The Course Exam

Two exams are taken in the Old English Literature Course. Below is information about the exams and links to last year's Mods exam papers maintained online by OXAM (Oxford Exam Papers Online). If you are not taking the Mods papers or are taking additional exam papers in Old English go to the OXAM homepage and search for the relevant paper.

Go to the "Keyword search" and type in "Old English" this will bring up a list of all the exams that cover Old English Literature.

Paper 5 - Old English Literature

Paper 5 is a generic paper. Here you are given a range of questions from which you must select three to answer in essay form. Except where a question is directed towards a particular text you may apply the question to any single text or range of texts that you feel most appropriate. You must not answer more than ONE question significantly on the same text or author.

Paper 6 - Old English Translation and Commentary

Paper 6 is the translation and commentary paper. For this paper you must answer two questions. For the first you are given five Old English passages (both prose and poetry) taken from the texts that you have studied. From these five you must choose three to translate. For question two you are given two passages from Beowulf one of which you must select to write a literary commentary on.

For some translation tips click here