Managing the Vergil Sight-Reading Under Time Pressure
A student has 20 minutes for a multiple-choice set built on an unseen 12-line hexameter passage (Vergilian style). The set has 8 questions: 3 on comprehension, 3 on figures of speech/diction, 2 on meter/scansion. She reads the passage once, feels lost on lines 5–7 (dense metaphor), and has spent 9 minutes there. She has answered 2 questions. She is anxious about the scansion questions because she is shaky on elision.
1. How should she re-sequence her remaining 11 minutes to maximize correct answers?
Read the worked answer
Triage by cost-per-point, not by passage order.
- Bank the comprehension questions first (~4 min). These usually hinge on a few key words and the main clause; she can answer them from what she did understand (lines 1–4, 8–12) without cracking the metaphor.
- Do the figures/diction questions next (~3 min). These often point to specific words she can locate even without full comprehension; identify the device by pattern (repetition, juxtaposition, sound) rather than by deep meaning.
- Scansion last (~4 min). If she is shaky on elision, she should still attempt them - eliminate choices by the last foot (always a dactyl or spondee in hexameter) and by the fixed ictus pattern, which often narrows to two options. Guessing with elimination beats leaving blank.
Do not return to lines 5–7 unless time remains. Sunk cost is not a reason to keep digging.
2. She is unsure whether a final *-m* before a word beginning with a vowel elides. What rule should she apply, and how does it affect her scansion answer?
Read the worked answer
Rule: a word ending in a vowel or in -m (and followed by a word beginning with a vowel or h) undergoes elision - the final syllable is not pronounced and does not count for the meter. So final -m + vowel-initial next word = elided.
Effect on scansion: the elided syllable is not scanned as a separate position; the vowel of the following word effectively fills the slot. If she mistakenly counts the -m syllable, she will mis-assign a long/short position and pick the wrong foot pattern.
Practical check: find the word after the -m; if it starts with a vowel or h, elide and re-scan. This single rule resolves most of the 'shaky' cases she is worried about.