Honours French

subway_ie

Soooooo anybody else a bit screwed for french? I'm not usually that bad, but I haven't done anything in about 2 weeks. Just tried to do a comprehension... not a clue. Ditto for reaction questions. Not to mention the aural (slow the fúck down, s'il vous plait).

penguincakes

Pas du tout, j'espere un A, et si les productions écrits ne sont pas trop mal je pense que j'en peut gagner.

subway_ie

Merci pour l'encouragement. Pouvez-vous sentir mon sarcasme?

penguincakes

Oui je peux et je chois de l'ignorer. Rien du tout

Mutant_Fruit

Guten Tag, wie geht's? Ich habe am Fritag morgen das Deutschexam zu machen. Hoffentlich will ich gute noten bekommen.

Bis spater,
Fruitty

subway_ie

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
Guten Tag, wie geht's? Ich habe am Fritag morgen das Deutschexam zu machen. Hoffentlich will ich gute noten bekommen.

Bis spater,
Fruitty

Glücklicher bastard.

penguincakes

Tu es un singe de cul.

claire h

Originally posted by subway_ie
Soooooo anybody else a bit screwed for french?

Oh yes.

subway_ie

Originally posted by penguincakes
Tu es un singe de cul.

Monkeys of arse. Excellent. Shoud come in useful in production ecrite.

subway_ie

Il faut se coucher maintenant. On doit se preparer pour le jour du compte. Quelle anticipation!

Smellyirishman

Well basically in a language I can speak , im quite screwed, but now all I need is a pass in all my subjects so I should be cool! hopefully.

Tu a PD

conZ

Any phrases/words/people to recommend for the Tape test?

subway_ie

Holy fúck. 'Twas *ever so slightly* hard. What's the story with the aural? Even tougher than the mock. Nice written paper though.

Smellyirishman

Ye that aural was absolute crap, and we had a fuzzy recorder so it was really annoying on top of not being able to understand a word of it!!

But ye they better mark it super easy!

subway_ie

Originally posted by Smellyirishman
But ye they better mark it super easy!

I think most of that "they're going to add 5% because it was so hard" thing is just a load of crap. People have been saying all weekend that "they" are going to take 5% off of everybodys english exam because it was so easy. They know what the standard of the paper is when they set it, because, well, *they* set it. Alot of people will probably do (relatively) badly in it and mess up the grade curve, so it'll probably work out ok in the end.

But how more predictable could that written paper have been? Smoking ban comprehension, smoking ban written piece, special olympics and a lovely diary entry. I didn't get an A or anything in the written paper, but I thought it was a bit easier than most years. That'll probably make up for the crap aural.

DEmeant0r

Aye, the tape was super fuzzy and then I couldn't understand a word that's been said. Probably failed the Aural, but hopefully the Written made up for it.

conZ

Decent written paper alright.
The comprehensions were a bit of a bollix in places.

The obligatory and reaction questions were nice though.
I done the Questions on the Smoking ban in Ireland, English being a better language than French, and what other.... Aah! The formal email on the Cycling trip.

Bastard of a French teacher banking on Informal letters for the last two years - Literally banking on them. He gave us on set of sheets on Formal, in 5th year sometime - Didn't do a thing on informal in 6th year - and never anything on email format. I just wrote the Address of the hotel, followed by an email addy I made up for them, and on the opposite side, my address followed by an email (not my real details).

I wrote well though, the topics were fairly general, and for the one about the smoking ban you could pick up a few phrases and words from the Comprehension.

The Aural was a bollix though.

I'd say I got a high B in that paper, but the Oral and Aural may bring me down to a C.

subway_ie

I'd say I'm lookin at a high C after the oral and the aural. Made a huge mistake by doing the importance of french as a language thing instead of doing the special olympics one. Just blabbered on about how much I loved the french, the language, the culture, the history, the way of life. How language is an essential part of any culture and with the EU enlargement it needs to be protected and learned by everybody. Total bullshít.

DEmeant0r

Originally posted by conZ
Decent written paper alright.
The comprehensions were a bit of a bollix in places.

The obligatory and reaction questions were nice though.
I done the Questions on the Smoking ban in Ireland, English being a better language than French, and what other.... Aah! The formal email on the Cycling trip.

Bastard of a French teacher banking on Informal letters for the last two years - Literally banking on them. He gave us on set of sheets on Formal, in 5th year sometime - Didn't do a thing on informal in 6th year - and never anything on email format. I just wrote the Address of the hotel, followed by an email addy I made up for them, and on the opposite side, my address followed by an email (not my real details).

I wrote well though, the topics were fairly general, and for the one about the smoking ban you could pick up a few phrases and words from the Comprehension.

The Aural was a bollix though.

I'd say I got a high B in that paper, but the Oral and Aural may bring me down to a C.

