National Mythology Exam

[Ting Tang]

I've been considering having my 5th grader take either the Exploratory Latin Exam or the National Mythology Exam.  I'm thinking the NME might be the better choice. Last year, we did Memoria Press's Greek Myths class using the D'Aulaire's book.  My son still tells people that was his favorite class, and he is NOT a school person, as many of you know.  At the time, he was able to answer questions really well.  My younger son didn't get as much out of it.

We're going to do Famous Men of Rome next, sans all the output.  I do think he'd have to review his Greek myths, but his book is what is referenced to study for the exam.

Has anyone had a child take this exam?  How much preparation did your child do?  

I feel like this would be a good way for him to build study skills, but it might also be a confidence boost.  

[ScoutTN]

Dd did the NME for many years! Very fun. She loves mythology and didn’t really consider the reading/prep to be work. She loved getting the medals! It gets substantially harder to get the highest score as students get older. 
 

She took Latin, but never loved it, so we skipped the exam. We didn’t need the proof of mastery that exam results can be.  

[lulalu]

DS has done the NME the last two years. All he has needed to do is read and listen to the audiobook of the D'Aulaire's Greek Myths. He has read the pages the test goes over probably four times before testing. I also had him work through each morning memorizing the names of the gods in Greek and Roman and what they were the god of. 

He has had a perfect each year. 

[LostintheCosmos]

My students have not needed any extra preparation beyond mythology-related reading to do well on the middle school-level NME (Pegasus). As ScoutTN said, the high school one (Medusa) is quite a bit harder, and my high schooler has extra reading planned for himself based on the syllabus. 

This year's theme is Jason, who does not come into D'Aulaires as much if I'm remembering correctly. So you might offer some Jason-related retellings to your student - Padraic Collum's Golden Fleece, Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes, and there are graphic novel versions of the story, too. 

[kirstenhill]

One of my kids did it (NME) in mid-elementary school.  He read or listened to the books that were suggested as source material.  The only other studying he did was a bit of practice with Greek gods and their Roman equivalents.  I can't remember if this ended up being helpful on the test or not, but he thought it was something he should have more practice with. I think we set up or found a quizlet on those names and he spend a little while practicing with it.  He didn't end up with a super high score, but he thought it was fun and had a decent score for the amount of time he put into it.  This kid is now super interested in academic competitions of all kinds, and enjoys them whether he is among the best competing or not. 

Edited September 20, 2022 by kirstenhill
clarification

[Ting Tang]

Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences with the NME!  I am hoping my son will be agreeable to giving this a chance.  🙂  I may get the audio book for him.  We've only gone through Greek Myths once.

[ScoutTN]

The audiobook of D’Aulaire’s is quite good.