La Rioja PAU Latin II (Latín II - UR 2026) common mistakes
La Rioja PAU Latin II (Latín II - UR 2026) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Translating a subordinate clause as if it were the main clause, producing a sentence with two independent verbs and no connector (e.g., rendering a cum-historicum clause as 'and then...' instead of 'when/since...').
Candidates scan for the finite verb nearest the start of the period and treat it as the main predicate, ignoring subordinating conjunctions and the fact that Latin often postpones the main verb to the end of the sentence.
What to do instead
Before translating, bracket the period: mark every subordinator (cum, quod, ut, ne, dum, postquam, si, ubi) and draw a line from it to its verb, then locate the main verb as the one not inside any bracket. Translate the skeleton (subject + main verb) first, then add each bracketed clause with its correct English connector.
Leaving an accusative with infinitive as a literal 'that' clause with the wrong subject, or translating the infinitive as a finite verb ('he to come' or 'he comes' instead of 'he said that he would come').
Spanish and English use finite subordinate clauses, so the infinitive feels like a verb that must be conjugated; candidates also lose track of which accusative is the subject of the infinitive when there are two accusatives (subject and object).
What to do instead
Apply a fixed routine: find the governing verb of saying/thinking/knowing, take the first accusative after it as the subject of the infinitive, render the infinitive as a finite verb in a 'que' clause, and shift tense according to the main verb (present infinitive after a past main verb becomes imperfect). Practise with pairs like 'dicit eum venire' vs 'dixit eum venisse'.
Mistranslating passive periphrastic and gerundive constructions as future tense or as simple obligation-free statements ('the city will be captured' for 'urbs capienda est', or omitting the dative of agent).
The -ndus ending looks like a future participle, and candidates have not internalised that gerundive + esse expresses necessity and that the person obliged stands in the dative.
What to do instead
Memorise the formula: gerundive + form of esse = 'must/has to be done', with any dative translated as 'by'. Drill three or four model sentences (delenda est Carthago; mihi eundum est; liber legendus est) until the pattern is automatic, and check every -nd- form for a nearby dative.
Parsing a noun by its ending alone, e.g., calling 'tempora' a singular feminine or 'regibus' a nominative, without checking the stem and the agreement of adjectives and verbs.
Candidates rely on the final letters of the first declension paradigm they memorised and do not systematically list possible cases; third-declension nouns with -a, -e, -i stems and identical dative/ablative plurals are the usual casualties.
What to do instead
For each noun write the dictionary entry (nominative + genitive + gender) before assigning case, and confirm the case with a control: an agreeing adjective, a preposition, or the number/person of the verb. Use a two-column check 'possible cases / confirmed by context' and eliminate options rather than guessing the first.
Treating a deponent or semi-deponent verb as passive in meaning, so 'hortatus est' becomes 'he was encouraged' rather than 'he encouraged'.
The passive-looking form invites a passive translation, and the dictionary entry 'hortor, hortari, hortatus sum' is often memorised without the note that the passive forms are active in meaning.
What to do instead
Keep a running list of deponents that appear in set authors (hortor, conor, sequor, loquor, proficiscor, vereor, morior) with their active meanings, and when a passive form has no ablative of agent and takes an accusative object, test the deponent reading first.
Confusing the ablative absolute with a plain ablative of means or accompaniment, translating 'his rebus cognitis' as 'with these things known' attached to the wrong subject, or missing that the participle's subject is not the main subject.
The ablative absolute has no preposition, so it looks like any other ablative; candidates also assume the participle modifies the main clause subject, which produces nonsense like 'having known these things, the messenger...' when the knower is someone else.
What to do instead
Check three conditions: noun/pronoun + participle both in the ablative, no governing preposition, and a subject different from the main clause subject. Translate with 'once/after/since/although + subject + verb' and verify the resulting sense against the main clause.
Giving a Latin word's Spanish derivative as its meaning in context, e.g., translating 'ratio' as 'razón' in a military narrative, or 'consilium' as 'consejo' where 'plan' is meant.
Candidates know the etymology of the Spanish word and assume the classical Latin sense matches the modern Spanish sense, ignoring semantic drift and the context of the passage.
What to do instead
Learn each vocabulary item with two or three contextual glosses rather than one, and choose the gloss that fits the surrounding nouns and verbs; after translating, reread the Spanish sentence alone to check it makes sense in the narrative.
Stating an etymological rule for a Spanish word without naming the actual Latin etymon and the phonetic changes (e.g., claiming 'hacer' comes from 'facere' with no mention of f- > h- and the loss of the final -e, or inventing a change that did not occur).
Candidates memorise the pair 'Latin word > Spanish word' as a list and never learn the regular sound changes, so they cannot justify the derivation or spot a false pair.
What to do instead
Learn the core changes as rules with examples: f- > h- (facere > hacer, filium > hijo), -ct- > -ch- (noctem > noche, lactem > leche), -cl-/-fl- > -ll- (clavem > llave, flammam > llama), vowel diphthongisation (portam > puerta, terram > tierra), and loss of final consonants. For each exam item, write etymon, rule, result.
Attributing a work to the wrong author or genre, e.g., placing the 'Aeneid' in the elegiac genre, calling Plautus a writer of tragedy, or assigning 'De bello Gallico' to Livy.
Candidates revise authors in isolation and never build a chronological map, so Augustan epic, Republican comedy, and Silver Age historiography blur together.
What to do instead
Build a one-page timeline with four columns: author, date, genre, key works. Anchor it with a few fixed points (Plautus and Terence = palliata comedy, 3rd-2nd c. BC; Virgil, Horace, Ovid = Augustan; Seneca, Lucan, Tacitus = Julio-Claudian/Flavian) and test yourself by covering the works column.
Describing Roman institutions in modern terms without the Latin term or the specific magistracy, e.g., calling the consul a 'president', the tribune a 'mayor', or saying the Senate 'passed laws' by popular vote.
Candidates translate institutions into familiar modern equivalents to sound fluent, losing the distinctions the exam rewards (imperium, potestas, provocatio, comitia, cursus honorum).
What to do instead
For each institution learn the Latin name, who held it, its power, and its limit, and answer with that vocabulary: consul with imperium and one-year term, tribune of the plebs with sacrosanctitas and veto, Senate as advisory body whose decrees carried auctoritas. Use modern analogies only as a gloss, never as the answer.