 Old High German 1 3 1 2037 Old High German: Gothic 1 Walther von der Vogelweide and the Origins of the 2041 German Love Lyric 1 1 Gottfried's Tristan and Medieval German Court 2042 Society 2 2 2 5 1 German Women's Writers of the early modern 2044 period 1 Eighteenth-Century German Aesthetics from 2045 Baumgarten to Schiller 2 1 1 1 2047 The Bildungsroman 1 1 1 1 German Political Writing in the eighteenth and 2048 nineteenth centuries 2 2049 Nietzsche and His Impact 1 4 4 3 8 2050 The poetry of Hofmannsthal, George and Rilke 1 3 1 2056 German Poetry since 1945 4 2 1 2056 German Poetry since 1945: Bachmann 1 2056 German Poetry since 1945: Brecht 2 2056 German Poetry since 1945: Celan 1 2056 German Poetry since 1945: Enzensberger 1 2056 German Poetry since 1945: Sachs 1

2070 Narrative Identities in the German Novel since 1945 1 1 2 1 2 1 Mechthild von Magdeburg and Womens Writing in 2071 German 1150-1300 2 2 2073 German modernist prose fiction 1898-1933 2 3 2 2 2076 Post 1945 Women's Writing in German 3

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Paper Language Code Special Subject 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 2009/10 2008/09 2007/08 Expressionism in German literature and the visual 2079 arts 1 1 German Expressionism in Literature and the Visual 2079 Arts 3 1 2080 Literature in the GDR 5 6 3 3 3 1 8 2081 Advanced German Translation: Theory and Practice 9 8 8 9 9 8 8 2099 Nineteenth-Century German Drama 2 2196 Contemporary German Literature 1 1 1 1 D222 Old High German: Gothic 3 D224 Old High German: Old English 1 D226 German Poets: Hofmannsthal 1 D228 German Poets: Rilke 1 ITALIAN 2084 Dante's Minor Works 1 3 2085 Questione Della Lingua 1 1 2086 Women Writers of the Italian Renaissance 1 2 2091 Italian Culture during the Fascist Period 1 1 1 3 2 2092 Narratives of National Identity in Postwar Italy 2 3 3 2096 Sicilian Literature 1945 to Present Day 1 3 2 2 3 4 2097 Italian Women Writers 1945 to the Present Day 1 1 4 2 2 3 Literature, history and society in Late Medieval SPANISH 2003 Spain 2 2007 Women Writers in Modern Spain 1 1 1 2008 The Literature and Culture of al-Andalus 1 2 2 1 1 2100 Bilingualism: Spanish and English 2 1 2 2103 Spanish Drama before Lope de Vega 1 1 The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and the 2105 Antilles 3 3 6 7 3 4 2 2106 Spanish Devotional and Mystical Writing 1577-88 1 1 1 2107 Art and Literature in the Golden Age of Spain 1 2108 Contemporary Catalan Literature 4 2110 Latin American Cinema 9 10 2111 Modern Galician Literature 1 2 1 2112 Modern Catalan 1 2 1 3 2 2113 Modern Galician 1 1 1 Z Literature, historiography and society in Late 2003 Medieval Spain 1 Z 2108 Modern Catalan Literature 1 1 1 PORTUGUESE 2130 The Galician-Portuguese Cancioneiros 1 2131 The Literature of the Portuguese Expansion in Asia 2 2 1 2 2134 Twentieth Century Lusaphone Women Writers 1 1 Twentieth-Century Portuguese and Brazilian 2134 Women Writers 2 2 2135 The Literature of Portuguese-Speaking Africa 1 1 2 2 2 1 Russian Literature of the 20th century (1953 to the RUSSIAN 2160 Present Day) 1 2 1 2 2163 Russian Drama of the 19th and 20th Centuries 3 4 3 4 6 1 1 2170 Russian Womens Writing 1 1 Z Russian Literature of the 20th century (1890 to the 2160 Present Day) 1 5 The Structure and History of a Language: 2150 Bulgarian/Macedonian 1 1 1 2151 The Structure and History of a Language: Czech 1 1 2153 The Structure and History of a Language: Polish 1 1 2 2 3 The Structure and History of a Language: 2154 Serbian/Croatian 2 2 2 2 10

Paper Language Code Special Subject 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 2009/10 2008/09 2007/08 2158 The Structure and History of a Language: Ukrainian 1 1 1 MODERN 2178 The Greek Novel 1918-1940 1 GREEK 2180 Modern Greek Film 1 1 Z Readings of Popular Culture in twentieth-century 2181 Greece 1 LINGUISTICS 2001 Psycholinguistics 2 5 6 7 2 8 3 2009 Semantics 1 2 1 1 3 2 2012 Romance Philology and Linguistics 1 1 1 1 2030 Syntax 3 2 3 5 3 6 4 2031 Phonetics and Phonology 7 2 1 3 3 2018 Phonetics and Phonology (Aural) 3 2 1 3 3 2029 Phonetics and Phonology (Lab Report) 4 2032 Sociolinguistics 5 9 5 5 2 8 6 2033 Translation Theory 2 4 2152 The Structure and History of a Language: Romanian 6 1 2197 Morphology 2 2198 Linguistic Project 8 2 1 1 4 2 4 2199 Language Change and Historical Linguistics 3 2 3 2 OTHER 2195 European Cinema 17 10 22 17 15 31 31 2011 Modern Literary Theory 8 5 5 12 8 5 Total Total Total 179 179 186 171 175 191 175

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2. RESULTS (MAIN SCHOOL)

TABLE 7: Distribution of Firsts

TABLE 8: Numbers and Percentages in each class (rounded to nearest decimal place)

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3. GENDER STATISTICS [Main School]

There were 192 candidates, of whom 116 (60.41%) were female. Statistics are given for overall performance. The database also generates access to statistics on gender performance on individual papers, and these may be consulted in the Examinations Office.

TABLE 9: Gender Statistics [Main School]

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4. ORAL EXAMINATION (INCLUDING JOINT SCHOOLS) TABLE 10: Oral Examination (including Joint Schools): Candidates

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TABLE 11:

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II. CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Administration

The success of an examining process as complex as the Modern Languages FHS depends on effective team working at all levels. I was extremely well supported by the Vice-Chair, , who not only took joint responsibility for the Oral examinations but willingly and proactively shared many of the responsibilities for attendance, scrutiny and checking of documentation, and was unfailingly available to discuss the many issues of practice and principle arising throughout the year. The principle that the Vice-Chair is Chair-in-waiting has the additional benefit of fostering a forward-looking approach, most obvious in the conduct of discussions with the Proctors' Office over special arrangements for oral examination, but also in the ability of the Vice Chair to divert the Chair from setting dangerous precedents for future years.

A completely new team of examinations officers came into post at the beginning of the examination process, imposing a steep learning curve on all concerned. The Faculty is to be thanked for conducting a recruitment process explicitly geared towards the creation of a working team. We were excellently served by the Examinations Officer and the Examinations Assistant , whose combined expertise and diligence over a long year underpinned the smooth running of the process, which was commented on appreciatively by internal and external examiners alike. was scrupulous in documenting all stages of the process, to ensure that the administration of subsequent years could be guided not only by a timetable but by an explicit record of practice. information technology skills ensured that full and continually updated records of candidates and papers were immediately available, and that the considerable increase in use of IT was fully supported. acted as principal point of contact with the many individuals and groups involved in the examinations, not least internal and external examiners, Colleges, Examination Schools, Proctors’ Office, UAS, Mark-IT, and partner faculties, showing both extreme tact and resolute forcefulness, and relieving the Chair of much time-consuming correspondence. ably negotiated a number of late nominations of assessors, including the replacement for an injured Italian oral assessor. External examiners were particularly appreciative of the courtesy and concern with which they were treated, and of the often considerable amounts of time spent on resolving problems of remote access to draft exam papers and other materials. very ably managed the script room where external examiners worked.

The pressures on the Examination Office were considerably increased by the need to service the FHS process at the same time as the Preliminary Examination. This was most acute in the week of final meetings, where the office had to produce and distribute two substantial sets of meeting documents in a very short space of time. The requirements of these two rigid timetables left the Examinations Officer with very little capacity to respond to unexpected problems, of which there were fortunately very few. The Faculty should give the most serious consideration to rescheduling one or other of the processes, so that the Examinations Office has time to complete the FHS exam process before the Prelim requires their full attention.

The support of Faculty administration was appreciated. The IT team gave support and assistance for technical aspects of the process, including remote access and the design of mark spreadsheets. supplied the formulae for automatic calculation of profiles and quartiles. managed in-house marks processing for three Joint Schools. The Faculty is to be thanked for subsidising the Examiners’ dinner, attended by 22 examiners, which cemented an already close working relationship

16 with external examiners. St Catherine’s College deserves warm thanks for hosting this occasion, and providing a memorable Iberian-themed meal.

Particular care was taken to revise rather than reissue much of the core documentation. A thorough review of titles of papers and rubrics was undertaken, to ensure that mismatches between Examination Regulations, Examining Conventions and examination papers were eliminated. The Chair's letters to candidates were redesigned to ensure that the explanation of standard examination practices was clearly separated from the notification of recent changes.

IT

This year’s process saw a further increase in the deployment of technological solutions in the examining process. Secure WebLearn was once more used for the submission, validation, proofing and delivery of examination papers. Once problems of access to the site and SMS validation had been resolved, the process worked smoothly, though a number of disadvantages were apparent, reflecting the compromises required in using a Virtual Learning Environment as a secure document repository. The very restrictive timeout provision required users to repeat the authorisation process several times during a single session. The lack of a dropbox functionality required users to download texts for editing and to upload them once editing was completed, so that large numbers of temporary copies of draft examination papers were (and probably still are) present in poorly identified temporary files on examiners’ computers, creating potential security risks. The use of private windows on browsers, as recommended by IT staff, conceals the existence of these temporary copies but does not eliminate them. The uploading process was also fragile, in that changes of name or file type had unpredictable consequences. The inability of the system to store older versions of files, with systematic version control, created dangers of loss of material by unintentional overwriting. This was partly mitigated by the separation of the log file of comments and authorisations from the text file, though the separation involved a greater number of separate download processes. The Faculty should press the case for the development of a more adequate and secure system, perhaps on the dropbox model, for future online processing of papers.

The potential of spreadsheets for automatic calculation, tentatively introduced to implement the rescaling of oral comprehension marks, was successfully extended to the calculation of overall oral marks, and to the generation of profiles and quartiles for individual papers.

The major advance this year was the introduction of electronic uploading of marks to the central marks processing system, in response to the comments of my predecessor over the inability of Weblearn and Mark-it to “talk to one another”. With the active cooperation of the Faculty IT Office and the Mark-IT development team, it was a relatively simple task to define the format of spreadsheet required for uploading of data, and to demonstrate that the creation of an upload programme would not overload the Mark-IT team. The procedures developed will enable all other Humanities faculties using Mark-IT to benefit from this provision in future years. It will also enable ML to come into line with other Faculties and use the provision for recording both raw and resolved marks on Mark-IT, a provision which had been resisted in the era of manual input because it was too time consuming. This will require reconsideration of how marks are recorded for those papers where individual questions or components are marked by different teams of markers. Consideration should be given to treating Paper II as a single paper with two questions, rather than as two papers with separate agreed marks from which an overall mark is declared.

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Conduct of examinations

As in previous years, the Oral Examinations were held in the Examination Schools, and the written papers at Ewert House.

Provisions in Ewert House, particularly the work of the experienced professional invigilators, were excellent. Both Chair and Vice Chair noted the atmosphere of calm and good humour which pervaded the process. The Examiners continued the practice of delegating the task of attendance at the examination venue to the Chair and Vice Chair, one of whom was present for at least the first half hour of every examination. It was agreed with the Junior Proctor that this practice was not in conflict with the Proctors' regulation requiring a person “familiar with the examination paper” to be present in the main examination venue. Setters of papers or their nominees were required to be contactable for the entire duration of the examination. It is a measure of the success of the proofing process that very few queries needed to be relayed to setters. We are grateful to those setters who accepted additional and extended on-call periods required by particular special arrangements for individual candidates. This year setters were asked to confirm contact details directly with the Examinations Officer, avoiding the repeated circulation of partly revised lists.

In a small number of cases, amendment or correction of examination papers was required shortly before the examination. In each case correction sheets were prepared and distributed with the examination papers, avoiding the need for the oral announcement of corrections. In one case where an ambiguous rubric was amended, candidates and tutors were informed by a supplementary letter from the Chair. The only significant failure of the setting and validation process was in French Paper X, where the commentary passage for Voltaire was set from a text outside the list of prescribed texts. All scripts potentially affected by this problem were closely scrutinised by an external examiner, and marks were moderated accordingly.

Despite the excellent service of timetabling the orals, the disadvantages of the Examinations Schools as a venue for oral examinations remained apparent. Disruption by noise was reported in both components of the oral examination, though the active policing of movements of candidates for other examinations was effective in avoiding most of the disruptions reported in 2013. In addition the conduct of many examinations and the pre-orals meeting was complicated by the ongoing repainting of parts of the Schools, including the staircase and some doorways leading to exam rooms. In at least one case examiners had to request painters to remove ladders from areas through which students had to pass. Several examiners also expressed concern over the possible effect of paint fumes on candidates and examiners. It is unacceptable for the commercial functions of the Examination Schools to take precedence over their academic functions; the Faculty should make representations to the management of the Schools to ensure more proactive avoidance of such disruption at times of oral examinations.

Despite considerable advance discussion of technical requirements for the delivery of recorded material in oral examinations (including the Aural component of paper XII Phonetics and Phonology), and the provision of laptops in exam rooms as part of special arrangements, there were various equipment failures which disrupted the delivery of examinations. An aggravating factor is the impossibility of testing technical provisions in situ in advance of the examination in question.

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Examiners

Senior Examiners in all languages, and especially in French and German, bear a heavy burden of organization and coordination. This year’s Senior Examiners shouldered their burdens with exemplary efficiency and general good humour, supported by an ever-expanding community of internal examiners and assessors. Particular thanks are due to who selflessly took on the task of Senior Examiner in Czech following the untimely death of , to who took on many of the duties of Senior Examiner in Linguistics to relieve the Chair of additional burdens, and to who acted as Senior Examiner in French at the same time as being Chair of the French Sub-Faculty. nobly took on the task of creating missing documentation for examining processes in Celtic. There was some uncertainty over the procedure for informing assessors for the Oral examination of the confirmation of their participation: this duty should be clearly incorporated in the remit of Senior Examiners.

We were very fortunate to have a highly cooperative body of external examiners who were generous with their time and expertise. This year external examiners were present at the Oral examination (and the Oral briefing meeting), as well as at the pre-general marks meeting and final marks meetings, which gave added transparency to our decision making. Individual externals made specific additional contributions, notably who assisted with the oral examination in Czech, (Modern Greek) who took on additional responsibilities regarding European Cinema, aided by (Portuguese); (Celtic) who acted as assessor for the oral examination in Irish; (French) who conducted the review of French paper X scripts, and (Linguistics) who reviewed the operation of the new structure of the Phonetics and Phonology paper XII.

Joint Schools

The Faculty provided Chairs for most of the joint schools, with the FHS Chair taking EML and EMEL, and the Vice Chair CML and PML. HML was as always chaired by History ( ). In each case the second faculty provided a coordinator for day to day liaison and the organisation of a pre- marks meeting: represented ML in HML, represented English in EML, represented Classics in CML and represented Philosophy in PML. In EMEL each Middle Eastern language was separately represented, Persian by and Arabic by , which made the raising of general issues over EMEL more difficult. Had the other Middle Eastern languages (Turkish and Hebrew) also been active this would have been an untenable situation. I recommend that the Oriental Studies Faculty be asked to designate one central coordinator to liaise with the ML-appointed Chair.

Transmission of marks between Exam Offices was not always simple; marks for EML candidates arrived at the last moment in handwritten form requiring manual input by the Examinations Officer. It is to be hoped that the wider use of electronic mark sheets will allow faster and more accurate transfer. The Faculty took responsibility for marks processing in EML, EMEL, CML. Thanks are due to for maintaining and updating the mark handling programme. Despite some technical advantages of this programme over Mark-IT, the burden of reprogramming it to take account of changes in classification practice will be heavy, which suggests that the Faculty should request the integration of joint schools into the central marks processing scheme (Mark-IT and its successor).

Communications with partner faculties in the Joint Schools were not always successful, partly as a result of staffing changes during the year, but also reflecting a lack of clarity over the extent of each faculty’s 19 responsibilities for Joint Schools. The Joint Standing Committees for CML, EML, EMEL and PML did not meet, resulting in delays in confirmation of their examination conventions. We recommend that Faculty Administrators and Directors of Undergraduate Studies should work to ensure closer cooperation.

The practice of UAS and the Proctors’ Office to direct communications relating to Joint Schools and joint-school candidates to the default address of the relevant Chair caused a great deal of unnecessary work to the Chair and Vice Chair, in retrieving scattered documents and in transmitting information to the appropriate recipients. I recommend that all Joint School communications should be sent to the Examination Officers of both parent schools, with copies where appropriate to the Chairs of the main and the joint School.

