Interpreting an Unseen Passage Where Two Readings Are Grammatically Possible
In the external examination, students translate a 110-word unseen prose passage. One sentence reads (in simplified form): the messenger reported that the citizens, having been terrified by the omens, had abandoned the city before dawn. The participle modifying 'citizens' could be read as agreeing with 'messenger' if a student misassigns the case ending, and the temporal phrase could attach either to 'abandoned' or to 'reported'. The marking panel's rubric awards 1 mark per correct clause and deducts for errors that change meaning. A student renders the sentence as: 'The messenger, having been terrified by the omens, reported that the citizens had abandoned the city before dawn.' The rest of the translation is accurate.
1. Explain why the student's rendering is an error of meaning rather than a stylistic variant, and state how many clause marks the rubric should withhold.
Read the worked answer
The student's version makes the messenger the terrified party. The Latin participle agrees with 'citizens' in case, number and gender; reassigning it to 'messenger' requires ignoring that agreement. This is not a stylistic choice but a grammatical misreading, and it changes who is frightened, which is a meaning error.
The temporal phrase 'before dawn' is unaffected: both readings attach it to the abandoning, and the student does so correctly, so no deduction there.
Under a 1-mark-per-clause rubric, the sentence contains three assessable units: (i) the messenger reported, (ii) the citizens had been terrified by the omens, (iii) they had abandoned the city before dawn. The student renders (i) correctly and (iii) correctly but folds (ii) into the wrong subject. The rubric should withhold the mark for clause (ii) and, because the error changes meaning, apply the stated meaning-error deduction to the sentence as a whole. Awarding full sentence credit on the grounds that 'all the words were translated' would be inconsistent with the rubric's own criterion.
2. A second student writes: 'The messenger reported that the citizens had abandoned the city, terrified by the omens, before dawn.' Assess this against the same rubric and explain the difference from the first student's answer.
Read the worked answer
This version keeps 'terrified by the omens' attached to the citizens, so the participle's agreement is respected and the meaning is preserved. The clause content is correct.
The difference from the first student is the locus of the error: student one reassigned the participle to the wrong noun, changing who was afraid; student two kept the correct referent and merely placed the phrase late in the English sentence. Word order in English is free here, and the phrase still modifies 'citizens' unambiguously enough in context.
Against the rubric: clause (i) correct, clause (ii) correct in content though delayed, clause (iii) correct. The only question is whether the delayed placement creates momentary ambiguity with 'the city'. It does not, because 'terrified' cannot sensibly modify a city and the case agreement in the Latin settles it. Full clause marks should be awarded; a small style note may be recorded but must not be converted into a mark deduction, since the rubric deducts for meaning errors, not for elegance. This is the key contrast the panel must apply consistently.