**HL French Before/After**

decisions

Not looking forward to this one.

Tommyrawr

decisions wrote: »

Not looking forward to this one.

Neither am I, pretty much banking on anything that has got to do with drugs or sante.

decisions

Obesity and a descent diary entry.

JustForClarity

I'm terrified about this exam. I barely scraped a pass in the mocks and while I'm not relying on French for many points, I do need a pass in it to get my course.

I feel like I had a very good oral (our examiner asked us the easiest questions ever and left it there!), but the aural will destroy me, so I'm hoping I can do this.

Tommyrawr

The only thing I did well in was the journal intime probably cause I'm great at having a b!tch about things

The rest I didn't go so well, ended up coming out with 79% but the oral brang it down to 69% hope that doesn't happen again, was sickend by it.

ray2012

I'm really looking forward to this. My best subject for sure, hopefully it's a nice paper

Leaving Cert Student

I'm praying for an essay on STD's or at least a comprehension on contraception, that's all my class have covered!

007driver

Last years paper looked easy so Im kinda worried theyll give us a hard one.

Tommyrawr

007driver wrote: »

Last years paper looked easy so Im kinda worried theyll give us a hard one.

Yeah last years paper was a dream paper IMO. They should be fair enough to us though *fingers crossed!*

Acciaccatura

In the mocks, I got 91% in the oral and 61% in the written, which brought my overall score down to 68%. However, I don't think my oral went as well as it did in the mocks, so I really think this will kill me WHY CAN I SPEAK FRENCH BUT NOT BE ABLE TO WRITE IT?!

Canard

Our comprehensions last year were a nightmare, trick questions galore. :L The written pieces were lovely but I'd never really disliked them, though you might notice that none of it was negative stuff like obesity, economy, racism, cyber-bullying...so I think they're trying to stop people learning stuff off. I'd advise you guys to learn general phrases and some key vocabulary and grammar, no point reading essay after essay on something hoping it comes up.

If you feel up to it, typing the topics into Wikipedia then clicking on the French version is a sure way to find extremely high standard French on these things. Bonne chance à tous!

ScummyMan

Oh god.. dreading this

YoursSincerely

Leaving Cert Student wrote: »

I'm praying for an essay on STD's or at least a comprehension on contraception, that's all my class have covered!

God... we haven't even touched on that, but then again i'm not surprised because my teacher wrote a letter of complaint saying the irish play we went to see was overly provocative.....

I am dreading the 40m written question, sometimes they can be lovely and sometimes they can be awful. Personally i'm praying for alcohol, obesity, environment and the importance of sport, theywould be lovely this year.

Canard

STDs and contraception are never going to come up, don't worry.

007driver

Canard wrote: »

STDs and contraception are never going to come up, don't worry.

and even if they did, you would have a choice so be grand

Phoenix Wright

No study done for this whatsoever

NellyDean

ray2012 wrote: »

I'm really looking forward to this. My best subject for sure, hopefully it's a nice paper

Agreed Hoping for a decent Q.1 and the rest should be grand!

007driver

:cool: please be nice please be nice please be nice :cool:

Leaving Cert Student

anyone know of any weird grammar questions we could encounter in comprehensions? And can I quote all answers like with irish?

stephenjmcd

Looking at the thread im happy I do ol

Raeral

Leaving Cert Student wrote: »

anyone know of any weird grammar questions we could encounter in comprehensions? And can I quote all answers like with irish?

If the question uses words like trouvez or citez then you just directly quote. If it asks a specific question eg why did he do this? And the answer in the text is along the lines of 'I did this because...' You have to change the I to he and change the verb to suit it as well.

Leaving Cert Student

How much do you think it is best to write if you were going for top marks on the written sections?

007driver

Leaving Cert Student wrote: »

How much do you think it is best to write if you were going for top marks on the written sections?

I do Q1: 100/110

Q2/3/4: 90/100

If you write too much your lraving yourself open to mistakes.

Raeral

Leaving Cert Student wrote: »

How much do you think it is best to write if you were going for top marks on the written sections?

The general consensus I've heard is to keep your answers short and sweet. Good, clear, idiomatic French. Maybe around 100 words or so as they can penalise you for drifting from the topic given and including irrelevant material

Leaving Cert Student

Raeral wrote: »

The general consensus I've heard is to keep your answers short and sweet. Good, clear, idiomatic French. Maybe around 100 words or so as they can penalise you for drifting from the topic given and including irrelevant material

I have heard the opposite too though. Long, well-planned essay with intro, 1 or 2 points and a conclusion. Supposedly it is near impossible to get full marks by writing the amount they recommend on the paper

Tommyrawr

When talking about les personnes agees do you have to use Elles the whole time?
Like Elles nont pas d'argent pour s'amuser et Elles doivent rester chez elles?

I've never really used Elle's this much in a answer before and it's beginning to look weird.and i don't know if it's right or not? If anyone could clarify I would be really grateful

007driver

Tommyrawr wrote: »

When talking about les personnes agees do you have to use Elles the whole time?
Like Elles nont pas d'argent pour s'amuser et Elles doivent rester chez elles?

I've never really used Elle's this much in a answer before and it's beginning to look weird.and i don't know if it's right or not? If anyone could clarify I would be really grateful

Are you supposed to use elle. Why isn't it Ils.

Tommyrawr

007driver wrote: »

Are you supposed to use elle. Why isn't it Ils.

Yeah that's what I was wondering
It confused the life out of me

007driver

I just looked at my less stress book , theres an essay there about them and they use elles. I never would have thought to use that.