Regulations, Examining Conventions

The Examining Conventions were revised several times at successive examiners’ meetings, to include specifications for the Alternative Route to the First, and doubts over issues raised by the HUSC on penalties for late submission and excess length in submitted work. A recommendation for the submission time of Extended Essays was transmitted to the USC but not acted on in time for necessary changes to be made to the Examination Regulations. It is preferable for the revision process of the Examination Conventions and the Examination Regulations to be managed by the DUS though USC. Following the decision of HUSC to allow faculties to opt in to the Alternative Route to the First as defined by the Humanities Division, the Faculty adopted the procedure. The vagueness of the Divisional prescription “a mark of 70 or more in over 50% of papers” required specific implementation, in the form of a specified number of marks (5 marks of 70 or more where the number of written papers was 9, and 4 where it was 8). This calculation was based on the assumption that the Oral Examination (one or two half-papers) fell outside this scheme, just as it is excluded from the standard profile for a First, and contributed neither to the number of papers over which 50% was calculated nor to the marks by which the 50% requirement could be satisfied. It became clear at the final examiners’ meeting that the Examination Conventions need to be revised to confirm or modify this assumption. The rationale for excluding Oral Examination marks from profiling includes the following considerations:

Oral distinctions are separately recognised: Oral examinations uniquely advantage native speakers Oral marks cannot be reopened at the point of classification Including oral marks either separately or as a composite ‘paper’ would advantage two-language candidates over sole-language or joint-school candidates.

The need for resolution of this issue was confirmed by a challenge to the classification of a borderline candidate who would have been awarded a first had an oral distinction been taken into account. USC is requested to resolve this ambiguity without delay.

The introduction of the Alternative Route to the First had a beneficial effect of removing the need for re- reading in a significant number of cases of borderline candidates with marks in the 68-68.45 range, and also rewarded six candidates with significant amounts of first class quality work in an uneven profile and an average between 67.5 and 68. It had the undesirable effect of extending the II.1/I borderline to include candidates with marks in the 67-67.45 range, and inviting substantial re-readings which might raise both the average and the profile. The examiners noted that there were no prescriptions in the

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Marking Conventions which might limit the extent of re-reading: a broad principle that no more than three marks could normally be raised by reading up was adopted as a working practice, it being recognised that the Examination Conventions should be strengthened in this respect. The conventions in English and History for recognition and rereading of borderline cases are suggested as a possible model. The examiners also agreed that read-up marks for borderline candidates should not be adopted unless they resulted in a change of class. This implied that readings up should be submitted to the Examinations Office separately from adjudications and moderations, and that the Chair should be present in the Examinations Office to ratify any proposed changes of classification. A specific section on re-reading should be incorporated in the Examination Conventions for 2014-15.

Examination Entries

All examination entries were checked by the Chair or Vice Chair and Examinations Officer, and defective or inexplicit entries were queried. The Examinations Officer received a number of queries from candidates, particularly in Joint Schools, on permissible combinations. Not all changes to Paper XIIs were taken into account in the examination entry forms (most notably in the cross faculty paper in Phonetics and Phonology) where the Experimental Psychology entry form did not specify new additional element). It is recommended that draft entry forms be routinely sent to the Chair and Examinations Officer for checking.

Special subjects, Extended essays

As in previous years, Extended Essay proposal forms were collated by the Examinations Office and transmitted to the appropriate Senior Examiner for approval and appointment of assessors, on the assumption that Senior Examiners in the larger languages would distribute the task among examiners of relevant expertise. It was noted that the Examination Regulations still prescribe a superseded arrangement in which Extended Essay titles are approved by the Faculty Board. This harmless discontinuity should be rectified when possible. Approval is also required for the Linguistic Project (a Linguistics Paper XII) for which approval forms are sometimes submitted a longer time in advance (it being a requirement that CUREC approval is sought for any data collection with human participants). Considerable administrative effort was expended in locating the approval forms for candidates entering for this paper: there should be close liaison between the Examinations Officer and the DUS in Linguistics to ensure that copies of the approval forms are stored by year of examination and are sent to the Examinations Office in good time. Thought should be given to establishing an informal method for pre-approval of extended essay topics, so that candidates can undertake preparatory work without fear of their topic being subsequently rejected. Formal mechanisms should also be established for the approval of late changes to essay titles, which are currently directed to the Chair of Examiners.

The Paper XII in European Cinema was subjected to especial scrutiny following representations from colleges to the Proctors over the delivery of the course. Two external examiners with expertise in Film Studies ( ) were asked to moderate the scripts, and reported on them to the Examiners meetings, confirming that the level of achievement of the candidates was good and the marking generally consistent. Marks on two scripts were raised.

In accordance with the Examination Regulations the questions for method C paper XIIs were released in hard copy at the Examination schools as well as being published on WebLearn, as intimated to candidates by Chair’s letter. It is recommended that electronic release should become the sole method of release as soon as possible. It is also desirable to revise the published classification of paper XIIs to clarify the status of three anomalous papers: the Linguistic Project (now properly regulated in the 21

Regulations for Joint Schools incorporating Linguistics) and the Advanced Translation papers in French and German, which are a hybrid of methods B and C.

Alternative arrangements and Medical cases

Significant numbers of candidates were examined under alternative arrangements, ranging from small adjustments to seating in the examination rooms to the sitting of papers at alternative times and the administration of examinations in the Colleges and the Examination Schools. Two aspects of the process of approval and notification of special arrangements proved unsatisfactory and generated considerable extra work for the Examinations Officer. Firstly, the timing of notifications was generally unregulated, with notifications appearing in a constant stream literally up to the day of the examinations involved, requiring the Examinations Officer to devote time to continual updating of her records. Many of these cases concerned known disabilities or other special conditions and could thus have been applied for much earlier in the year: we would request that UAS require greater discipline from Colleges in the timing of such requests. In many cases late notifications were not passed on to the invigilators in Ewert House, resulting in apparent absences. Secondly, there was insufficient recognition of the practical effects of such arrangements. In one case a candidate was given late permission to take an examination before the normal time, requiring the setter of that examination to be placed on call on a Sunday afternoon.

Significant numbers of candidates were also awarded additional writing and preparation time for the Oral Examination, and a small number were allowed to use word processors in the comprehension test and in one case in preparation for the discourse tests. One candidate had requested language-specific provision, including permission to use their own equipment; a lack of clarity in the specification of the hardware and software requirements and the tests for which they were needed led to a delay in one discourse test. Two candidates were allowed to take comprehension tests in their colleges. After consultation with the Proctors, it was agreed that permission to take discourse and conversation exams in colleges would require very specific medical justifications; requests for special provision should specify precisely the components of the oral examination for which provision is requested, and the medical reports provided should take into account the different needs of each component of the examination. Medical certificates were considered at the pre-general marks meeting (with several externals present), with one particularly complex case discussed further at the general marks meeting. It was suggested by externals that the consideration of such cases might be better managed by a separate meeting before the pre-general meeting, so that the resolution of confidential issues could be reported to the pre-general meeting in a fully anonymised form. One medical certificate was submitted after the final meeting. At the request of the Proctors and following consultation with the internal examiners and the external examiner in the language concerned, the mark for the paper affected was revised, resulting in the promotion of the candidate to a higher class.

Oral examination

Most examiners and assessors, and one external examiner, attended the Pre-Orals meeting on the morning of 22 April. The Oral Procedures document, initiated by the Chair in his capacity as last year’s Vice Chair and extended and updated by the current Vice Chair, proved a firm basis for the briefing, and allowed the comprehension practice sessions to proceed promptly.

is to be thanked for his tireless and patient work in producing and refining the Orals timetable, which was made more than usually complex by a number of factors: 22

 Closure of the Examination Schools on Monday of 0th week (the Easter Monday Bank Holiday).  Restrictions on timetabling the French Comprehension test to respect candidates’ religious observance.  Conflicts with Oral examinations in Arabic and Persian for EMEL candidates, exacerbated by unusually large number of language combinations in EMEL.

 Examinations in Celtic requiring the active participation of an external examiner.

As a result of these pressures, the production of the main orals timetable was delayed, and the late declaration of Oriental Studies oral timetables required some late revisions. A definitive date for the confirmation of Oriental Studies Oral Examination dates should in future be agreed at the beginning of the academic year. Despite these pressures, the timetabling was almost entirely successful in avoiding the need for individual candidates in the larger languages to have two examinations on the same day. Examinations in Celtic were held on the Monday of week 1. The only error identified was when candidates in Portuguese were given an incorrect time [9.30 a.m. rather than 2.30 pm] for their comprehension test on their individual timetables. The error was efficiently corrected and no student was disadvantaged. The expectation that students would not be examined in conversation by tutors of lectors delivering college-based teaching was generally observed. Omissions in the listing of college attachments led to some last-minute adjustments and some departures from standard practice in German orals.

The concurrent use of the Examination Schools for written examinations requiring a special IT room limited the availability of rooms for the French Comprehension test, with the result that one group had to be examined in a sectioned off part of the South School. Timely preparatory work by the French examiners and the Schools staff ensured that this was done without disadvantage to the candidates. It was necessary to nominate a replacement Italian native speaker at a very late stage in preparations. Our thanks go to Caterina Paoli for stepping into the breach.

The use of candidate names (and initials) rather than candidate numbers generated a few minor problems. Two candidates with the same name and first initial, in separate French comprehension groups, failed to put the distinguishing second initials on their comprehension scripts. One case of a candidate receiving the oral topic destined for another candidate with the same surname was intercepted and corrected before the preparation time. More robust means of uniquely identifying candidates should be developed.

External examiners in French, German, and Modern Greek and Russian attended selected oral sessions as observers. The external examiners in Czech and Irish participated in the delivery of the examination. In the remaining languages provision was made for the recording of selected individual sessions.

Comprehension tests Equipment for Italian Oral was appropriately tested, so that there were no technical problems in delivery. Four comprehension tests (2 in German, one each in French and Italian) were administered in colleges to special needs candidates. The French examination was administered simultaneously with the main text, the others being administered after the main test, with candidates isolated in their college. For all comprehension tests with multiple examination rooms one room was identified as late start room,

23 though no candidates needed to be redirected on this occasion. One candidate arrived significantly late for a French Oral and was isolated so that the test could be administered after the main group. Noise in the Schools was an occasional problem. There was an unexpected burst of vehicle noise from a reversing skip lorry during one reading of the French comprehension, and the proximity of a Staff kitchen to room 3 caused a minor noise problem for the Celtic comprehension tests. In neither case did examiners feel the need to invoke the option of repeating sections of the passage. Examiners were informed of the need for extra time provision on their nominal rolls, though a few disparities between Faculty and schools lists remained; extra checking may be advisable next year. Details of candidates using word processors were inadvertently omitted from the rolls. There was a minor problem with one centrally provided laptop, which slightly delayed the start of a comprehension session, but in all other cases the procedures for word-processing and printing out candidates’ comprehension answers worked smoothly.

It emerged at a late stage that the standard rubric reproduced on every comprehension test paper included a statement on marking practice (“The inclusion of irrelevant material in your answers will be disregarded”) on which there was in fact no consensus in sub-Faculty practices and examining conventions. The complete rubrics had been reproduced in the Chair’s letter to candidates, and thus had to be considered authoritative. Clarifying notes were sent to candidates in Russian and teaching staff in German, where the issue had been explicitly raised. It is essential that an agreed standard rubric or agreed local rubrics be in place for the next examination.

Security of comprehension test passages remained a concern. Assessors with comprehension tests scheduled for later in the week were asked to return master copies of the passages to the Vice Chair after the rehearsals, but few complied (though some may have returned them to the care of the Examiner concerned).

Discourse and conversation tests The preparation area was generally managed well by Schools invigilators. The first afternoon of individual orals was subject to increasing time delays resulting from insufficient provision of preparation room desks and an error in the distribution of topics to candidates which led to one candidate experiencing a ten-minute delay while the correct sheet was provided. It is appreciated that the need to provide for two different preparation lengths (15 and 30 minutes) and additional preparation time of 7 minutes for special needs candidates makes the preparation room difficult to administer. We suggest that where large numbers of candidates are involved a separate room might be provided for French and Italian 30-minute preparations.

Apart from the disruption on the first day, examiners were generally successful in maintaining a regular turnaround of candidates, though a few sessions experienced cumulative delays of up to 15 minutes. Imperfect synchronisation of the many clocks in the Schools was an additional disruptive factor. The disruption of individual orals by noise from the passage of candidates for other examinations was significantly reduced by effective policing action by Schools staff, who were mobilised in significant numbers at appropriate times. Colleges organising collections were also more sensitive to the need for silence to be maintained. There remains nevertheless a significant potential for disruption from the presence of very large numbers of other candidates at sensitive times, and the inherent noisiness of the Schools corridors, which could perhaps be addressed by temporary carpeting. Two discourse examinations were reported to have been disrupted by people unexpectedly entering the room (in one a case a candidate ignoring the instructions to wait outside, in the other an examiner arriving early for a subsequent session.).

24

Two candidates experienced distress in their conversation tests, and were sensitively and professionally managed by examiners and schools staff. In both cases the candidate was offered a second time and completed the test successfully. A small number of candidates who missed their original oral time were reinserted into the timetable without disruption.

The Chair and/or Vice Chair were present at the Examination Schools throughout the Oral Examinations. The Chair and Vice Chair were provided with complete documentation, which allowed them to supply additional sheets and lists to examiners without recourse to the Examinations Office. Spare discourse topics and texts were made available to the Chair and Vice Chair, and were deployed in a few cases of changes in individual timetables.

Individual orals were recorded on small voice recorders for the benefit of absent external examiners in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Welsh. The recordings were expertly extracted by and placed on the secure Weblearn site for consultation by external examiners.

It was decided to discontinue the provision of coffee and tea by the schools during the orals, in response to unfavourable assessments of quality and cost. While most examiners were not significantly affected, it became apparent that there was a limited need for provision for refreshments in the Schools to examiners required to deliver individual tests for entire mornings or afternoons. In such cases the single 30-minute break, which might be eroded by timetable slippage, was not sufficient for them to obtain tea or coffee from nearby restaurants, and to avoid contact with candidates. Arrangements should in future be made for limited provision of refreshments of a suitable quality.

Marks meetings and classification

The normal pattern of marks meetings was followed this year, with pre-general marks meetings preceding the final marks meeting for the main school and each joint school, and individual language examiners in French, German and Spanish holding marks meetings before and after the pre-general marks meeting. The electronic submission and upload of marks allowed an acceleration of the early stages of consideration of marks. In previous years marks were submitted in hard copy and manually input by Examinations Officers; marksheets were supplied for checking before individual marks meetings, whose primary function was mark checking and the consideration of profiles for large runs of scripts with multiple markers, though a certain amount of reconsideration of borderline candidates took place, and classification sheets were sent to Senior Examiners in advance of the pre-general marks meeting, at which borderline cases were definitively identified and re-readings negotiated. In 2014 electronic submission effectively removed the need for mark checking, and electronic upload of marks at the time of submission meant that provisional classification lists could be generated soon after the final date for submission of marks, and before the individual marks meetings. A very small number of marks were supplied after the deadline, so that some classifications were incomplete. As a result of this retiming, the marks meetings were able to devote more time to the consideration of borderline cases. To avoid disadvantage to candidates in other languages, it was decided to release provisional classification sheets to all Senior Examiners, for candidates in their language only. This timetable seems viable, as long as clearer guidelines for re-reading (as proposed above) are in place.

At the pre-general marks meeting the provisional classifications of all candidates were reviewed, with appropriate consideration of medical certificates, and arrangements were made for re-reading of borderline cases not already resolved. Provisional reports on the problematic papers (European Cinema and French X) were considered. The presence of external examiners at this meeting was beneficial, and

25 it is recommended that the Chair actively seek the participation of least two externals in future meetings of this type.

At the final meeting the provisional classification of every candidate was confirmed, along with oral distinctions, and all mark changes made or proposed since the pre-general marks meeting, including amendments recommended by externals as a result of moderation, were submitted for ratification. It was suggested by some externals that the final meeting could ratify ‘en bloc’ all uncontroversial classifications (i.e. candidates who were not at any class borderline and for whom no marks had been amended since the pre-general marks meeting) so as to devote more time to borderline and special cases. While this proposal merits discussion at the Faculty level, it is the view of the current Chair that the final meeting should ratify not just classifications but final marks and oral distinctions, and that examiners should in principle be able to be raise issues concerning any candidate, so that a blanket approval of classifications would not sufficiently discharge the examiners’ duty. Careful timetable management ensured that the entire classification process was completed with time for a full exchange of views with external examiners.

The Faculty is one of the few which continue to use the Examination Schools for final Examiners’ meetings and the storage of scripts for consultation by external examiners. Delivery of scripts to the Examination Schools was particularly problematic. It is recommended that the Faculty relocate the final meetings to the Taylorian, and store scripts in a designated room in 47 Wellington Square, subject to adequate security arrangements.

