MATSEC SEC Latin case studies
MATSEC SEC Latin · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The Secondary Education Certificate (SEC) is the school-leaving qualification awarded by the MATSEC Examinations Board, which sits within L-Università ta' Malta. The board's own site lists its core functions as Regulations, Guidelines and policies, Syllabi, Current Session Information, Applications, Past Papers, and Marking Schemes and Exemplars - and those are the pages a Latin candidate should treat as the authoritative starting point. The MATSEC SEC Latin case studies are 5 cases and about 2,609 words.
1The Ablative Absolute That Could Be Concessive
Mock translation paper, Section A, ten short sentences, 30 minutes. Sentence 7 reads: 'Oppido a militibus incenso, incolae tamen in ruinis manebant.' The preceding sentence says the enemy had set fire to the town at dawn; the following sentence says the inhabitants refused to leave because their ancestral shrines were there.
562 words, about 3 min2Gerundive of Purpose or Obligation after 'misit'
English-to-Latin exercise, 20 sentences, each worth 3 marks. Sentence 14: 'The general sent three soldiers to guard the bridge.' A candidate writes: 'Imperator tres milites pontem custodiendum misit.' The teacher circles 'pontem custodiendum' and writes: 'Not wrong in every context, but not the standard construction here; also ambiguous.' The candidate had reasoned that the gerundive agrees with 'pontem' and expresses purpose.
536 words, about 3 min3Cum-Clause: Temporal, Causal, or Concessive?
Comprehension passage, 12 lines, adapted Livy. Sentence: 'Cum milites portas clauderent, hostes tamen intrare conati sunt.' A candidate translates: 'When the soldiers closed the gates, the enemy nevertheless tried to enter.' The teacher says the translation is not impossible but misses the point: the passage has just said the gates were already barred by a tribune, and the enemy knew it.
513 words, about 3 min4Deponent Participle or Passive? The Case of 'hortatus'
Mock translation passage, 8 lines: 'Hortatus suos dux, signum dedit; progressi deinde ad flumen, milites castra posuerunt.' A candidate translates: 'Having been encouraged by his men, the leader gave the signal; then, having been advanced to the river, the soldiers pitched camp.' The teacher marks two errors. The candidate knows that deponent verbs are passive in form but active in meaning, yet thought that participles followed a different rule when a noun follows.
535 words, about 3 min5Anaphora Misnamed as Chiasmus in a Mock Set-Text Couplet
Literature section, 20-mark passage question. Candidates are given a short mock set-text couplet: 'Non aurum, non arma peto, non moenia regni; sed pacem et socios et sine fraude dies.' A candidate writes: 'The repeated non is chiasmus: it surrounds aurum and arma and then moenia regni, creating a symmetrical pattern.' The teacher says the candidate has spotted a real stylistic feature but misnamed it and missed its rhetorical effect.
463 words, about 2 min