Breakdown of Хорошо подготовившись, студенты сдали сессию.
студент
student (m)
хорошо
well
подготовиться
to prepare oneself
сдать
to pass (an exam)
сессия
exam period
Questions & Answers about Хорошо подготовившись, студенты сдали сессию.
Why does подготовившись end in -вшись instead of the usual perfective ending -в?
It comes from the reflexive verb подготовиться (to prepare oneself). When forming a perfective verbal adverb from a reflexive verb, you must use the suffix -вшись instead of -в. If it were the non-reflexive verb подготовить (to prepare something), it would simply be подготовив.
Who is doing the preparing in this sentence?
The students are. A strict rule for verbal adverbs in Russian is that they must describe an action performed by the subject of the main sentence. Since студенты is the subject doing the main action (сдали), they must also be the ones who prepared.
I learned that сдать means to hand over or rent out. Why does it mean passed here?
In an academic context, сдать specifically means to successfully pass a test or exam. Notice that it is perfective; the imperfective сдавать simply means to take a test, with no guarantee of passing.
What exactly is a сессия?
In the context of Russian universities, сессия (here in the accusative case, сессию) refers to the official exam period at the end of a semester. So the phrase сдали сессию means the students successfully passed all their exams for that term.
Why is there a comma after подготовившись?
Russian punctuation rules require that verbal adverb phrases (like Хорошо подготовившись) are always separated by commas from the main clause, regardless of where they appear in the sentence.
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