Chair of FHS Examiners, 2014

Summary of recommendations

1. The Faculty should give the most serious consideration to rescheduling FHS or Prelim final meetings, so that the Examinations Office has time to complete the FHS exam process before the Prelim requires its full attention. 2. The Faculty should press the case for the development of a more adequate and secure system of online exam paper preparation, perhaps on the dropbox model, for future online processing of papers. 3. Raw marks should be entered into marks processing programs. Consideration should be given to treating Paper II as a single paper with two questions, rather than as two papers with separate agreed marks from which an overall mark is declared. 4. The Faculty should make representations to the management of the Schools to ensure more proactive avoidance of disruption at times of oral examinations, and adequate testing of technical provisions. 5. The documentation provided to examiners should clarify the responsibility of Senior Examiners in confirming invitations to assessors for the Oral Examination. 6. The Oriental Studies Faculty should be asked to designate one central coordinator to liaise with the ML-appointed Chair, and to declare its oral examination timetables by an agreed date so that they can be taken into account in ML Oral timetabling. 26

7. The Faculty should request the integration of joint schools into the central marks processing scheme (Mark-IT and its successor). 8. Faculty Administrators and Directors of Undergraduate Studies should work to ensure closer cooperation in the administration of Joint Schools. 9. UAS should be requested to send all Joint School communications to the Examination Officers of both parent Schools, with copies where appropriate to the Chairs of the main and the joint School. 10. The revision of the Examination Conventions and the Examination Regulations should be managed by the DUS through USC. This should include: (i) confirmation of the exclusion of Oral Examination marks from the profile element of classification rules (ii) explicit conventions for rereading and the resolution of borderline cases

(iii) establishment of an agreed standard rubric or agreed local rubrics for the treatment of irrelevant material in the marking of oral comprehension exercises.

11. Draft entry forms should be routinely sent to the Chair and Examinations Officer for checking. 12. Procedures for approval of Extended Essay titles should be reviewed and the examination regulations revised to reflect the agreed procedure. 13. The classification system of Paper XIIs should be reviewed to give a more precise definition of hybrid papers. The electronic release of method C essay titles should become the sole method of release as soon as possible. 14. Where large numbers of oral candidates are involved a separate room might be provided for French and Italian 30-minute preparations. 15. USC and Examiners should consider the suggestion by externals that the final meeting could ratify en bloc all uncontroversial classifications (i.e. candidates who were not at any class borderline and for whom no marks had been amended since the pre-general marks meeting) so as to devote more time to borderline and special cases. 16. Relocate the final meetings to the Taylorian, and store scripts in a designated room in 47 Wellington Square.

27

Prizes

Prizes were awarded to the following candidates:

Prize Name

ARTEAGA PRIZE / SPANISH STUDIES

GERARD DAVIS PRIZE / FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES (up to two prizes awarded for the best Extended Essays)

FRED HODCROFT PRIZE / SPANISH STUDIES

DAVID GIBBS PRIZES / Best performance in 1. Modern Languages 2.

DAVID GIBBS PRIZES / Best performance in 1. Joint Schools with Modern Languages

2.

DAVID GIBBS PRIZES / Best performance in 1. Modern Languages for best submitted work in Special Subject Paper XII and Extended Essay 2.

DAVID MCLINTOCK MEMORIAL FUND / (Prize in Germanic Philology)

DOLORES ORIA MERINO PRIZE IN WRITTEN SPANISH / (Paper I)

RAMÓN SILVA MEMORIAL PRIZE / SPANISH STUDIES

Congratulatory Firsts

The Chairman wrote letters of congratulation to three First Class candidates of the Main School: , , ; and one First Class candidate of the EMEL Joint School, . 28

III. FINAL HONOUR SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND ASSOCIATED JOINT SCHOOLS

FRENCH

Senior Examiner's General Report

There were 155 candidates in French this year, out of a total of 192, including Joint Schools. There were 30 candidates offering French sole.

I am extremely grateful to the following colleagues for their sterling assistance in ensuring that the examination process ran smoothly: my fellow French Examiners (I ); in the Faculty Exams Office; , the Chair of Examiners, and , the Vice-Chair. A replacement Assessor for Paper IIB had to be found at very short notice, and valiantly stepped into the breach. We are in her debt.

This year’s Senior French Examiner was also Chair of the Sub-Faculty. Of the other three Examiners, one was Director of Graduate Studies in the Faculty and another was Graduate Co-ordinator for the Sub- Faculty. This cumul des mandats is highly unsatisfactory, and the Faculty and/or Sub-Faculty should investigate as a matter of priority ways of avoiding excessive burdens of this kind — most obviously by co-ordinating the Examining Rota and other nominations. The existence of a Nominating Committee in the French Sub-Faculty should assist this process.

The principle was maintained this year of having the complete run of each paper first-marked by a single Examiner or Assessor, so that at least one person had an overall view of the candidates’ performance. With this principle established, second-marking was then entrusted to one Examiner/Assessor or several, in keeping with the following (rough) formula: each Examiner had a marking load approximately equivalent to the total number of candidates offering French (with some slightly above this figure); each Assessor had a marking load of half this figure or less.

The Oral Examinations passed off smoothly, although there were some issues with the venue in the Schools (repainting, noise), which are dealt with in the Chair’s Report. Most candidates performed very well on the comprehension exercise, and the majority also acquitted themselves creditably in the face-to- face component of the exam.

French Oral

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

48 (31%) 89 (57.4%) 18 (11.6%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 82 - 71 71 - 67 67 - 62 62 - 50

29

French Paper I

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

32 (20.6%) 93 (60%) 30 (19.4%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 85 - 68 68 - 64 64 - 60 60 - 51

There was considerable variety of achievement in the essays written for this exam. The stronger answers presented balanced responses to the specific questions, with a clear sense of argumentation acknowledging two sides of the problem. Some weaker essays focused on the words of the question, repeating them in each sentence, rather than addressing the underlying concepts. Others ignored the specific issues and simply looked at the general topic area to which they corresponded, e.g. writing an essay on the general subject of the European Union, or the differences between men and women, instead of answering the actual question. This was particularly the case of question 3, for which candidates were tempted to insert information about the European Union that they had learnt by heart but which was not always well linked to the question itself. A few candidates had trouble understanding terms used in the questions, e.g. the word ‘rituel’, which was understood as meaning ‘improvisation’ in one case and ‘slavishly following rules’ in another. Some excellent essays drew on examples from a rich cultural range in a thoughtful and pertinent way (rather than allowing erudition to distract from the argument).

On the language side, a pleasing majority of essays reflected candidates’ ability to use appropriate formal structuring devices such as ‘connecteurs logiques’. Many also used good variety of vocabulary and syntax, and showed knowledge of idiomatic expressions. There was however a wide-spread tendency to omit accents or insert them in random places (‘tragedie’ appeared with no accent despite having one on the exam paper), which suggests that students are not capable of ‘sounding out’ in their heads how the presence or absence of an accent changes the pronunciation of a word. There were frequent errors of gender (in one instance even ‘histoire’ appeared as a masculine noun), and difficulties choosing appropriate prepositions or knowing whether a verb took a direct or indirect object. Quite a few candidates struggled to use formal question forms, for example using both inversion and another question structure together: ‘Qu’est-ce que “les nouveaux medias” veut-ça dire?’. A few candidates also used syntactical or vocabulary calques, with structures and words imported directly or indirectly from English e.g. ‘des motives’, ‘un focus’, ‘arguer’, ‘on expérience’. There was a perplexingly widespread inability to use the verbs ‘apprendre’ and ‘enseigner’ correctly.

French Paper II

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

27 (17.4%) 109 (70.3%) 19 (12.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 78 - 67 67 - 65 65 - 61 61 - 51

French Paper IIA

The passage set, by Simone Weil, was chosen so as to offer relatively few difficulties of lexis or comprehension. But it was not, for all that, ‘too easy’; in fact relatively few candidates rose to the 30 challenge of showing that they had both understood the passage and mastered the skills of translation into English. As it turned out, the text posed a surprising number of problems of comprehension. A large number of common words or phrases were either misrecognized or misconstrued: ‘espèce, accablante, dizaines, millier, récits, sur-le-champ, en plein Sénat, en pareille matière, pauvre en, conjurer’. Some words or phrases were simply offered as if they existed as such in English (‘sénat’ being the most common). Basic syntax also proved surprisingly problematic for some, as candidates had difficulties with subject/object relations (eg those concerning Marius and his ‘troupe’), or with adjectival agreement (‘tous’ in the final sentence). Whilst there were only a handful of very poor texts, too many candidates seemed to think that the task of the translator consists in getting across a basic account of what is going on in the French. Transposition of a French word or phrase into a close lexical equivalent in English is not translation. This was, to repeat, not designed as an especially difficult passage in regard to basic comprehension, but only the first class candidates gave the impression of attempting to transpose the shifts and subtleties of Weil’s style, register, and tone into appropriate English. Candidates (and colleagues) are reminded that the guidelines clearly state that the best scripts will ‘give the impression that the text was conceived in English’ and that examiners will reward both ‘sensitivity to register’ and ‘good stylistic manipulation of English.’ Examiners are obliged to penalize candidates whose scripts ‘tend towards awkward and literal English’ and who show ‘little attempt to find valid English equivalents’ or ‘little sensitivity to register.’ The examiners repeat the conclusions drawn from this exercise last year: whether or not a ‘literary’ passage is chosen for translation, this is an exercise which asks students to think about language as something other than brute communication of bare content. It also relies on people having worked hard at mastering the varieties of English grammatical forms, spelling, register, and idiom. The best scripts rose to the challenge, thought about what they were being asked to do, and wrote an account of the French text in English which was appropriate to the passage set, as well as being accurate, idiomatic, fluent, and stylish. Recommendation: The examiners urge colleagues to think about the way the Unseen is being taught; it is clear that many students need to pay greater attention to writing good, or even passable, English.

French Paper IIB

The passage set (from Lawrence Durrell’s novel Balthazar, the second of the Alexandria Quartet) proved challenging. Unsurprisingly, few candidates managed to render the somewhat purple prose in equivalent French, but one or two had a reasonable stab at doing so. However, the majority of versions were not especially literary, and an admittedly small number were downright colloquial. The quality of the grammar and vocabulary in many cases left a very great deal to be desired. Verb forms included: battut, conquéri, conquérit, se dédica, devenirent, écriva, écriver, metta, nourrait, permettit, prennant, puissât, résoudit, résolva, ressentissent (for the present indicative), soubir, se souveniraient, suffrire, survaincquèrent, vaincut, and the feminine past participles remplites and réussite. The verbs devenir, survenir, and rester were commonly conjugated with the auxiliary avoir in the compound past tenses. A significant number of candidates had problems with clitic pronouns: thus, elle avait le recréé, elle avait le réinventé, qui lui se présente. The wrong preposition was frequently used with décider de and se décider à. Words regularly assigned to the wrong gender included chemin, choix, déséquilibre, domaine, équilibre, imagination, monde, occupation, passion, personnage, santé, sens, territoire, vie, and visage. Whilst it is at least possible to understand some of these gender errors, most of them are inexplicable. ‘Empress’ was variously translated as empératrice, emperesse, empéresse, empereuse, empéreuse, emperière, empresse, emprêsse, and empreuse. Many candidates who didn’t know impératrice perhaps sensibly cut their losses and opted for reine, although, even then, ‘dethroned’ caused problems. L’ancienne reine d’une république was a particularly memorable translation — you can see what the candidate was getting at, but even so... Obvious anglicisms included distortée, l’enjoiement, escapper, expecter, expériencée, physical, la séclusion (only available as a technical 31 scientific term), le (or even la) thrône. Other inventions included abrupticement, le divertiment, l’épistolerie (‘letter-writing’), l’hermitude (‘seclusion’), ostenter (‘parade’), la précérité (for précarité?), la solitarité, and la viveté (‘liveliness’). Candidates regularly confused l’isolation and l’isolement, la voile and le voile, le capital and la capitale, le retrait and la retraite, with the result that an often surreal picture emerged of a woman wrapped in an insulating sail rather than living a solitary life from behind a veil. Candidates who translated ‘in retirement’ as en pension (both misunderstanding the meaning of ‘retirement’ in the passage and doubtless influenced by Italian) created a similarly bizarre impression of a woman eating three meals a day at the Hôtel du Lac. A significant number of candidates (presumably all doing Spanish) translated ‘letters’ as cartes and ‘her snake’ as sa serpente. Other inappropriate or bizarre translations included: elle donnait son serpent à manger ‘feeding her snake’, qui la souviendraient ‘who would remember her’, comment il se rassemblait [sic] ‘what he looked like’, ces encores jeunes yeux oscures [sic] ‘those still youthful dark eyes’, obfusqué par sa toile ‘which now the veil masked’, tout un monde de douanes ‘a whole world of relations’. It is clear from the foregoing that far too many candidates displayed a less than competent knowledge of French on this paper.

French Paper III

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

13 (44.8%) 15 (51.7%) 1 (3.5%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 78 - 74 74 - 69 68 - 65 65 - 59

The quality of answers for this paper was relatively high (see statistics below). Candidates were often able to combine grammatical and lexical accuracy with fluidity and some amount of elegance in their translations. The 12th c. verse excerpt (Q1) was not translated at all and the 15th c. prose excerpt (Q2) was only translated twice (very successfully at that). The 18th c. verse (Q6) had very few takers too; some of the verse translations were excellent, but in other cases, the commendable effort to stay close to the rhythm of the verse impaired the intelligibility of and/or closeness to the text. Other than that, the other excerpts, by Marguerite de Navarre (Q3), Madame de la Fayette (Q4), and Lesage (Q5) were rendered fairly accurately. A few mistakes were common to many candidates: gentil-homme and the free indirect discourse of lines 20 to 22 (Q3), puisqu’il faut vous l’avouer, témoignez, écuyer, degré and comme au supplice (Q4), bon génie, dissimuler, confrères, and faire mes caravanes (Q5). One candidate translated the very literal coup de foudre on line (l. 18, Q6) by the metaphorical ‘love at first sight’.

French Paper IV

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

8 (34%) 8 (34%) 2 (9%) 2 (9%) 0 (0%) 75 - 70 70 - 67 65 - 60 60 - 48

The general standard of essays on this paper was pleasing. The question on negation was particularly popular, and was handled well by most of those who chose it. Few candidates attempted the commentary questions (perhaps wisely, as they demand comprehensive knowledge of the language during the period in question); most responses to these were mediocre, but one was outstanding. In general, when answering questions on specific periods of French, candidates opted for one of the first 32 two (up to 1150; 1100-1530), with a smaller number choosing 1530-1715 and an even smaller number 1715-1940. Again, this makes sense: there is comparatively more to say about the earlier periods, in that they differ strikingly from both Latin and contemporary French. Chronological uncertainty was sometimes a problem — candidates were occasionally unsure about when phenomena existed or when changes occurred; and one script dated Voltaire’s Candide to 1835!

French Paper V

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

2 (6.7%) 21 (70%) 7 (23.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 - 65 64 - 62 61 - 60 59 - 51

The overall standard on this paper was frankly disappointing. Too many candidates regurgitated material from lectures, tutorials, or manuals without revealing any real understanding of the points at issue. Almost all the candidates concentrated on the same questions. The most popular topic was Bally’s reference to the subjunctive being a ‘servitude grammaticale’; here, candidates seized on this well-known phrase, but leapt in without otherwise reading or understanding the quotation (which singles out relative clauses as exceptional) and produced ‘all I know about’ essays. Other favoured topics were Canadian French and forms of address. A small number of candidates answered the question on grammatical and extragrammatical word formation; most of them misunderstood what ‘extragrammatical’ meant in this context, and failed to discuss the status of clippings, initialisms, acronyms, etc.

As usual, the phonetic transcriptions were generally competent to good; candidates normally know in advance whether this exercise is one that they are happy with and likely to perform well on, and prepare in consequence. However, the handful of candidates who attempted the linguistic commentary failed to identify the type of text and the issues involved

French Paper VI

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

6 (35.3%) 9 (52.9%) 2 (11.8%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 74 - 70 70 - 67 66 - 60 60 - 58

Overall performance was pleasingly high, with over a third of candidates obtaining a first-class mark, and the average mark being 65.7%. The strongest scripts were distinguished by the candidates’ ability to explain clearly their understanding of the parameters of the question and to ensure that the arguments proposed, substantiated by careful reference to primary and secondary material, remained relevant to the question. Even in the weaker scripts, there was usually pleasing evidence of familiarity with a range of primary material, although allusions to secondary material, if included, seemed on occasion to be inserted arbitrarily rather than justified by context or a desire to engage meaningfully with the cited scholars. There was little evidence of use of pre-fabricated essays, but there were occasions where previous engagement with a similar question might have prevented candidates from seeing the full implications of the question actually asked: for example, a significant number of candidates assumed that the allusion to the ‘treatment of gender’ in Q7 was synonymous with the perennial issue of the 33 misogyny of the fabliaux, even though the concept of gender would offer scope for a much broader discussion. On occasion there appeared to be some confusion regarding what constitutes ‘late lyric poetry’ (Q15), resulting in discussion of what in reality is narrative poetry. Nearly all the questions received at least one response, although some received significantly more than others: most popular by far was the question dealing with comic narrative (Q7), which was answered by 12 candidates, followed by a group of questions receiving 4 or 5 responses, namely those dealing with epic (Q 1), late lyric poetry (Q15), and farces (Q16).

