AP Latin

[Isa]

My sons have two years until they take the AP Latin exam.  What books have you found helpful or essential to work through (i.e. Excelability in Advanced Latin, Vergil Vocab Cards for AP Selections, Caesar: Selections from his Commentaries, Vergil's Aeneid: Selected Readings, ...)?

 

Thanks,

Isa

My sons have two years until they take the AP Latin exam.  What books have you found helpful or essential to work through (i.e. Excelability in Advanced Latin, Vergil Vocab Cards for AP Selections, Caesar: Selections from his Commentaries, Vergil's Aeneid: Selected Readings, ...)?

 

Thanks,

Isa

 

Do you mean books they can work on now, in order to work up to the AP Latin level, or books for the AP Latin course itself?

 

There's lots of good choices for the first two years of Latin, then things get a bit tricky.  I really like the Lingua Latina books as readers: many students struggle after 2nd year high school Latin when they make a big switch from reading short sentences designed to teach the grammar lesson of the week to 3rd year, all of a sudden, they have to put it all together, and their reading can contain any and all of the grammar and vocab they've learned.  The best solution to this is just lots and lots of reading, and that's what LL provides.

 

For the AP Latin curriculum itself, I like the Bolchazy books which conveniently have all the lines that the AP test covers.  Keep in mind, there's a lot of lines on the AP test, so you have to move fast the AP year to cover the texts.  I would start in earnest the Summer before, and not wait until Fall.  If you find Vergil or Caesar to be too hard, the Legamus series is a nice introduction, but you don't have time to do those in the AP year.