Part II is made up of seven elements (the first two of which will have been disposed of early in your final year). These are:

• a Year Abroad Project (check the website for important deadlines)
• an oral examination in a language (taken just before the start of the Michaelmas Term)
• two written language examinations (in one or two languages)
• three scheduled papers (or two scheduled papers and an optional dissertation to replace one exam)

Language Work

The two written papers are:

• Paper C1: Translation into and out of the Language. Summative assessment for this paper will be a 3-hour examination. There will be two passages to be translated, one from English into Italian, and one from Italian into English.
• Paper C2: Text and Culture. This paper offers the opportunity to engage with advanced use of Italian through the analysis of texts of various types and genres of authentic material under the topic of Identity. Students will be expected to engage critically with relevant texts, placing them in their cultural contexts and analysing their content and formal features through written work in the foreign language. Summative assessment for this paper will be a 3-hour examination. Students are asked to write a 1000 words c. reaction in Italian to one of two texts dealing with Italian identity. The exam tests their ability to comment on the chosen text (form and content), and to formulate an informed and clear argument on the topic(s) encountered. 

You may take the oral examination in any of the languages recognised by the Faculty. One of your two written language papers must be in the same language as the oral. Most candidates take the oral examination in the language of the country where they spent the Year Abroad. The examination will consist of a five-minute presentation and a ten-minute conversation which will centre on the subject of your Year Abroad Project but there may also be related questions of a more general nature.

Scheduled papers

At present there are five Italian scheduled papers available in Part II.

Topics within papers and some entire papers can change. Updates will be announced well before the courses begin. Check the relevant websites.

• It. 6              Modern Italian Culture
• It. 7              Dante and the Culture of his Age.
• It. 8              Italian Culture, from 1500 to 1650.
• It. 9              Text and Image
• It. 10            The Language of Italy (suspended for academic year 2020-21, please see CS1)

Each of these papers has its own page and reading list. Please use the buttons to the left to navigate to the relevant pages.

As the topics may vary from year to year it is important to check the website before making your final choices. There are also 4 comparative papers available to you, CS1, CS3, CS5 and CS6. You can find details of these here.