French Paper VII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

10 (25.6%) 25 (64.1%) 4 (10.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 80 - 71 69 - 65 65 - 62 62 - 53

The examiners were pleased to read some very good answers on this paper, which showed clear argument, relevance to the question, apposite illustration, and some critical knowledge. There were particularly impressive answers on the libertine novel, on literary quarrels, on classicism/baroque, on gods in tragedy, comedy/pathos, solitude, the Pléiade, Lyonnais poets, the role of the reader, the beloved, scepticism and religion, writing and painting, on “Tout est dit”, on vrai/vraisemblable, and a number on a Foucault quotation defining the Enlightenment. This selection also reveals the wide range of questions attempted.

On the other hand, a number of candidates failed to do themselves justice simply by not reading the question. When the question invites an answer on early modern poets, Montaigne and Descartes hardly qualify. Similarly, a question specifying Renaissance writers should not have been answered on La Fontaine and Perrault, or on Perrault and the Querelle, nor on Fontenelle and Descartes. A specific eighteenth-century question was answered on Montaigne, and one on the Republic of Letters was answered on the epistolary novel. A question about literary quarrels was answered with no mention of quarrels, and one on classicism and baroque with no mention of baroque. Some questions elicited what appeared to be a pre-planned answer to a different question, such as a question on La Rochefoucauld’s maxim, “C’est une grande folie de vouloir être sage tout seul”, answered with an essay on eighteenth- century women writers. Some answers revealed a narrow range of reading, or at least of illustration, as for instance in an answer on Marivaux and Beaumarchais, with only two plays cited. A few candidates also infringed the rubric of not using the same material in more than one answer.

French Paper VIII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

28 (23.3%) 64 (53.3%) 26 (21.7%) 2 (1.7%) 0 (0%) 80 - 69 69 - 64 64 - 60 60 - 45

There were some outstanding performances on this paper, with the strongest candidates producing well- directed, persuasive and stylish arguments, judiciously supported by textual evidence; and many other scripts were highly creditable. However, there were some fairly poor performances, with some weaker 34 candidates really not doing themselves any favours for a number of reasons: excessive reliance on texts studied for Prelims (e.g. En attendant Godot, or prescribed poems by Baudelaire); reproducing general essays that paid scant attention to the specific question set; limited range of reference (it was particularly noticeable this year that there were too many unambitious single-text answers – this is not a ‘set-text’ paper). As ever, certain topics were over-represented: 19th-century short fiction, Naturalism, so-called ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ (which all too often means just one or two plays by Beckett and/or Ionesco); if these are thought to be ‘safe’ options, it’s worth underlining how many of the weaker scripts included treatment of these very topics.

French Paper IX

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

7 (20%) 24 (68.6%) 4 (11.4%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 - 67 67 - 64 64 - 61 61 - 56

Performance on this paper was less strong overall than last year: there was a slight decrease in the proportion of first-class scripts and a small increase in the number of II.ii scripts. As in previous years, typical reasons for scripts not quite reaching a first-mark were: in commentary writing, that insufficient attention had been paid to details of language (rhetorical features, syntax, vocabulary choice, etc., and to explaining the effects of such details) and, in essays, that the terms of the question had not been addressed with enough precision.

In commentary writing (Section A), Villon was uncharacteristically less popular than in previous years. Additionally no candidate opted to complete two commentaries and one essay. In the Roland passage, several candidates wrongly asserted that Bramimonde spoke out in both laisses, which sometimes led them to mistakenly see these laisses as being ‘similaires’. The plural of verbs maldient, tencent and depersonent referring to all Pagans in laisse 1 should have made obvious that this was not the case. The best scripts were able to show how the use of language offered both parallelism and oppositions between Marsile and Roland and/or Charlemagne, and between the Pagans and the Christians. Reference to the cowardice of the Pagans, both in the first laisse and Bramimonde’s speech in the second laisse could have been developed more. The position of Bramimonde was also of interest here. In the Tristran excerpt, lines 25-30 were often misunderstood but otherwise the rhetorical skill of Dinas and his position with regards to Mark and the lovers were relatively well discussed. Some commentaries cleverly contrasted the narrative part with Dinas’ Direct Discourse. Translations of the Villon passage tended to be particularly poor and sometimes in stark contrast with what was discussed in the commentary, which brought the whole mark down. It was particularly irritating to see that students persisted to translate Medieval French si as ‘if’ (line 1) even though they had been warned against that basic mistake in the grammar lectures and revision sessions. The fact that the testator is here conversing with an imaginary interlocutor was often overlooked to the detriment of vague discussions of women and love (or more rarely lust).

In Section B, Q5a and Q6b were the most popular but a good range of candidates attempted the other questions too. Weaker answers tended to elude any definition of important terms such as ‘stereotype’ (Q5a) or ‘engagement’ and ‘participation’ (Q6b) and/or they included ‘everything’ there was to say about a text rather than strictly sticking to the essay title. For example, unless there was a strongly argued reason for it, there was no need to discuss characters other than Roland and Olivier in Q4a or other than Tristan and Iseut in Q5a. Similarly, discussing repetition in the Roland (Q4b) should not (or 35 not only) consist in listing all the different types of repetition in the text but also in explaining what they are meant to do and why. Repentance or reform is not the same as regret (in Q6a) and while these themes can be connected to the use of masks or different voices in the Testament, it should not be restricted to it. Finally the question about engagement and participation in Villon (Q6b) really needed some unpacking; some answers only dealt with one term and not with the other, and they sometimes failed to refer to the listeners/readers of the text. Both of the Villon questions benefitted from references to the Poésies diverses. The most successful essays were, therefore, those that engaged closely and precisely with the terms of the question, argued incisively and efficiently (moving through a good number and range of points, balancing argument and illustration), and demonstrated the maturity in their handling of secondary critics. In that latter case quality was almost always better than quantity.

French Paper X

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

22 (28.6%) 45 (58.4%) 10 (13%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 76 - 70 70 - 66 66 - 62 61 - 57

There were 77 takers for this paper in total; 73 questions were answered on Molière: Racine 51; Voltaire 33; Montaigne and Diderot both 27; Rabelais 14; Pascal 6: all authors found readers and all commentary passages were analysed, but not all essay questions were attempted. There was an error in the setting of the Voltaire commentary, but external examiners clarified that no candidates were adjudged to have been disadvantaged as a result. As in previous years, Molière and Racine were the most popular authors, but examiners note that those who chose the more ‘difficult’ authors -- Montaigne, Rabelais, Pascal and Diderot – wrote some of the most impressive answers. Remarkably, almost all the candidates who wrote essays about Voltaire quoted exactly the same three examples to support their points, whichever question they were responding to. The one or two who took on the passage from l’Ingénu made very good sense of it. But in answer to questions 22 and 23 the majority of candidates indulged in the hagiographic mode of writing about Voltaire (hero of the Enlightenment, of tolerance, and of the stock market), rather than offering any serious analysis of the grand narratives which his work is sometimes taken to exemplify. Question 22, when done well, was done very well, but its central terms (eg ‘âpre’) were often seriously misconstrued, and the shape of its claim was either ignored or misunderstood by many who took this on. Diderot lends himself less well to this genre of writing, and both in commentary and essay, his work found a good few excellent readers. Disappointingly few candidates gave evidence of having thought about the significance of the term ‘sublime’ which occurs both in Q 27 and in the commentary (it means a good deal more than ‘really great’ or ‘good at getting an idea across’). The better answers on the dramatists (as on Diderot) showed evidence of candidates having thought hard about questions of performance, theatricality, and the complex interactions between text and stage, image and object, gesture and language. Answers on the Racine passage were for the most part very good, some of them truly excellent; in essays, candidates mostly answered Q 20 and 21; sadly, no-one tackled Q18, and only one or two took on Q19. Like last year, these essays were generally of a higher quality than the essays on Molière. In respect of the matter of ‘intention’, very few candidates took up the parenthetical sceptical cue written into the questions set (Q 5 on Rabelais and 16 on Molière); and few seemed to have taken into account the quotations in French preceding the intention question itself. So, rather than subject the question of the recoverability of an author’s intentions to serious analysis, many wrote weak, sadly predictable answers to a question other than that which was actually set. The import of the French phrasing in Q 14 (‘un moyen d’agir sur le réel’) was for the most part misconstrued, and very few candidates undertook an analysis of its terms. Once again, too many 36 candidates were happy to wheel out the usual pre-prepared essays on the plaire et instruire/corriger et divertir pairings. The EDF commentary was generally better done, but one examiner at least nonetheless wonders if it is time to take Molière off the list of authors set on this paper. The answers to Pascal divided into the very fine and the very poor: what distinguished the one from the other was evidence of knowledge of the texts set, of the arguments they both contain and generate, and (where appropriate) of the methodological and editorial questions they raise. Arm’s length history of ideas (Pascal was a Jansenist/Stoic/sceptic, or did/not assert the [un]knowability of God, etc), without reference to apposite textual detail, is never going to be persuasive. The same dangers surface occasionally in respect of Montaigne, although here the vast majority of candidates chose their questions well (no one attempted Q 8), and many supported their readings with close textual detail and useful critical discussion. The commentary passage elicited fewer first rate answers than the essays, and candidates might usefully think more carefully about syntactical patterning in the passages set, as well as the larger themes (health, the body, doctors, cultural relativism, the self and so on). Very few candidates took the opportunity to think with this passage either about Montaigne’s own travels, or the changing place of his own body in the Essais. The Rabelais commentaries were for the most part very well done: context, form, theme and the cross-generic games being played here were all well understood and explicated. Only two of the four Rabelais questions were tackled, but it is nonetheless clear that Rabelais is continuing to find a happy few engaged and insightful readers each year. We conclude by repeating what was said last year: the best candidates, whatever their chosen authors, were adventurous: they showed that they had read the set texts, and more; they had made the most of lectures, and of critical writing, to think about the work of these authors, and used tutorials and revision to think beyond the standard positions and oppositions that structure both these texts and the responses of readers and (in the case of the theatrical texts) audiences to them over time.

French Paper XI

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

17 (24.3%) 41 (58.6%) 12 (17.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 80 - 69 69 - 66 65 - 61 61 - 54

The best scripts on this paper were outstanding: sophisticated, probing discussions ranging over the full range of prescribed texts and beyond, alongside commentaries that combined telling close analysis with well-judged allusions to the wider context of themes and techniques emerging from the passages set. This was the first year that Barthes was examined on this paper, and his work received a healthy number of answers, and good ones at that. Overall, work on Barthes, Duras and Mallarmé tended to be of particularly high quality. Weaker essays were often too narrow in their range of reference, not only failing to look beyond the prescribed texts, but only discussing too narrow a selection of the later. The least convincing commentaries tended to be those in which one couldn’t see the wood for the trees: rather myopic (and often inaccurate or inappropriate) discussion of very ‘local’ effects (sound patterning, punctuation) was conducted at the expense of broader consideration of the passage as, for example, a piece of narrative (in the cases of Stendhal or Flaubert) or a dramatic exchange (Sartre).

37

GERMAN

German Oral

The performance in the listening comprehension exercise was generally good. The welcome changes to the exercise – demanding fewer isolated nuggets of information, and instead requiring more understanding of the points being made and their connection – have evidently not taken it beyond the candidates’ capabilities. The only mild surprise was how few knew the meaning of ‘Seuchen’. Some scripts struggled to describe the triangular relationship between the Swabian immigrants, the Russians and the native Caucasian ethnicities correctly, particularly by failing to distinguish between the two latter groups. Marks could of course also be lost by omitting detail required by the question. There was little redundant information in the candidates’ answers, so that the question of whether it should be penalized (as had been briefly canvassed) or disregarded (the Sub-Faculty’s actual policy) became academic in practice. The discourse and conversation elements of the examination were done less well on average, though there were outstanding performances here as well, with some fine examples of discourses that had something to say and were able to say it in good German. Elsewhere, over-use of set phrases, Anglicisms, and difficulties with genders and declensions pulled down some marks.

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

17 (23%) 38 (51.4%) 14 (23%) 2 (2.7%) 0 (0%) 79 - 69 68 - 64 64 - 59 59 - 37

German Paper I

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

16 (21.9%) 41 (56.1%) 14 (19.2%) 1 (1.4%) 1 (1.4%) 80 - 69 68 - 65 65 - 60 60 - 39

On the whole this paper was well handled. The passage for prose translation had an appearance of plainness about it, but some of its vocabulary and idiomatic turns of phrase presented a challenge. ‘Unpredictable’ weather was well rendered as ‘unberechenbar’, ‘wechselhaft’ or ‘launisch’, as well as the more literal ‘unvorhersagbar’. Whether from personal experience or not, most candidates knew that a hangover was a ‘Kater’; one ‘that catches one unawares’ became ‘ein Kater, der einen unvermutet erwischt’ or ‘mit dem man nicht gerechnet hat’. ‘Stopping for something to eat’ is not the same as ‘stopping to shop for some food (to eat at home)’, as a number of candidates thought; ‘irgendwo unterwegs etwas essen’ would do the trick here, and circumvent the difficulty of ‘stopping’, where ‘anhalten’ implies travel by car. Most candidates realized that ‘cat food’ was ‘(Katzen)futter’, not ‘Essen’. A majority used ‘entlang’ without a preposition to translate ‘past the lighted windows’. This would have worked if it had been a street or river (‘die Straße’, ‘den Fluß entlang’), where the object alongside or down which one is moving is itself continuous; but with a succession of windows, ‘an’ was needed as a supplement (‘an den Fenstern entlang’ or ‘vorbei’). In the phrase ‘papers that would tell me about him’, ‘erzählen’ was not a good choice, since objects don’t normally ‘narrate’ or ‘tell a story’ in German; ‘Aufschluss geben’, or a rephrasing such as ‘aus denen ich etwas über ihn erfahren würde’, was 38 advisable. Regular problems were caused by ‘I watched the black and white television’, with a large number of candidates not distinguishing between the hardware (‘der Fernseher’) and its use (‘fernsehen’), so that they had the narrator staring at a mute set (‘ich schaute mir den Fernseher an’), rather than watching programmes on it: ‘Ich schaute auf dem Schwarzweißapparat fern’, or ‘sah mir eine Sendung … an’. Though it was not immediately obvious what the ‘deference’ (‘Rücksicht’, ‘Taktgefühl’) of the couple towards the narrator consisted of, the order of the clauses in the original, as well as general plausibility, suggested that is was the having got dressed at all, rather than the being dressed in ‘baggy jerseys’, that mattered; it was thus advisable to stress the action being performed, using ‘sich anziehen’ rather than ‘gekleidet sein’ – ‘wobei sie sich, vielleicht aus Rücksicht mir gegenüber, große Pullis angezogen hatten’. In the phrase ‘learning to be comfortable with their silences’ most candidates wisely eschewed ‘bequem’ and opted for the singular ‘Schweigen’ or ‘Schweigsamkeit’, and some likewise found elegant substitutes for ‘learning’; e. g. ‘mit der Zeit fand ich mich mit ihrer Schweigsamkeit ab’. Too many candidates translated the ‘would’ of frequency or repetition in ‘for days at a stretch I’d not see them’ with the conditional ‘würde’; the correct solution is a simple past tense, e. g. ‘ich bekam sie tagelang nicht zu Gesicht’, since this already conveys adequately that this was not a single occurrence. ‘Bring back’ (from shopping) is ‘mitbringen’ rather than ‘zurückbringen’, which means ‘give back’. ‘Business of cooking’ was ingeniously translated as ‘Kocherei’ by a couple of candidates. The one notable metaphor in the passage – the ‘entombed atmosphere of the apartment’ – found a variety of good solutions, among them ‘gruftartig’ and ‘katakombenähnlich’. ‘Inviting them out for a meal’ proved tricky, since ‘sie zum Essen einladen’ implies staying in; ‘zum Essen ausführen’, ‘ins Gasthaus/Restaurant einladen’, ‘einladen, mit mir zum Essen auszugehen’ were among the correct alternatives. It was surprising how many candidates thought that to ‘decline’ an invitation could be translated as ‘absagen’, which means to cancel a previous arrangement; ‘ablehnen’, or a plain ‘sie wollten nicht’, would be correct. Misidentifying the genders, wrong declensions, and (more rarely) word order mistakes were among the common errors. Wrong verb agreements were found in the weakest scripts (not counting those who thought that ‘Paar’ takes a plural), as were misconjugation of strong verbs, incorrect genders of relative pronouns even where in the main clause the gender was correctly used, and the use of the demonstrative pronoun ‘der’ where the personal pronoun was called for (in the passage, *einer von denen bat mich for ‘einer von ihnen bat mich …’). Some individual candidates made a rule of using ‘von’ + dative instead of the genitive. They should be aware that the rumours of the death of the genitive have been greatly exaggerated, in written German at least. In the essay, gender and declension errors were again common. In addition, a significant number of scripts showed the wrong case in the verb complement (*Ihr Mann war einen Rechtsanwalt) or in apposition after ‘als’ (e. g. *Er wurde als einen Gott verehrt). But most candidates did their best to minimize these mistakes, and a large number produced stylish German sentences in an elegant, unforced periodic style. And it was very encouraging to see that most essays had something pertinent and forceful to say about the questions, a large number of which were attempted (out of nineteen topics, only two were not chosen). Particular phrases that were over- or misused include ‘laut X’, where ‘nach Ansicht von X’ or ‘X meint/ behauptet, daß …’ would be more common; ‘suggerieren’ for ‘suggest’ (the German has connotations of subliminal insinuation); ‘X gilt als Y’ when the speaker in fact means that X is, and is not merely thought to be, an instance of Y; ‘ermuntern’ (with its connotation of ‘cheering up’) to translate ‘encourage’ in contexts like ‘the narrative point of view encourages the reader to …’, where in German a phrase such as ‘durch die Erzählperspektive wird der Leser dazu gebracht …’ would be used; and the faux ami ‘Akademiker’. Bad essay-writing habits marred some of the scripts: the mechanical use of set phrases (e. g. ‘es ist nicht zu leugnen’ as a preface to entirely uncontroversial remarks); the ritual defining of terms whose meaning is perfectly plain already (especially if it is preceded by lengthy meta-comment on how vital defining 39 one’s terms is); and insisting that a topic is being hotly debated at the moment, even if it isn’t, or that the phenomenon it addresses is particularly virulent/on the increase in the present. The frequency of reminders that we live in an age of rapid change exceeded the number of times the point was relevant to the argument. In general, candidates should remember that in short-ish essays (the median length was 825 words, the average 785), the need for scaffolding (e. g. elaborate introductions) is less urgent than that for actual building. Fewer navigational signposts, more navigation! Taking both exercises together, the good news is that most candidates show an impressive command of German vocabulary, idiom and sentence construction. On the debit side, gender and declension errors are still too common; eliminating them would have a significant effect on performance.