WHAT?! There's a format for an email? I did it like a normal letter except without the address!!!! :dunno:

Suaimhneach

It was a great paper. I mean, I'm not gonna fail now! The aural was really crap. Guessed loads. But I'm just not gonna fail. MIGHT even get a low C. I knew stuff on the smoking ban and the email. Lol. Yeay!

subway_ie

Originally posted by Demeant0r
WHAT?! There's a format for an email? I did it like a normal letter except without the address!!!! :dunno:

The "formal e-mail" thing is a little unclear - I've never done one before anyway. But I'd assume that all you need to do is put in your address, their address and the time. Although I'd say they'll be fairly lenient on layout, since I think it's the first time it's come up.

conZ

I think it said "in email or fax format".

DS

The format for an email is the same as for a short note. No addresses.

subway_ie

Originally posted by Discharger Snake
The format for an email is the same as for a short note. No addresses.

That's informal e-mails/notes though... formal correspondance always has at least one of the addresses at the top, along with the date. And probably a formal closing paragraph too...

DEmeant0r

Originally posted by subway_ie
That's informal e-mails/notes though... formal correspondance always has at least one of the addresses at the top, along with the date. And probably a formal closing paragraph too...

Ah, that's alrighty so, did the informal email about person can't go to your house because his/her parents watched a show about Ireland being the biggest consumers of drugs and d'alcool in Europe.

Suaimhneach

Emial has to have

a: someone@france.fr
de: student@exam.ie
sujet: exam

and as far as I know...teh rest is short letter....

DS

It doesn't have to have all that. It's the same as the note. Informal this is, as mentioned above.

claire h

Has it occurred to anyone how ridiculous the concept of handwriting an email is?

Aural was tough. The written paper was okay. The comprehensions weren't excessively tricky and I managed to scrape a few sentences together for the réactions. Woo and hoo.

Envy

Can someone verify that all those people talking on the tape today were actually speaking in French? I have my doubts.

Yeah, aural was tough.

The reaction questions were -- meh -- fine. Managed to throw in a few idioms here and there.

I didn't do as well in the French exam as I was hoping to -- but that's a feeling I'm only too familiar with.

Au... revuir, or something.

SeanPuddin

dude that was the worst listening ever!

claire h

Originally posted by Envy
Can someone verify that all those people talking on the tape today were actually speaking in French? I have my doubts.

My lack of being able to understand it points to being in French. Le francais, c'est ma bete noire.

subway_ie

Originally posted by claire h
c'est ma bete noire.

Does anybody know the french for cliché?

claire h

Originally posted by subway_ie
Does anybody know the french for cliché?

Ah, be quiet, the only thing French is good for is its clichés...

subway_ie

Originally posted by claire h
Ah, be quiet, the only thing French is good for is its clichés...

Touché, touché. See - it's good for "touché" - that's such a feckin cool word.

banquo

im fluent. spent 4 anda half years in Lyon.

its not your imaginations: the aural was impossible.

and not just ours, the JC's was pretty mental as well - there's talk of it being stricken from the overall mark.

subway_ie

Originally posted by banquo
and not just ours, the JC's was pretty mental as well - there's talk of it being stricken from the overall mark.

It definetly won't be stricken from the overall mark. They might allow for the difficulty by being a bit more liberal in the marking schemes; giving, say, 1 mark for the hard questions and 5 for the easier ones. Definetly won't be ignored though.

The Song Thrush

That aural was, as the french say, fúcking harde.

And you'd think that by now they'd be using CD's instead of tapes? I mean come on....

subway_ie

Originally posted by The Song Thrush
That aural was, as the french say, fúcking harde.

And you'd think that by now they'd be using CD's instead of tapes? I mean come on....

Using CDs instead of tapes wouldn't make any difference - it wasn't the quality of the recording, it was the delivery. The mumbling, the illogical flow of questions. The amount of detail and irrelevancies.

The Song Thrush

Originally posted by subway_ie
Using CDs instead of tapes wouldn't make any difference - it wasn't the quality of the recording, it was the delivery. The mumbling, the illogical flow of questions. The amount of detail and irrelevancies.

Oh I know. But I meant because the tape wouldn't stop vibrating while it was playing, which made it even harder to listen to.

Suaimhneach

Well, if they mark it easy I'll be well happy. I'm normally really good, my strongest thing in french, but I didn't have a clue. Good to haer someone who is fluent even had difficulty. Reassuring.

LegacyUser

I thought the tape was cock too. I usually do well in the tape, but this time, I dunno. The examiner woman played a test of the tape to check the volume, and asked us if it was ok. Then, one guy in the class told her it was too low. She turned it up waaaay too loud and made it really hard to listen to.

subway_ie

I just got a reply to my letter of complaint to the Chief French Examiner... it's not a mail merge job - refers specifically to the points I made in my letter. The basic gist is: thatnks for your input, they've arranged to bring the letter to the attention of the chief examiner and will be considered when they're making the marking scheme, along with all the other feedback they've gotten from teachers/examiners and that I'll (and everybody else) will get a copy of the marking scheme when we're viewing the scripts. I wasn't even expecting a reply, but it shows that if you did send in a letter, they at least awknowledge it, which is nice.

Suaimhneach

That's pretty cool! Glad they are considering it and such.