GCSE results 2015: Can you pass this year's best performing Classical Subjects past exam questions?

Of the 16,000 students who sat Classical Subjects, almost 37 per cent received A*s

New linear-style GCSE exams are said to be the most difficult seen in schools since O-levels (Getty)

Around 16,000 students sat GCSE exams within the field of Classical Subjects this year.

Bringing together topics such as classical civilisation, Latin, classical Greek, ancient history, and Biblical Hebrew, this group of exams came out on top as being the best performing this year, with an impressive 36.9 per cent of students gaining A*s.

But how many of the following past questions in classical civilisation and Latin are you able to answer?

Classical Civilisation – Greece and Rome: Stories and Histories (GCSE/Higher Tier/June 2014)

Read the following passage from Livy, Stories of Rome and answer the questions below:

‘I see you have no thought for your dead brothers, or me, or Rome’, he said. ‘Go and join your lover, you and your girlish passion! There shall be no tears for the enemy while I’m alive.’ And with these harsh words he drove the sword through her body. The crowd were horrified at this appalling deed. In spite of his recent heroism he was arrested and brought before the king.

Latin Prose Literature (GCSE/Higher Tier/May 2013)

Read the following passage from a Pliny, Do you believe in ghosts? and answer the questions below:

et mihi discendi et tibi docendi facultatem otium praebet. igitur perquam velim scire,
esse phantasmata et habere propriam figuram numenque aliquod putes an inania
et vana ex metu nostro imaginem accipere. ego ut esse credam in primis eo ducor,
quod audio accidisse Curtio Rufo.