German Paper II

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

26 (35.6%) 28 (38.4%) 18 (24.6%) 1 (1.4%) 0 (0%) 77 - 72 71 - 66 66 - 59 59 - 44

Of the two passages set this year, the one by Christoph Hein posed fewer difficulties in terms of complex syntax to decode and vocabulary to decipher than the other by Gisela Kleine. While many strong candidates rose to the challenges presented by both passages to achieve relatively consistent marks across both exercises, some candidates were notably thrown into confusion by the difficulty of the Kleine passage and performed at a markedly lower level of competence. When confronted with a difficult passage, it is important to keep one’s head and to try to write plausible sense and good English.

Paper IIA (Hein) A good translation of this passage needed to have taken careful account of a number of syntactical features: the fact that das Feuer is the subject of both ließ schmutzige Rauchfahnen aufsteigen and also (ließ) eine Flamme hervorschießen (‘sent dirty columns of smoke rising up … and a tongue of flame shooting forth’); the use of the pluperfect at Ich hatte mir den Brandort angesehen und war dann zu Beuchler gegangen; and the fact that the German subjunctive is more efficient at indicating a passage of reported speech than the English sequence of tenses, so that some sort of insertion was needed to show that Er sei Ende fünfzig etc. was not part of the narrator’s account, i.e. not to write ‘He was in his late fifties and hadn’t the time nor the energy to build up a new workshop’, which suggests the narrator’s voice, but ‘He was in his late fifties, he said, and…’, which clearly marks the reported speech. The verb bekäme at the end of the passage of reported speech gives a clear indication that the sentence is oriented towards the future – ‘and would have taken all his clients and secured their loyalty before he could get his feet back on the ground’ – not the past, as some read it: ‘and had taken…’. There were also the idioms to take account of: jmdm. etw. in die Schuhe schieben (meaning ‘to lay the blame for s.th. on s.o.’) and sich aufs Altenteil zurückziehen (meaning ‘to retire’). The opening sentence posed a number of challenges. The phrase brannte es wieder is correctly translated as ‘there was another fire’ or ‘another fire broke out’, not ‘it was on fire again’ or similar; diesmal half kein Zufall was nicely translated by many as ‘this time chance did not intervene’ or similar, though some seemed to think that the point of the chance, coincidence or fate was to fan the flames rather than to assist with prevention, as in ‘this time there was no helping it’ or ‘chance was not able to help’; verkohlte bis auf die Grundmauern may simply mean ‘burned to the ground’ or ‘was razed to the ground’ (not ‘raised to the ground’), though ‘incinerated down to the foundation walls’ was nice. Even if they didn’t know that ‘Stapel’ is a masculine noun, candidates should have noticed that the ending of glimmenden (meaning ‘smouldering’) meant that the Holzstapel must be plural (‘stacks of wood’ or ‘piles of timbers’). A great many candidates thought that the fire had penetrated into the core or heart of the building, when it 40 should be clear from the description that the core of the stacks of wood in the carpenter’s yard is meant. verlaufen und verdampft (‘run off and evaporated’) also caused difficulties. In the best scripts there were some excellent solutions to problems posed by vocabulary: ‘plumes of smoke’ for Rauchfahnen, ‘water from the hose’ or, even better, ‘water from the hydrants’ for Löschwasser, ‘prolonged’ or ‘protracted investigations’ for langwierige Untersuchungen, ‘allegations’ for Verdächtigungen, and, in one lovely script, ‘I can’t afford to’ for Dafür langt’s nicht.

Paper IIB (Kleine) A major problem in the weaker scripts was the tendency to guess at unknown vocabulary on the basis of perceived similarity to English lexis: thus Stofffülle (‘volume of fabric’ or ‘abundance of material’) became ‘filling’, ‘stuffing’, ‘lining’ or ‘padding’, Lenken (‘steering’) became ‘leaning’, bei Straßengefälle (‘when the road went downhill’) became ‘when falling off in the street’, Tretkurbeln (‘pedals’) became ‘the curbs of the pavement’, and so on. This kind of tactic can produce some bizarre scenarios: ‘Ella learned to spread her feet wide when falling off in the street, while the curbs of the pavement raced wildly round her’ instead of, for example, ‘Ella learned to spread her feet wide when there were dips in the road while the pedals spun round furiously’. It is important to take time to work out the likely sense from the context. So Straßengefälle is preceded by the easier Bergabfahrt (‘downhill descent’) and it should be possible to deduce that what was missing in diesen frühen Modellen was ‘the capacity to freewheel’ (or as one technically knowledgeable candidate translated ‘the freewheel sprocket’): hence the pedals spinning round wildly when going downhill! Similarly, ‘To curb such breakneck speed or even to maintain it’ for Solch halsbrecherisches Tempo zu drosseln oder gar anzuhalten makes no sense (the misunderstanding of anhalten was frequent), nor in fact does ‘To curb such breakneck speed or even to stop’; what is needed is ‘To curb such breakneck speed, let alone to stop’. The Fußruhen (‘foot rests’) cannot possibly by attached to the ‘front spokes’ – if they were they would spin round with the wheel – and if ‘front fork’ is not familiar for Vordergabel, then a sensible guess, such as ‘the front part of the frame’ makes for a perfectly acceptable substitute. Familiar alternative meanings should be borne in mind. Many candidates read the wie viele in Wie viele sportliche Frauen entledigte sie sich der bewegungshemmenden Panzerung as ‘how many’ and, disregarding the reflexive pronoun, wrote ‘How many sporting women she liberated…’ instead of the correct ‘Like many sporting women she liberated herself from the movement-inhibiting armour’. (A striking number of candidates did not know sich entledigen.) Excellent work was characterised by real precision combined with the ability to think flexibly about optimal phrasing: thus ‘Emmy, however, was delighted, saying that she now looked “like a labourer’s lad when seen from behind on her bike”’ combines good thinking about how to deal with jubelte with careful attention to the fact that Ella looks ‘from behind like a labourer’s lad’, not ‘like a labourer’s lad from behind’. As with the Hein passage, there were some very good solutions to the passage’s vocabulary challenges: ‘unseemly’ and ‘unbecoming’ for unschicklich, ‘derided’ for verhöhnt, ‘scant regard’ for Geringschätzung, ‘to conquer new frontiers in the elation of unrestrained velocity’ for sich im Hochgefühl unbehinderter Geschwindigkeit die neue Weite zu erobern, ‘loose chippings’ for Straßenschotter, ‘momentum’ for Wucht, ‘careering rides’ or, more accurately still, ‘downhill runs’ for Schussfahrten (it is a term used in skiing), and two candidates saw the opportunity to respond to the ironic style of the passage by translating gefährdetem Federvieh with the equally alliterative ‘imperilled poultry’. Unfortunately, there was also quite a lot of poor spelling: ‘hinderance’, ‘exhileration’, ‘exhiliration’, ‘axel’, and repeatedly ‘break’ for ‘brake’. Doch mein Rädchen geht famos does not mean that Ella’s little bicycle is becoming famous, but that it ‘goes along beautifully’, ‘rides wonderfully’, ‘goes like the blazes’ or, in one candidate’s sensitive response to the period feel of ‘famos’: ‘But my little bicycle rides jolly well!’

41

German Paper III

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (22.7%) 15 (68.2%) 2 (9.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 - 69 68 - 66 65 - 63 63 - 56

Twenty-two candidates took this paper (2013: twelve). Of these, nine translated two medieval passages, six translated two early modern passages, and seven translated one of each. It was noticeable that the higher-scoring candidate tended to stick to either the medieval passages or the early modern passages, rather than attempting one of each. In the medieval passages, students were puzzled by daz her (‘the army’, not ‘the lord’), von manger hande varwe (‘of many colours’), in was niht gâch (‘they were not in a hurry’), kranc (‘weak’), hete ze gote phliht (‘was committed to God’) and the construction in du dunkest dich nie sô starc, / ich fürht dich alsô lützel eine, / sam ob ich wær in der gemeine (‘no matter how strong you think you are, I, being on my own, fear you no more than if I had many people on my side’). The early modern passages were on the whole well answered, with the best renderings demonstrating a very high level of understanding of the vocabulary and syntax. The most common errors centred on constructions using complex syntax. For example ob sie wol von vielen auff die vnsern onbillich geleget wird should be rendered ‘although they have been unfairly imputed to those of our party’. The metaphors of armour and arms were not always correctly rendered, resulting also in misunderstanding of the following sentence: aber warlich dieselben gar viel vbler den etlich andere seiner Rotgesellen poliert vnd gebraucht (‘but in truth he has polished and used them much worse than many of his comrades-in-arms’). The sentence sie ist dadurch kein Gelahrter sonsten gelahrt ist could have been translated as ‘there is no scholar who is scholarly except through her’. Peculiarly, almost all candidates had problems with the verbs in sie lehret auch die Narren kennen (‘she also teaches how to recognise fools’), which produced a large number of erroneous variations, and the plural noun (still in use today) die Hoffertigen (‘the proud’, not ‘courtly works’).

German Paper IV

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

8 (44.4%) 9 (50%) 1 (5.6%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 73 - 72 70 - 69 68 - 64 64 - 59

The standard of answers this year was generally high. The marks for the Luther translation/commentary question (1b) were stronger, on average, than those for the Helmbrecht question (1a): some Helmbrecht translations were very poor, and in their commentaries on Helmbrecht a number of candidates remarked on linguistic features of the work which were not actually exemplified in the passage set in the paper. In their essays candidates on the whole engaged well with the question set although, as in previous years, answers on language during National Socialism were rather boilerplate. In answer to some questions, candidates were penalized for using exclusively present-day material, and not discussing historical developments, even though this was explicitly asked for.

42

German Paper V(i)

German Paper V(ii)

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (16.1%) 24 (77.4%) 2 (6.5%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 72 - 68 68 - 66 65 - 65 64 - 51

Candidates were generally familiar with the main themes and issues for the paper, and demonstrated a clear acquaintance with the relevant experimental studies and theoretical literature. Questions on 'Kiezdeutsch' (13) and child language acquisition (15a) proved particularly popular; however, for essay questions such as these, relatively few scripts moved beyond surveying or juxtaposing competing views to develop an individual argument that responded to the question. Candidates could also have gone into more relevant detail when answering the questions on morphological analysis (4) and the definition of linguistic terms (11). The better answers drew on a range of perspectives and evidence, for instance in discussing factors other than the High German sound shift in the question on modern dialect boundaries (10c).

German Paper VI

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (44.4%) 5 (55.6%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 - 72 70 - 69 66 - 66 63 - 61

Nine candidates took this paper (2013: six). The performances were generally of a good standard, though there were relatively few really outstanding scripts. The texts discussed included included the Hildebrandslied, Veldeke’s Eneasroman, Gottfried's Tristan, Wolfram's Willehalm, Hartmann's Arthurian romances, Minnesang, Herzog Ernst, various ‘Mären’ and Mechthild's Das fließende Licht der Gottheit. Candidates also engaged with the themes of fictionality, allegory, the oppositions between the public and the private and between the sacred and the secular, historiograpy (translatio imperii) and gender (misogyny).

German Paper VII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (38.5%) 8 (61.5%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 74 - 70 70 - 68 68 - 67 66- 66

43

Thirteen candidates took this paper (2013: sixteen). The standard was pleasingly solid across the board with a handful of excellent scripts. It was very good to see answers on a wide range of topics from sixteenth and seventeenth-century literature, with only the poetry questions failing to attract a single answer. The most popular questions answered were 2 (on Das Narrenschiff: six answers), 7 (on Hans Sachs’s Fastnachtspiele: five answers), and 6a (Hans Sachs and Caritas Pirckheimer: four answers). However, students also discussed Luther’s works, Historia von D. Johann Fausten, Opitz’s poetological reforms, tragedies by Gryphius, Lohenstein, and Weise, seventeenth-century comedy, Grimmelshausen’s novels Simplicissimus Teutsch and Trutz Simplex, and Reuter’s spoof novel Schelmuffsky. In the best answers, candidates constructed a strong argument based on very good close reading of texts, accompanied by a very good understanding of their critical and/or historical context. Candidates did less well if they only answered part of the question, or deviated markedly from the question set.

German Paper VIII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

25 (37.3%) 38 (56.7%) 3 (4.5%) 0 (0%) 1 (1.5%) 78 - 71 71 - 67 67 - 64 64 - 29

There were 67 candidates for this paper, who wrote answers which drew on a refreshing range of texts and authors from Gottsched through to contemporary poetry, film and fiction. (There were answers to 41 of the 51 questions set.) The overall standard of answers was very good, with many candidates demonstrating a good knowledge of their material, and the ability to construct a clear argument. Answers which were given a first class mark might either demonstrate a knowledge of a surprising range of texts and combine these coherently, or offer a close reading of a single text, deftly situated in a wider context. They also tended to use examples found by the candidates themselves. The weaker answers demonstrated a knowledge of only a very narrow range of texts and little or no sense of the wider literary context in which the texts were written. Weaker answer recycled examples from lectures or secondary literature. Candidates did not always choose their questions very well, using material to answer a question that would have fitted better elsewhere. This suggests that it is worth candidates reading through the whole paper to ensure they are making the most of the material they have at their disposal. There were a number of fundamental terms which caused problems for candidates: transcend, exemplary, mass culture (understood simply to mean the masses), gender (treated as if synonymous with sex), narrative (thought to mean ‘of no particular force’), omniscience (understood as meaning there was not a personalised narrator). Too many candidates talked about realism (or Realism) with no working hypothesis or contextualised understanding of what the term might mean. The concept of ‘genre’ also caused difficulties, as did the terms subjective and objective; ‘subjective’ being read as meaning ‘everything is a matter of personal predilection’; and the bar for ‘objectivity’ being set so high that no human practice could possibly qualify. These recurring weaknesses suggest that candidates worked hard to acquire a knowledge of primary texts, but that more could be done about developing a conceptual apparatus even if only rudimentary, for engaging with the texts they have read.

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German Paper IX

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

10 (41.7%) 11 (45.8%) 3 (12.5%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 77 - 71 70 - 67 67 - 66 63 - 55

Twenty-four candidates took this paper (2013: fourteen). In general, performances were pleasing, showing evidence of hard work and of enthusiastic engagement with the texts. There were, however, relatively few outstanding scripts and a small number of disappointing performances (in the 2.2 range). Some weaker candidates were clearly unable to read the set texts in the original. Most candidates chose to engage with the passages from the Nibelungenlied or the Easter Plays, saving Parzival for the essay question. There were some very good essays written on all the texts, although weaker candidates let themselves down by attempting to turn the actual question set into the question that they would have preferred the examiners to set.

