1 NCEA Level 1 – Describe an aspect of Roman civilisation 2009 Examples of student work

2 Excellence

3 Excellence – Merit boundary Currently there is no work available to exemplify a low Excellence. However, in addition to the work below for Merit (high) a student would be expected to make a reasoned judgement about the purpose of public entertainment as an indicator of Excellence.

4 Merit

5 Merit (high) Overall the student has explained the venues. More could have been added about the use of masks in the theatre, there are errors and the presentation of the information could have been improved. Some detail was added in the Excellence task. The Excellence task asked for reasoned judgements about the nature of the Romans and the purpose of public entertainment. The student wrote about the nature of the Romans but did not write about the purpose of public entertainment. To achieve at the next level the student would be expected to make a reasoned judgement about the purpose of public entertainment.

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 Merit (low) Currently there is no work available to exemplify a low Merit. However, in addition to the work below the student would be expected to add more explanation to descriptions of the venues, e.g. objects on the spina, seating and to the details of the racing teams and advantages that each gladiator had.

14 Achieved

15 Achieved (high) The section on the theatre contains explanation of much of the theatre and of the play. The Colosseum is explained on the whole but the description of the fight is sparse. In the section on the Circus Maximus the venue is described but not all the features of the spina are included. The description of the race is minimal. Overall this work is at the high end of Achievement.

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25 Achieved (low) The section on the Colosseum describes the venue and the fight with a little detail e.g. velarium. The theatre likewise is described with little detail, although the function of the orchestra is not correct. There is little explanation of the masks. The description of the shape of the Circus Maximus is a little misleading and the spina and factiones are very briefly dealt with. There are inaccuracies but overall this section is at Achieved. Task Two does make two reasoned judgements but adds nothing to Task One.

26

27

28

29

30

31

32 Not Achieved Apart from seating at the Colosseum the student did not describe the venues. Despite inaccuracies in both Latin and English the description of the events, particularly at the Circus Maximus, are at Achieved level at least but description of venues is also needed. To gain Achieved the student would be expected to describe more features of the Colosseum, describe the Circus Maximus and describe a Roman theatre.

33

34

35

36