German Paper X

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

11 (21.6%) 32 (62.7%) 7 (13.7%) 0 (0%) 1 (2%) 75 - 69 69 - 65 64 - 61 61 - 0

The most popular authors on the paper this year were Kafka (22), Brecht (15) and Hoffmann (9). By period, the early modern authors (Luther, Gryphius, Grimmelshausen) attracted 6 entries; the eighteenth century and ‘classical’ period (Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin) 5; Romanticism and the nineteenth century (Hoffmann, Kleist, Heine) 21; the ‘klassische Moderne’ (Rilke, Mann, Kafka, Brecht) 47; and the post- 45 period (Grass, Wolf, Sebald, Fassbinder, Jelinek) 22. A good range of questions was attempted, though with a marked preponderance for some over others. Of the commentary passages, those by Gryphius, Grimmelshausen, Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Mann and Sebald found no takers. In proportion to the number of entrants, the commentaries on Von der Freyheyt einiß Christenmenschen, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Leben des Galilei, Nachdenken über Christa T. and Katzelmacher were the most popular. It was striking that no answer, whether on the commentary passage, or in the essay section, was attempted on Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull. The numbers are small (there were 6 entrants for Mann this year), so this may be chance. But it may be that certain set texts are perceived to be more intractable than others. There were first-class answers in all areas. Some notably good commentaries were written on Von der Freyheyt einiß Christenmenschen and ‘Römische Sarkophage’ (the Rilke poem chosen), even though no one spotted the relevance to l. 9 of the etymological meaning of ‘sarcophagus’ (‘flesh-eating’). As usual, the better commentaries combined an awareness of the place of the passage in the larger structure of the work with attention to detail of wording, symbolism, point of view or characterization. While there was of course a qualitative spread in the essays, depending on the ability to build and sustain an argument with precise and illuminating reference to the works discussed, it was pleasing to see that the instances of the use of prepared material in defiance of the question were rare. If there was one more general weakness, it was the tendency to read and judge characters in moral terms only, often in an overly emphatic and static manner (Homburg’s vainglory, Josef K.’s sexual chauvinism, Galileo’s cowardice, 45

Aschenbach’s depravity), and failing to ask what purpose such portrayals serve – what they enable the works to do, in what larger pattern – and what kind of literary characters they are, i. e. how they are put together. It was interesting to see that the sequence of stills from Katzelmacher in the commentary section invited such questions more readily: mise-en-scène, camera angle, details of gesture and positioning evidently draw attention to the artifice of characterization more clearly than the equivalent literary devices. It would nevertheless be desirable if more attention could be given to this aspect of literary art.

German Paper XIA

German Paper XIB

46

ITALIAN

Italian Oral

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

11 (30.6%) 21 (58.3%) 3 (8.3%) 1 (2.8%) 0 (0%) 79 - 70 70 - 67 67 - 63 62 - 47

Italian I

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

12 (34.3%) 19 (54.3%) 3 (8.6%) 1 (2.8%) 0 (0%) 80 - 70 70 - 67 67 - 63 62 - 47

There were 35 scripts for Italian Paper I (Essay in the language): 12 were awarded first class, including 1 script which was marked 80 by both markers; 19 scripts were II.i; 3 II.ii and 1 script in III class. At the top level (I class) scripts showed linguistic accuracy, flair in both lexis and phraseology and a mature, thoughtful, original content, and and argument drawing on appropriate examples. Scripts in the II.i range are mostly in the top half (11 ranging 65-69; 8 between 60-64) and show students are well equipped in writing about complex subjects in a good level of Italian, both from a lexical and a grammatical viewpoint. The three scripts in the II.ii class show frequent linguistic problems, including recurring basic errors (agreement, spelling, grammatical structures) and the content may be muddled, of a mundane survey, not coherently structured, or the content may be largely irrelevant or not of a sufficiently mature standard. The one script marked 47 fell short of one or more requirement and was much shorter than the required length.

Italian II

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

8 (22.2%) 24 (66.7%) 4 (11.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 77 - 69 69 - 64 64 - 62 61 - 51

Paper IIA

There were a total of 36 candidates for this paper and their performance was in line with expectations. The chosen passage was by F. Ramondino. The general level of translation skills shown was good if not outstanding, with 8 first-class performances, 23 in the II.1 area, and 5 at II.2 level (no III or below). The top mark awarded was 85/100.

Paper IIB

There were a total of 36 candidates for this paper and their performance was in line with expectations. The 47 chosen passage was by J.Joyce. The general level of translation skills into Italian was good, if not outstanding, with 5 first-class performances, 26 in the II.1 area, and 5 at II.2 level (no III or below). The top mark awarded was 75/100.

Overall the profile of performance in this paper is very good indeed, with 8 first-class performances, 24 II.1, and 4 II.ii (no III class marks or below). The best overall mark awarded was 77/100.

Italian VI

Distribution Range of Marks : 73 - 65

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

4 (57.1%) 3 (42.9%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

This year 7 candidates offered this paper; the results were excellent, with 4 scripts receiving First-class marks and 3 receiving solid II.1s.

Italian VII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

3 (23.1%) 10 (76.9%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 73 - 69 69 - 67 67 - 66 65 - 65

This was a good year for Paper VII. A total of 13 candidates sat this paper (compared with 6 last year). There was a pleasing increase in quality as well as quantity: the level of responses was much higher in quality than in recent years. Three candidates submitted clear first-class papers, the other ten were in the high II.1 range, the lowest mark being 65, and three were borderline first class marks. There were some very good individual answers, though the most popular topics were the usual suspects: 10 answers on Castiglione, and 9 on Machiavelli. However it was pleasing to see 4 students answering on more difficult and traditionally less popular subjects such as Michelangelo’s poetry, female poets of the Cinquecento and Poliziano.

Italian VIII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

8 (50%) 7 (43.8%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (6.2%) 73 - 71 70 - 70 67 - 64 63 - 34

There were a total of 17 candidates for this paper, but there was one absentee. 15 candidates took the current regulations paper, whilst one candidate took the old regulation Paper VIII. This was due to the candidate having studied for the paper according to pre-2008 regulations. (2008 being the year when the new format for this paper was introduced into FHS).

48

The candidates answered as follows: Calvino (6); Manzoni (5), Leopardi (5), Verga (4), Cinema (4- 2 on De Sica, 1 on Rossellini, 1 on Visconti), Eco (4), Svevo (3), Morante (2), Aleramo&Banti (2); Foscolo (2), Montale (1), Fo (1), Bassani (1). This distribution of questions is yet again not surprising, with a preference for major canonical authors, but it was pleasing to see very good answers on Bassani, Aleramo, Banti, Foscolo and Pascoli.

On the whole, a satisfying performance, - the highest mark was a 73.

Italian IX

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

11 (32.4%) 21 (61.8%) 1 (2.9%) 0 (0%) 1 (2.9%) 75 - 71 71 - 68 68 - 65 65 - 30

This year 34 candidates offered this paper; the results were very good, with 11 scripts receiving First- class marks (ranging from 70 to 75), 21 II.1 (ranging from 60 to 69), 1 II2 (53), and 1 Fail (30). Answers focussed not only on Inferno and Purgatorio (as always), but also on the poem as a whole (20), with a smaller number of answers on Paradiso (4). Commentaries focussed mainly on passages from Inferno and Purgatorio. While some monotony and a certain amount of repetition is inevitable, my sense is that also this year the answers were well structured and showed an impressive knowledge of the Commedia and its background. Clearly the vast majority of the candidates were very well prepared.

Italian XI

Distribution Range of Marks : 75 - 53

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

3 (42.9%) 3 (42.9%) 1 (14.2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Unusually, the number of students taking the paper this year was equalled by a similar number of selected authors: seven candidates preparing a mixture of seven different authors. Overall, however, the results reflected the usual pattern of a small percentage of First Class marks (2), followed by a bigger group of 2.1 (4) and a minority of 2.2 (1). The most popular choice concerned the work of Luigi Pirandello (4), followed by Italo Calvino (3). All commentaries placed the exam passages within the right context and showed good knowledge of the text. First class answers distinguished themselves for their sophisticated knowledge of a vast selection of primary texts as much as of the critical bibliography.

49

PORTUGUESE

Portuguese Oral

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (41.7%) 6 (50%) 1 (8.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 77 - 72 72 - 69 68 - 67 62 - 51

Portuguese I

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (33.3%) 8 (66.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 - 70 70 - 67 67 - 66 65 - 60

The translation passage was an excellent challenge for the students, providing them with the opportunity to tackle a carefully constructed, literary text with some colloquial dialogue thrown in. There were different options available when attempting to render these different discourses into Portuguese, and the wide range of marks achieved (from 76 to 58) is testament to this. The strongest candidates produced fluent and elegant texts in their chosen variety, and were sensitive to both the more literary and more informal aspects of the text. They were also aware of how verb conjugations, in Portuguese, make it unnecessary to repeat pronouns at the beginning of sentences. This was tested at the beginning of the passage.

There were very few errors of interpretation, and most of these were in the section where the man went over to the woman, who was standing next to the sink. Here, it was necessary to understand, and unravel, the movements of the various characters in the room (the man, woman and child). The weaker candidates left this movement unclear, and some created curious anatomical contortions at the point when the woman put her mouth against his neck ('nuca', which some proposed, would be the back of the neck) and he in turn began to kiss her.

The majority of candidates avoided serious grammatical error, though some basic vocabulary and phraseology proved surprisingly challenging - sono and sonho were frequently confused, a ‘bare neck’ emerged as nuca, colo nudo or cola, and there was much hesitation over how to express the time of day in a narrative. Several candidates struggled with the best translation for 'disappointment', a minority selecting the preferable desilusão over decepção or desapontamento. Lavabo' for sink was a frequent mistranslation.

Interference from Spanish was detected in some texts (tarea for tarefa, pila for pia) but was not a major problem. Accents were omitted from máquina, súbito, elétrico. Some candidates writing in Brazilian Portuguese had difficulty in keeping colloquial forms (such as the use of tonic pronouns as objects) out of the narrative sections.

Performance in the essay was at a high level overall, with more than half of the answers awarded marks of 70 and above. 50

The essay into Portuguese produced a record number of first-class scripts this year, with those at the higher hand displaying confident handling of complex structures and idiomatic expressions and/or sophisticated discussions. The majority of essays were well-illustrated and it was gratifying to notice that most dealt with Lusophone examples.

At the lower end, one or two scripts had occasional Spanish interference, even in common words (ganar a vida for ganhar a vida; crear for criar; diferencia for diferença; demostrar for demonstrar). The subjunctive generated a few incorrect constructions, including a number of unexpected basic errors (se partamos do princípio instead of se partirmos do princípio). But even the linguistically weaker scripts were redeemed by their content. Between them, the candidates attempted all the essay topics.

Portuguese II

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (33.3%) 6 (50%) 2 (16.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 73 - 70 70 - 67 67 - 66 66 - 57

The two translations set contrasting challenges, which most candidates met effectively. The grammatical difficulty of a dense passage in European Portuguese caused some comprehension difficulties, particularly in identifying the subjects of a series of verbs at the beginning of the passage. Most candidates took the meaning of the word /nora/ in its human sense 'daughter-in-law' rather than in the traditional rural meaning of 'bucket-wheel', while realising from the context that this did not make sense; even when they did not know the precise meaning of the word, they impressed the examiners with intelligent attempts within the appropriate semantic field.

The more rhetorical style of the Brazilian passage elicited some very convincing versions, with appropriate reorganisation of the structure of complex periods. There was some guessing of vocabulary, particularly over enxada, which not all candidates realised was the tool later referred to as instrumento proscrito. In the opening phrase Não se pode censurar Euclides da Cunha, engenheiro e etnólogo amador, both censurar (variously ‘censure’, ‘censor’) and amador (‘lover’, ‘beloved’) were surprisingly problematic. Nenhum branco que se prezasse and desclassificação social inspired imaginative idiomatic translations, while para seu serviço e prazer and laborávamos em equivoco were more often than not taken literally.

Portuguese IV and V

51

Portuguese VII

Distribution Range of Marks : 73 - 62

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

2 (33.3%) 4 (66.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Six candidates took the Renaissance period paper this year, which was encouraging. The work submitted was, on the whole, of a good quality. One candidate answered a question with sole reference to a text studied at prelims and so the examiners would like to see it added to the rubric for the paper that this is unacceptable and should be penalised in future years. Several candidates showed an impressive range of knowledge, though this was not always coupled with equally impressive analysis. The best essays were subtle, but to the point, demonstrating a close engagement with the question and a strong overall argument supported by precise evidence. A good range of questions was attempted, but the most popular were clearly Q.7 on Castro and Q.9 on Os Lusíadas. The former generally elicited better essays as candidates answering on Os Lusíadas tended to give a survey of the episodes in the poem that involved love rather than exploring what is at stake in the wording of the quotation.

Portuguese VIII

Distribution Range of Marks : 73 - 59

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

2 (33.3%) 3 (50%) 1 (16.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Answers were fairly even spread between Brazilian texts and those originating from Portugal and Portuguese-speaking Africa. A wide range of questions were tackled which means that, all in all, twelve different authors were selected. Many candidates were able to display both breadth and depth to produce detailed, sharply argued answers. Examiners thought that attempts to ‘name drop’, with allusions to a range of canonical European authors, were seldom necessary or effective. At the weaker end, a few answers were superficial (with insufficient illustration) or they were unfocused (ie lacking a coherent structure or argument).

Portuguese X

Portuguese XI

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

3 (30%) 7 (70%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 73 - 72 69 - 68 67 - 66 66 - 60

52

There were some outstanding essays and impressive commentaries in this group. Almost all the candidates showed excellent knowledge of the authors they had specialised in, the set texts studied and secondary criticism. The best essays were wide-ranging in scope, and provided highly incisive or original thematic analyses, with close attention to detail. In the commentaries, even the very best candidates occasionally made silly mistakes of interpretation in common Portuguese words which did not present undue difficulty (madrinha assumed to be little mother, ao pé de confused with aos pés de), possibly owing to nervousness. It is therefore recommended that the passage set for commentary should be read slowly and carefully at least twice before embarking on writing.

53

RUSSIAN

Russian Oral

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (16.7%) 14 (46.7%) 8 (26.7%) 2 (6.7%) 1 (3.2%) 81 - 67 67 - 61 61 - 56 56 - 30

Russian I

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (14.3%) 15 (53.6%) 8 (28.6%) 1 (3.5%) 0 (0%) 76 - 68 66 - 64 64 - 58 58 - 46

Performance in the translation from English into Russian varied widely, from the sophisticated and near native (though with some curious minor slips) to the wildly ungrammatical, in places unintelligible or lapsing into English. It was disappointing that almost a third of the candidates failed to recognise the English sequence of tenses required by free indirect speech in the Le Carré passage, and so misguidedly used the conditional mood rather than the future tenses which would be appropriate in Russian. Final year students should be reminded to watch out for this pitfall in translating from English into Russian. Still fewer knew the correct Russian construction for indicating a precise measurement of length, and even some of those whose grasp of basic grammar was adequate were unclear about the correct (i.e. predicative rather than attributive or appositional) use of short-form passive participles. This point also needs to be addressed by teachers. Translation without the aid of a dictionary inevitably gives rise to improvisations, but these were not always guided by common sense: it would be surprising to find ethnic Georgian (грузинские) cottages in central London inhabited by couples who concealed visitors (гости) in the cellar (погреб). Candidates should bear in mind that successful translation calls for a good knowledge of both languages involved: many of the makeshift renderings of ‘discursive’ implied uncertainty about the meaning of this word, and the literal translations of ‘show her the door’ did not take account of the idiomatic meaning of this phrase in English.

Candidates’ choices of wording were less constrained in the essay, but betrayed misapprehensions about Russian usage: случаться and учить were used where происходить and изучать would have been more appropriate, сознание and понятие appeared in place of (по)знание and понимание, государство tended to be treated as synonymous with правительство, and некоторый was often preferred to несколько. Words of foreign origin such as натура and реальность were used where one might have expected действительность and природа. There was a noticeable tendency to mimic English pronominal usage in expressions such as это важно / трудно followed by an infinitive, and some uncertainty about the choice of nominative and instrumental in statements of identity, especially with the verb являться, which was overworked. Most candidates had obviously learnt a repertoire of useful Russian phrases for this exercise, such as по поводу, что касается, исходя из вышесказанного, but few were able to sustain the formal style to which these expressions belong throughout what they had to say.

54

A strong, though not always judicious, preference for the fourth essay topic was apparent: 19 candidates attempted this, while only 5 did the second topic and 4 the third one.

As usual, mistakes in Russian punctuation and spelling (e.g. misuse of й, confusion of ш and щ) were penalized on this paper.

Russian II

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

6 (20.7%) 14 (48.3%) 7 (24.1%) 2 (6.9%) 0 (0%) 78 - 69 66 - 64 63 - 59 59 - 45

Candidates coped fairly well on this paper, and it was pleasing to note that for once versions of the more abstract passage (Pasternak) were as a rule more confident than those of the descriptive passage (Kuznetsova), where straightforward vocabulary proved to be beyond the range of some students. Both passages posed that characteristic challenge for Russian translators of how to deal with lengthy sentences with complex subordinate clauses, and it was notable that students opted too rarely for the solution of breaking the sentence up into shorter sections and/or introducing conjunctions (etc.) to articulate and clarify meaning.

Russian III

The candidates’ performance ranged from satisfactory to good. All three translated passage 3, and the other passages were each attempted by one candidate. As in previous years, a wider knowledge of modern Russian vocabulary would have reduced the need for guessing.

Russian IV

Distribution Range of Marks : 71 - 49

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

1 (14.3%) 5 (71.4%) 0 (0%) 1 (14.3%) 0 (0%)

Most candidates were well prepared for the compulsory textual question and were aware that they needed to date and locate the texts, though some could have related their comments more closely to this crucial information. In addition they attempted most other questions (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) at least to a satisfactory standard, though one candidate had to be penalized for disregarding the terms of a question.

Russian V(i)

55

Russian V(ii)

Distribution Range of Marks : 74 - 57

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

1 (14.3%) 5 (71.4%) 1 (14.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

The candidates’ performances ranged from satisfactory to good. All questions were attempted with the exception of question 12. Five candidates did the phonetic transcription (question 11), for the most part adequately, though some made surprising mistakes in word stress. Most of the essays demonstrated an adequate awareness of the issues involved, though some of the answers on datasets (questions 4 and 10) put forward hypotheses which could be falsified from the data presented, and one candidate seemed not to be alive to the difference between mobile and variable stress in Russian (question 2). The candidate who achieved a first class result contrived to link the three essays attempted into an interesting overarching argument about linguistic trends in modern Russian.

Russian VIII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

8 (28.6%) 15 (53.6%) 5 (17.8%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 77 - 70 70 - 63 63 - 60 60 - 51

Students attempted a pleasing range of questions on this paper (17 topics chosen out of 19 set). However, there were a few instances where the point of a topic was stretched to accommodate texts and analysis which seemed to belong to a different question altogether, and students should be sure to answer the question set rather than redefining it: more than one attempt was made, for example, to present the notion of ‘digression’ as some kind of spiritual confusion rather than a narrative technique. As often, the longest answers were by no means the best. Candidates should also try to avoid composing conclusions which simply reiterate what has already been stated, which is something of a waste of the time available.

Russian IX

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Russian X

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (30.8%) 8 (61.5%) 1 (7.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 74 - 70 68 - 65 65 - 61 60 - 57

Of the 13 candidates, 12 wrote on Bulgakov; 7 on Gogol’; 4 on Pushkin’; 2 on Mayakovsky; and 1 on Mandel’shtam. Overall, the commentaries were done rather better than the essays, with due attention paid in many cases to aspects of form and style as well as to immediate and broader contexts. Some of the essays drew on a relatively narrow range of texts or did little to engage with the critical debate around certain issues.

Russian XI

Distribution Range of Marks : 69 - 59

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

0 (0%) 5 (83.3%) 1 (16.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Of the 6 candidates, 5 wrote on Chekhov, 4 on Solzhenitsyn, 2 on Nabokov and 1 on Dostoevsky. The performances were of a reasonable standard overall, but some of the commentaries were rather lacking in discussion of aspects of form and style.

57

SPANISH

Spanish Oral

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

17 (30.4%) 32 (57.1%) 6 (10.7%) 1 (1.8%) 0 (0%) 77 - 71 70 - 66 66 - 62 62 - 49

Spanish I

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

15 (26.8%) 41 (73.2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 80 - 70 70 - 66 66 - 65 64 - 61

All fifty-six Spanish FHS candidates took paper I. Agreed marks classified candidates across the two higher bands, first and upper second, with the highest mark being 80 and the lowest 61. The prose text presented candidates with a range of strong emotions, expressed through metaphorical images, forcing the translator to focus on sensations of slow or fast motion using verbs and adverbs. Most candidates who did not reach the first class band failed to show an adequate awareness of exclamative constructions, tag question constructions or the modal function of auxiliaries. However, conditional and adversative constructions were in general well tackled using the right morphological markers. Lack of tense agreement in these markers brought marks down. Clitics were in general well used but were too often constructed with a manner function, something not possible in Spanish (e.g. habían sido simpáticos conmigo = me habían sido simpáticos). The expression of frustration of the ‘poor black girl’ in the text – ‘Not a damn’ - gave rise to a wide range of expletives varying from delicate sophistication to very strong language in the Spanish rendering. This wide repertoire suggests that candidates are well acquainted with different registers and well aware particularly of informal registers. The essay offered a chance for candidates to produce well-structured and efficiently argued discussions. The most popular topics were: the function of literature, the consequences of cyberspace, the objective of war and the right or duty to multilingualism. There were often dramatic changes of register from an expected use of an impersonal third person verb morphology to an unexpected second person informal (tú) with the impersonal function (one) normally used in informal conversational situations. This change of register from expository monologue to provocative dialogue suggests that candidates are applying an oral examining dichotomy (discourse/ conversation) to written states of mind. In general, fluency in syntax was correlated with well-structured discussion following the classical tripartite architecture of essays: exposition, development and recapitulation.

Spanish II

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

11 (19.6%) 29 (51.8%) 16 (28.6%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 76 - 68 68 - 64 63 - 58 58 - 51

58

All FHS candidates took papers IIA and IIB and, though the number of first class performances was similar to that achieved in 2013, there was a sharp increase in the number of lower seconds. The passage in IIA was taken from an essay in a collection by the writer and critic, Fernando Savater, which explored the plight of the author in an era of self-consciousness. It was a difficult piece but one that repaid thought and persistence. Its logic needed to be followed. Much of the more technical terminology (intriga, argumento, exégeta, esquema, even voz [here meaning ‘word’]) should have been familiar to finalists from their critical reading in Spanish. In fact it was more basic general vocabulary that caused problems, including verbs such as: sacar, balbucear, tropezar, intentar, urdir, and envenenar. Many candidates did come up with impressive, idiomatic solutions to challenging words and phrases, for example, ‘tools of his trade’ for instrumentos de trabajo, and ‘left to their own devices’ for dejadas a su albedrío. What was more disappointing was the failure to be consistently careful and attentive to detail. Thus, to give just two examples, the de which followed amenaza misma was frequently skipped over leading to a mistranslation at the end of the first paragraph, and candidates did not always think through the author’s metaphor of the young girl visited at night by a vampire. Who, one ought to ask, is the vampire who looks so healthy and what is the jovencita? The passage from a Mendoza novel was better handled on the whole with candidates especially good on the brief sections of dialogue. Some of the more esoteric vocabulary was sensibly guessed at, though palmatoria would have been more accurately rendered had the much more common vela (and indeed cerilla) been widely known. Both were eminently guessable from the context of the darkness in the corridor and the lighting of a flame. There were some fine versions of comedias de sal gruesa though the theatrical terms were more vaguely rendered and alcoba was often taken to refer to a part of the theatre building when its meaning is simply ‘bedroom’, as should have been more widely known. Once again the pronouns associated with the usted forms of the verb caused problems for weaker or less alert candidates.

Candidates are reminded that they are assessed on the quality and accuracy of their written English versions, not just their comprehension of the original Spanish.

Spanish III

Distribution Range of Marks :

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

59

Spanish IV

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

3 (33.3%) 6 (66.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 73 - 70 68 - 68 67 - 66 63 - 63

This year nine candidates sat this paper. The performance was comparable to those of other years. Three candidates obtained first class marks, and six got marks in the upper second class. Overall the performance was satisfactory, without any eye-catching disasters and with a few elements of excellent quality. All candidates answered questions from Sections A and B, which was in agreement with their choices for tutorial teaching. There was a reasonable dispersion in question choices. The more popular choices proved to be questions 8 (Alfonsine Spanish), with six takers, and 4 (development of palatal phonemes), with five, followed by 1 (linguistic commentary section A), 5 (evolution of the verbal system of Old Spanish), 7 (linguistic commentary section B), and 9 (rearrangement of the sibilant system in late Medieval Spanish), with three. Question 3 (morphology of Old Spanish) had two takers, and 2 (graphic representation of early Old Spanish) and 10 (Old Spanish lexicon) had one. Questions 6, 11 and 12 had no takers. Two candidates chose to do two commentaries, another two decided to do one each. Consequently, five others decided not to write a commentary.

Spanish V

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

3 (33.3%) 5 (55.6%) 1 (11.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 77 - 70 69 - 69 68- 67 67 - 59

Nine candidates took this paper this year. Agreed marks classified candidates in the first, upper second and lower second bands, with the highest mark being 77 and the lowest 59. A first-class mark was awarded to candidates who offered a thoughtful and original approach with persuasive discussion bringing in relevant examples and studies. Topics which require the reading of recent discoveries in the genetic basis of language disorders were answered competitively. Topics dealing with Labovian quantitative experiments on linguistic variation correlating them with biological groups such as age and sex were also very competitively approached since relevant studies were mentioned to support the arguments. Issues of Language Development were well approached and argued through. The phonetic transcription, chosen by two thirds of candidates, demonstrated an accurate awareness of the specific features needed to transcribe the text with a freely chosen dialect. Well supported examples taken from the transcribed text to comment upon tempo variation deserved their good marks. As usual, questions from all three sections of the paper were selected and basic components from a model theoretical grammar (phonetics (timing cranial nerves), phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics) were discussed as the main focus in a question or as component parts of a discussion. In general, approaches to a topic which were too superficial or badly argued answers brought marks down.

60

Spanish VI

Distribution Range of Marks : 70 - 62

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

1 (14.3%) 6 (85.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Seven candidates sat the paper this year and there was one first and six upper seconds. Candidates answered on a pleasing range of questions, from all four sections of the paper and it was particularly heartening to see that Section A, offering as it does the opportunity to work more comparatively and diachronically with the texts, proved very popular: five out of its six topics were covered, and the topic areas of Orality and Textuality, Symbolism, Allegory and Typology, and Genre were particularly attractive to candidates. Section A answers were, in the main, done well. The best answers combined knowledge of key critical and theoretical issues, and relevant secondary criticism, with close and detailed textual knowledge and answered in a focussed, and at times creative, way. Shortcomings in this section included: the tendency to use the very existence of texts to form an argument rather than their content, making unsupported and/or naive generalizations about textual and contextual matters, and a lack of sufficient supporting detail and evidence from the texts. Sections B to D attracted a good range of responses on the epic, mester de clerecía, Alfonso X, Juan Manuel, Libro de buen amor, Romancero, Sem Tob de Carrión, and La Celestina. The runaway favourite question was on Jorge Manrique’s Coplas and asked candidates to assess the extent to which Manrique presents a history for which he himself is an authority, rather than ancient history. Unfortunately candidates tended to ignore or misunderstand the concept of ancient history, leading to a lack of engagement with the terms of the question. In general, candidates would be advised to ensure that they answer a given question, and engage with its wording (particularly when it is in Spanish) rather than steer it in the direction that suits their preparation. Candidates would also do well to keep stylistic and technical issues in mind; discussions of poetic texts all too often mined their content without taking due account of their form.

Spanish VII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (25%) 12 (60%) 3 (15%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 76 - 72 67 - 65 64 - 61 60 - 58

The very healthy number of twenty finalists studied for the Golden Age period paper in 2014. There were several outstanding performances which revealed a deep engagement with the writers, works and ideas in the period and, crucially, an ability to answer the question set directly and cogently within an hour. Splendid essays were written on neo-Platonism, San Juan de la Cruz, Gracián, Don Quijote, sixteenth-century poets and Golden Age satire. There were fewer very good answers on the drama, with question 25 on honor producing overall some rather undistinguished responses, with a couple of honourable exceptions. The most popular questions were 1, 4 and 5 from section A, 12 (on mysticism) and 16 (on sonnets) from section B, and 19 (on the picaresque), 23 (on Lope de Vega’s plays) and 25 (on honour drama) from section C. Overall, however, an impressive 19 of the 27 questions set were attempted and there was a good variety of authors and texts studied, particularly poets. Once again nobody attempted the commentary question. Students this year were very well-prepared in terms of 61 knowledge of some of the basics and quotations from texts studied but this did not necessarily translate into high marks. At times the examiners felt that (sometimes lengthy) quotations were being made to fit in with the question set and this inevitably prevents a coherent argument from developing in the essay. There was some good knowledge even amongst candidates who achieved marks in the lowest quartile but, despite the advice readily accessible in previous reports, some students are still attempting to write the essay they want to write, all but ignoring the particular slant of the question. A more direct engagement with the terms used in the question is needed, so that, for example, an essay on the picaresque which asks about ‘honra externa y las distinciones sociales’ as a predominant theme of the genre does not become an exercise simply in listing other important themes. These may need to be mentioned but the discussion must be about what actually appears in the question.

Spanish VIII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

6 (18.2%) 24 (72.7%) 3 (9.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 74 - 68 68 - 67 67 - 65 64 - 55

This year thirty-three candidates sat Paper VIII, answering a fair range of questions (27 out of 46) with a preponderance of Latin-American options. The most popular among these were related to Latin- American short stories which attracted 16 answers, followed by magic realism (15), and women’s writing (11). On the peninsular side answers tended to concentrate on the theatre under Franco, García Lorca and Valle Inclán, with a minority on pre- and post-civil war novels. The choices reflected the provision of lectures and revision classes, with very few candidates prepared to step out of their comfort zone. However, students should be reminded that material provided by lecturers should serve primarily as food for thought rather than merely for regurgitation. The latter was much in evidence with regard to magic realism (‘What, if anything, is magical about “magical realism”’) which yielded competent answers but mostly following the same argument, and in some cases in almost identical terms. After no less than a dozen times learning of Mackandal being burnt at the stake and Aureliano Buendía’s reaction to ice and magnets, any reader may start to question the alleged imaginative richness and variety of this tradition. The examiners rewarded those candidates who were willing to engage critically with established views and shaped their own responses, sometimes bringing into the discussion less obvious or more testing examples. While there were some cogent and well-informed answers on women’s writing, those on the short stories were more of a mixed bag, with much re-telling of the stories and insufficient analysis of technique. The peninsular options were generally less standardized, with some impressive analysis of Lorca’s most experimental poetry and some refreshing departures from the usual choices, as in Pío Baroja, Dulce Chacón, and Eduardo Mendoza. While most of the essays showed good knowledge of the texts, few candidates were capable of tackling all three questions with equal skill. Many scripts showed an imbalance in preparation, with at least one essay below par and in a few cases an unfinished one, highlighting the fact that time management is one of the required skills for success, not only in this paper. The best script offered a combination of peninsular and Latin-American topics, and all of them were first class responses. This year there was plenty of evidence of good preparation but overall, with few exceptions, answers were somewhat predictable, and without much independent research or originality.

62

Spanish IX

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (31.3%) 10 (62.5%) 1 (6.2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 73 - 70 70 - 66 65 - 63 63 - 58

Sixteen candidates sat this paper. The performance of the candidates was been hugely dissimilar to that of past years. Five candidates received a first class mark, ten were in the upper second class, and one was in the lower second class. Perhaps the element of the examination that was most disappointing was the translation, with a number of rather weak performances, though it is true that there were three good or very good translations. Those who chose to translate the passage from the Libro de buen amor struggled more than those who made different choices. Commentaries were quite uneven, and the same can be said of the essays, where there were excellent performances combined with other performances where the candidates failed to address the question (that was particularly frequent in the case of question 5b). For the translation, Poema de mio Cid and Celestina were the most popular choices, with seven candidates each; Libro de buen amor was chosen by two candidates. The dispersion was similar in the case of the commentary: seven students chose Mio Cid, seven Libro de buen amor, and two Celestina. With regard to the essays, nine were written on the Poema de mio Cid, with 3a) being the most popular choice (on the legal knowledge displayed in the text), with four takers, closely followed by 3d) with three (social status as reflected in the speech of the characters) and 3b) with two (behaviour and characters of the Infantes de Carrión). No one chose 3c) (Mio Cid as a frontier text). In the case of Libro de buen amor, 4c) was by far the most popular choice, with six candidates writing on the issues posed by the interpretation of the work; the other three essay topics for this work had one taker each. On Celestina, 5b) (‘The Dance of Love is a Dance of Death’) and 5d) (witchcraft in Celestina and in late Medieval Spain) won the day, with six and seven takers respectively. 5a) (irony, ambiguity and didacticism in Celestina) had one, and 5c) on the textual problems posed by Celestina, had none.

Spanish X

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (30.8%) 8 (61.5%) 1 (7.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 73 - 70 68 - 66 66 - 61 60 - 59

All five paper X authors were studied by this year’s finalists who moved away somewhat from the traditional concentration on Cervantes and Calderón. Nevertheless these remained the most popular options with ten essays written on the former and seven on the latter. Questions 7a (on developments form Part I to Part II of Don Quijote), 7b (on dialogue and plot in the novel according to Nabokov) and 22 (on societal order and disorder in Calderón’s plays) were the most popular. There were two essays on Quevedo, three on Garcilaso, and four on Góngora. The only commentary passage not to be attempted was the one from Garcilaso’s second eclogue. The passage from chapter 72 of Part II of Don Quijote was the one most frequently chosen for commentary and there were four takers for Góngora’s Soledades, one for the Quevedo sonnet and two for the extract from Calderón’s El mágico prodigioso. As can be seen from the distribution of marks the standard was generally good though future candidates for this paper would do well to digest the following points: unusually this year three scripts out of

63 thirteen contained an unfinished third answer and time should certainly be left for the final question since such curtailed answers are penalised and are very unlikely indeed to attain high marks; there was a disappointing lack of originality and of independent, personal responses to essay questions with most answers following well-trodden paths; with a couple of notable exceptions, candidates failed to show off the breadth of their reading within the writer’s oeuvre, with answers tending to be limited to just one or two relevant texts; the analysis within answers was often confined to the opening and closing paragraph with much of the middle containing discussions that felt rehearsed and did not link back to the argument allegedly being presented (this was especially true of answers on the Novelas ejemplares which could become bogged down in the re-telling the stories); the equivalent fault in some essays on the poets was a tendency to reproduce a lot of very good knowledge about sources and their adaptation without the candidate managing to knit this into an analytical framework; finally, as candidates well know, credit is given for clarity of expression in English and so examiners will penalise essays and commentaries in which they continually have to re-read to capture the point being made.

Spanish XI

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

8 (34.8%) 14 (60.9%) 1 (4.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 - 70 70 - 67 67 - 62 61 - 54

Twenty-three candidates sat Paper XI this year with a substantial number of first-class performances, which included some strong individual essays and commentaries. Borges was the favourite author in combination with Neruda (6), Lorca (5), Galdós (1), and Valle (1). Lorca was also studied together with Neruda (2), Valle (2), and Galdós (1), followed by Valle, Alas, and Galdós variously combined. There were six commentaries on Lorca’s poem and six on Neruda’s, among them 5 candidates failed to identify the collections, with Lorca’s ballad being wrongly placed in Diván del Tamarit and in Bodas de sangre. As for Neruda’s poem, even though it is included in Pring-Mill’s anthology, it was erroneously attributed to Residencia en la tierra. Most of the candidates who chose the passages from Valle (4) and Galdós (4) did a good job relating the passages to the wider themes of their sources. In Valle’s Las galas del difunto, Don Juan Tenorio was taken by one candidate to be the name of a bullfighter, missing the theatrical reference. The three commentaries on Borges’s sonnet were competent but, rather disappointingly, failed to comment as fully as one might have expected on the range of typical Borgesian topoi that the poem offered – only one candidate, for instance, spotted the significance of the ‘brújula’ of the title for the ‘mar’ of line 12. The Neruda commentaries were of varying quality but one stood out for its brilliant, incisive analysis of the poem’s form as well as its content; this was the only candidate who saw the point of the reference to Quevedo in the title and its relevance to the deciphering of the last, somewhat obscure, lines 16-26, which were analysed with impressive insight. Regrettably no one chose Alas despite the allure of the ‘sapo’ in the passage. Among the essays the most popular were related to the theme of solitude in Neruda, Borges’s literary theory (which produced some very good but also a few confused answers), and Lorca’s treatment of death. In these, the candidates were given ample opportunity to demonstrate the breadth of their knowledge. Unfortunately some of the weakest essays turned into surveys without much of an argument. The examiners were pleased to note that this year Lorca’s El público was tackled by a few candidates with both conviction and cogency. Overall the most accomplished responses were devoted to Valle, with an outstanding essay on Comedias bárbaras and three almost as impressive on Divinas palabras. As in previous years the examiners would like to draw

64 the candidates’ attention to poor spelling in quotations and titles, as in the unfortunate ‘Llanto a Sánchez Mejillas’. Also noted was a decline in standards of punctuation and in presentation more generally.

65

CELTIC

66

CZECH (WITH SLOVAK)

Czech Oral

Czech I

Distribution Range of Marks :

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

Czech II

Distribution Range of Marks :

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

Czech IV

Czech VIII

Distribution Range of Marks :

67

Czech X

68

MODERN GREEK

Oral Examination

Texts for comprehension were clear and did not pose any problems, evidenced by the fact that both candidates responded very well. In discourse, candidates showed a good grasp of vocabulary and a willingness to provide interesting ideas and content – even though the latter meant that the structure of their presentation suffered as a result.

Greek Language Papers I and II

Paper I

Distribution

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

Paper II

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

Modern Greek Literature Papers VIII and XI

Paper VIII

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

69 c

Paper XI

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

70

LINGUISTICS

Paper XIII

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (15.1%) 22 (66.7%) 6 (18.2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 77 - 69 69 - 65 64 - 62 61 - 53

This paper was offered by 33 candidates, including one candidate in Psychology and Philosophy, and ten candidates for French or German sole. Candidates attempted questions across the full spectrum of areas of linguistics included in the paper. Although the paper is not divided into so many subsections, the breakdown was: Phonology questions: 9 answers; Syntax questions: 11 answers; Semantics: 22 answers; Morphology: 9 answers; Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics: 17; Genetic and Biological Foundations of Language: 4; Language Change: 13; Sociolinguistics: 14.

Question 5, which was answered by 7 candidates, required discussion of the argument/adjunct distinction, making reference to an example provided. Successful answers drew on evidence from a variety of tests which were shown to have been applied and interpreted appropriately, and provided a thorough analysis of the sentence provided, as instructed in the rubric. A strong answer was one which considered the limitations of the tests applied and/or considered what conclusions could be drawn when conflicting results were obtained. Question 10 (on morphological opacity) was also answered by 7 candidates.

Question 8, on Gricean implicatures, was answered by 15 candidates. There were no fails on the question and marks ranged from low III to low I, with most in the IIi band and a few in the IIii band. Candidates who did poorly made errors in matching examples with the correct maxim or wrote vague answers.

Question 13, on speech errors, was answered by 13 candidates.

Question 23, on differences between women's and men's language use, was chosen by 11 candidates. Most candidates discussed a fairly conventional list of claimed differences: that women are more cooperative conversationalists and lead linguistic change, whereas men interrupt more and make more use of nonstandard language, and so on. First class marks were awarded to answers which discussed specific recent work, or addressed the “construction of identity”, or went beyond the conventional list by presenting an informed critical appraisal of the topic.

Other questions were attempted by so few candidates that detailed comment would be inappropriate. Question 4 (a syntactic analysis problem), 11 (problems of morphological analysis), 12 (morphological analysis of a Finnish data set), 15 (neurolinguistics), 17 (genes and language disorders), and 18 (recursion as the defining property of human language) were each answered by only 1 candidate. Questions 7 (on compositionality) and 19 (language as an animal vocal communication system) were answered by 2 candidates. Questions 6 (on the grammatical function hierarchy), 14 (language development) and 24 (language maintenance, shift and death) were answered by 3 candidates. Questions 3b (prosody), 21 (dialects and change) and 22 (reanalysis in syntactic change) were answered by 4 candidates. Questions 1 (motivations for the syllable), 9 (presupposition vs. entailment), and 20 (language change) were answered by 5 candidates. 71

No candidates offered question 2 (phoneme and system), 3a (cardinal vowels), or 16 (genetic basis of features of human language).

While many candidates had high marks on individual questions, relatively few sustained an even quality over the whole paper, suggesting that too few areas had been prepared in sufficient detail. In many cases low marks were recorded when candidates failed to observe the terms of the question, and supplied a pre-prepared answer for a related but different question. LINGUISTICS PAPER XIIs 2031 – Phonetics and Phonology

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

7 (87.5%) 1 (12.5%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 81 - 74 73 - 71 70 - 70 70 - 67

This was the first year in which candidates had the option of submitting a <4,000 word Laboratory Report (at the start of Trinity Term of the final year) instead of the Aural Test part of the assessment. 4 out of 8 students entered for this exam chose the Lab Report option. They were provided with sound files of multiple versions of a read passage from our IViE corpus and tasked to pick a research question relating to “pre-fortis clipping in English”, to carry out an acoustic analysis of an appropriately-sized sample (c. 100–200 measurements), and to write a report on the study. The students who elected this form of assessment carried it out extremely well and attained high marks, though the examination conventions dictated that it would count for 25% of the overall result. In fact, students electing to take the Aural Test also obtained good marks, and overall performance in this Special Subject was extremely good, with 7 candidates out of 8 gaining first class marks.

The number of candidates being relatively low, more detailed comment on their individual answers in the written exam would be inappropriate, except to note that questions 1 (on causes of coarticulation, chosen by 7 candidates) and 6a (chosen by 6 candidates) were by far the most popular. All components of the exam showed all 8 candidates to have prepared very well and to have pursued their studies in this subject very seriously and to good or excellent levels of attainment.

2032 – Sociolinguistics

Distribution Range of Marks : 73 - 61

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

1 (20%) 4 (80%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

72

2198 – Linguistic Project

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

2 (25%) 5 (62.5%) 1 (12.5%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 83 - 70 69 - 66 65 - 63 60 - 59

There were 8 Linguistic Projects this year, covering six languages (Catalan, English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian) and a wide range different areas of linguistics (phonetics, lexicon, 2nd lang acquisition and attrition, metaphor, sociolinguistics). The essays were generally impressive in their presentation and documentation, and reported on well- designed and competently executed research projects, though there was greater variability in the sophistication of analysis, and in the deployment of statistical analyses. The best project (awarded a Gibbs Prize for paper XII) was deemed to be of MSt quality.

73

POLISH Polish Paper IIA & IIB

Polish Paper V

Polish Paper VII

74

SPECIAL SUBJECTS / PAPER XII

2019: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Distribution Range of Marks :

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

Candidate who submitted in 2013 is included in these statistics.

2020: Honoré de Balzac

Distribution Range of Marks :

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

2021: French Poetry 1870-1918

75

2022: Literature and Modern War

Distribution Range of Marks :

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

2023: Marcel Proust

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (50%) 4 (50%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 80 - 77 73 - 72 66 - 65 65 - 65

This was a very strong range of work, with 4 first-class marks and 4 in the 2i category. Candidates were able to draw in a meaningful way on the whole of A la recherche du temps perdu, and also showed themselves capable of supporting their arguments with fine close reading. All the essays, and many of the commentaries, were informed by considerable critical reading. The strongest submissions were sophisticated and nuanced, with careful independent close reading; some candidates engaged well with critical debates and refreshingly dared to disagree with some approaches. There were occasional mis- readings, mostly in the commentaries, but the level of close reading was generally very high. 6 out of 8 candidates chose to answer on question 7, which dealt with fluctuations in group identity. 3 candidates chose to answer on question 10, which was on the dangers of intelligence. The choice of the other topics was widely spread, and candidates chose evenly between the two commentary passages. Range: 2i = 4 candidates; 1st = 4 candidates

2026: Literature and the Visual Arts in France

Distribution Range of Marks : 75 - 61

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

4 (66.7%) 2 (33.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

This paper was taken by 6 candidates (including 1 student of History of Art). The quality was high (4 Firsts and 2 Upper Seconds). Once again, the most popular questions were those on the medieval period 76 and the nineteenth-century novel, and although they were extremely well done, the examiners would have wished to see greater variety in the cohort. It was noted that a number of answers drew on the same material, often provided in the lectures, and so the examiners would like to encourage candidates to use the exam period to do a little bit more independent reading and research.

2027: French Women’s Writing

Distribution Range of Marks : 70 - 65

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39

1 (16.7%) 5 (83.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

6 students took this paper, and 1 achieved a first whilst the rest were given 2.1 marks. The scripts were for the most part highly competent and articulate, and the lowest marks awarded was 65, testifying to a good performance across the board. Broadly, candidates were lucid in discussing key issues such sexuality, language, family and identity politics across the texts, though they struggled to offer much originality. There were some attempts to use theory in ambitious ways, but unfortunately these tended to produce slightly schematic results. The best scripts managed to make ingenious connections between writers, and to use their comparisons in theoretically productive ways. Others struggled to make the comparisons work, either failing to bring the works together convincingly, or eliding differences. This paper is still examined by portfolio, and the result was that it was quite difficult to compare the scripts closely.

2028: Advanced Translation in French: Theory and Practice

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

6 (27.3%) 15 (68.2%) 1 (4.5%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 72 - 70 69 - 67 67 - 65 64 - 56

This year was the paper’s first year with a Method C take-home exam paper in place of a Method B coursework portfolio, a change designed to increase comparability between scripts and reduce the burden of examining substantial numbers of scripts. The new system succeeded in both aims, but did, of course, reduce students’ opportunity to use their own initiative and creativity in the tasks. The first task on the paper, a translation with commentary of a passage from Pascale Gautier’s 2010 novel, Les Vieilles, was well done, with a sensitivity to the discourse of the elderly protagonists and close attention paid to difficulties of idiomatic expression (e.g., ‘Quelques anges passent et la télé fait comme si de rien n’était’). The best translations laid out a clear and coherent strategy in their commentary, outlining intended readership and level of domestication, and justified in detail their translation choices in relation to it. Some more experimental translation strategies, such a feminist translation highlighting gender within the text, were not entirely successful in execution, but were given credit for ambition and creativity. The non-literary translation exercise in the second part of the paper consisted of a choice between an academic essay on Jean-Marie Le Pen or a magazine article on the use of the passé simple in sports journalism. Again, consideration of readership and consistency of strategy marked out the best scripts. Good translations of the academic article took into account the conventions of the academic 77 essay in British or American academia, as well as the likely differences in knowledge of French current affairs. Weaker translations of the magazine article treated the French passé simple and passé composé as equivalent to English past historic and perfect tenses, and produced translations that misrepresented the source text’s content. Lastly, a choice of four essays on translation theory offered candidates the opportunity to display their research beyond the course textbook, and to illustrate their argument with examples of translation practice, including their own in the earlier parts of the paper.

2035: French Satire from Rabelais to Beaumarchais

Distribution Range of Marks :

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

2039: Francophone Literature: Colonial and Post-colonial perspectives

Distribution Range of Marks : 74 - 63

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

2 (33.3%) 4 (66.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 74 - 70 68 - 68 67 - 67 63- 63

These were generally strong answers, dealing with a broad range of primary texts and in many cases also engaging actively with theoretical issues and critics. The stronger essays were able to make nuanced contrasts between two authors rather than simply comparing them, and draw on a wide range of material to build up a coherent argument supported by close reading. In some cases the essays would have benefited from some brief contextualisation, both in terms of historico-political context and in terms of literary history (e.g. whether the books were written before or after decolonization, and whether the writers in question saw themselves as on opposite sides of a debate). It was pleasing to see candidates putting forward independent and thoughtful arguments, but naturally it is necessary to back up original positions soundly and in one or two cases this could have been done more convincingly. 78

Three candidates opted to answer on question 6 (on focalisation in exotic literature), but otherwise the question choice was widely spread. Range: 2i = 4 candidates; 1st = 2 candidates

2081: Advanced German Translation: Theory and Practice

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

4 (44.4%) 5 (55.6%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 76 - 70 70 - 70 69 - 66 66 - 64

There were 9 candidates for this paper. The work submitted was of a high standard, with an interesting range of texts chosen for translation from both fictional and non-fictional writing, narrative, poetry and film form a wide range of periods. The better comparative commentaries on the passage from Storm focused on the literary status of the original text, and the degree to which the translations were successful as literary translations. Overall, candidates had learned and understood the technical vocabulary of translation studies. But this occasionally was used as an end in itself rather than a means to developing an analysis of what the original text – be it literary or not – hoped to achieve and the degree to which a translation was able to do justice do, reproduce or creatively expand this project.

2195: European Cinema

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

7 (41.2%) 9 (52.9%) 1 (5.9%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 77 - 70 70 - 67 67 - 64 63 - 59

The answers this year were more even in quality this year than in previous years. Apart from a few outstanding essays, most answers were competent samples of film interpretation in the mid- to upper 2.1 region. Most candidates showed that they could perform detailed film analysis, compare films in terms of a set question and draw on scholarly and theoretical literature when necessary. However, there were fewer candidates exploring a subject in depth this year. Several essays stayed very safely within the domain of films and directors who had been covered in the lectures and while the examiners certainly did not penalise this, it rarely allowed for highly original answers. One essay stood out, not because it was the best, but because the candidate was able to make a very judicious comparison between two otherwise quite unrelated Polish directors, Andrzej Wajda and Krzystof Kieslowsky. By contrast many of the essays that stayed close to the lectures ended up making comparisons that were both historically and theoretically problematic. Thus, one candidate compared François Truffaut and Michael Haneke. This is misleading because the way these two directors use the film medium is so divergent. The second examiner commented on the examining process that the marks of the two examiners were closer together than in previous years. This may also reflect that the essays themselves were more closely aligned with the lectures this year.

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2152 – The Structure and History of Romanian

Distribution Range of Marks : 75 - 67

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

3 (50%) 3 (50%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 - 74 70 - 70 69 - 68 67 - 67

2080 – Literature in the GDR

Distribution Range of Marks : 72 - 60

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

2110 – Latin American Cinema

Distribution Quartiles

1st 2.1 2.2 3rd 0 - 39 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q

5 (55.6%) 4 (44.4%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 76 - 74 71 – 70 68 - 67 67 - 63

Students submitted a portfolio of three essays, covering at least two countries and at least one of which had to be comparative; these essays were based in part on work produced for seminars and tutorials over the course of Hilary term and the lectures given at the start of term. This year saw the welcome addition of lectures on Mexican cinema, and some of the best essays dealt with this topic.

The markers were impressed by both the range and depth of the essays included in students’ portfolios. For instance, the origins of the films analysed spanned the region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico); ranged from the 1960s to the 2010s; covered a variety of genres (historical fiction, political film, comedy, documentary) and technical aspects (cameras, lighting, soundtrack) as well as thematic ones. Four of the nine portfolios referred to Brazilian films, showing that candidates were willing to work on Portuguese-language film.

As last year, the very best essays combined detailed and precise cinematic analysis with accurate and relevant contextualization (in terms of e.g. politics, culture, or film history or theory) and a clear argument about specific aspects of the film or films in questions. Weaker essays tended to resort to recounting the plot or describing the characters of the films, or deal in generalizations, and were not as well organized (e.g. lacking a clear conclusion). Other failings included an uncritical or derivative attitude to secondary material, as well as problems with presentation and expression.

It was perhaps most pleasing to get a strong sense of students having discovered Latin American cinema through this course and engaged intellectually with something new and exciting for them, in many cases beyond the scope of the assessed components.

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