Tommyrawr

Just spoke to my friend from Montreal and he said its cause of the personnnes agées is feminine.

Wouldn't have known otherwise I thought everything took ils regardless of gender :L

gagiteebo

Personnes is feminine and plural therefore the adjective agees has to be feminine and plural so you would use the feminine plural pronoun - elles- as well.

valencianista

In my mock a number of my long questions lost marks because they were ''too long'', despite the fact that there was only 1 or 2 minor errors in the whole thing. Is this the way they will be really marked? Losing marks purely for length even if it is perfect and relevant French? I found that very harsh anyway...

yournerd

I have no problem writing stuff but my content is usually so wrong for the reaction andQ1/2/3/4 anyone to help me?

Legendredhead

The French marking scheme has got to be the stickiest one out of all the exams, especially for the aural.
After having not done a scrap for this until now, it's safe to say I'm pretty fecked. Only need to pass though.

YoursSincerely

I'm getting kinda excited about this exam now, I have a feeling tourism and sport will be on the paper, otherwise this is probably the one exam I'm not overly panicked about

Tommyrawr

Legendredhead wrote: »

The French marking scheme has got to be the stickiest one out of all the exams, especially for the aural.
After having not done a scrap for this until now, it's safe to say I'm pretty fecked. Only need to pass though.

Dispise the marking scheme in French. Just hope for a nice paper like the rest of them now. Must practice over the comprehensions again

JustForClarity

Does anybody know the mark/percentage breakdown for the oral, aural and written part of the exam?

007driver

JustForClarity wrote: »

Does anybody know the mark/percentage breakdown for the oral, aural and written part of the exam?

Oral : 25%
writen : 25%
aural : 20 %
reading : 30 %

weirdspider

valencianista wrote: »

In my mock a number of my long questions lost marks because they were ''too long'', despite the fact that there was only 1 or 2 minor errors in the whole thing. Is this the way they will be really marked? Losing marks purely for length even if it is perfect and relevant French? I found that very harsh anyway...

I know the dilemma, you want to make it long so you can show off all the vocab/fancy sentence structures you know. They shouldn't take marks off as they're probably more used to people writing below the target if anything! Just to be on the safe side I'd compact all the good shtuff into about 120 words

JustForClarity

007driver wrote: »

Oral : 25%
writen : 25%
aural : 20 %
reading : 30 %

Thanks.

Has anyone got any tips for the aural?

valencianista

JustForClarity wrote: »

Thanks.

Has anyone got any tips for the aural?

I find the best way to prepare for it is to practice them by putting CD that came with the exam papers onto your iPod and just do them with your earphones

stevie4568

Anyone have any idea of timing for the paper, how much should we spend on each question?

RML

Just curious to know how long is your reaction and diary entries going to be??

aimzLc2

valencianista wrote: »

In my mock a number of my long questions lost marks because they were ''too long'', despite the fact that there was only 1 or 2 minor errors in the whole thing. Is this the way they will be really marked? Losing marks purely for length even if it is perfect and relevant French? I found that very harsh anyway...

It is really harsh but if everyone does say an extra 30 words multiplied by the thousands who take the exam it would take them hours, they give you a limit and you have to follow it

007driver

stevie4568 wrote: »

Anyone have any idea of timing for the paper, how much should we spend on each question?

comprenhension : 30mins each

Q1: 30 mins

Q2/3/4 : 25mins each

Canard

valencianista wrote: »

In my mock a number of my long questions lost marks because they were ''too long'', despite the fact that there was only 1 or 2 minor errors in the whole thing. Is this the way they will be really marked? Losing marks purely for length even if it is perfect and relevant French? I found that very harsh anyway...

weirdspider wrote: »

I know the dilemma, you want to make it long so you can show off all the vocab/fancy sentence structures you know. They shouldn't take marks off as they're probably more used to people writing below the target if anything! Just to be on the safe side I'd compact all the good shtuff into about 120 words

I totally ignored the word counts and just wrote until I was satisfied with my answers. I answered 8 questions in about 120-150 words each and only lost 1 mark on most of them and that was because of grammar, not length. Funnily in one of them I answered it in exactly 75 words, partly because it was sport which I have no interest in and partly because I was running out of space, and got 5/30...mainly because it was off the point though. Just write what you're comfortable with. It's true that that can leave you prone to making mistakes, but don't feel like you can't finish your answer properly if you're hitting 75 words. They shouldn't mark you down for it and if they do just get it rechecked; mine was marked by two people before I saw it and neither of them were too harsh.

stevie4568

007driver wrote: »

comprenhension : 30mins each

Q1: 30 mins

Q2/3/4 : 25mins each

Looks pretty good, I'll do that then!

aimzLc2

Has anyone got anything on tourism to message me please i will swap any of my notes

HPMS

Dont you know the whole relevance thing in french...like you lose marks if something isn't relevant? Well, how do you know what is and isn't revelant?

Like say you got an essay on something and you wanted to say how big of a problem it is - so I would say...

C'est un probléme croissant et tout le monde le perçoit mais, pour trouver un solution c'est une autre paire de manches!

Would that be relevant or would it lose marks?? I'm so confused with the marking scheme!

AndreaEgan

Has anybody got an essay on Le Dopage or Emigration?

weirdspider

HPMS wrote: »

Dont you know the whole relevance thing in french...like you lose marks if something isn't relevant? Well, how do you know what is and isn't revelant?

Like say you got an essay on something and you wanted to say how big of a problem it is - so I would say...

C'est un probléme croissant et tout le monde le perçoit mais, pour trouver une solution c'est une autre paire de manches!

Would that be relevant or would it lose marks?? I'm so confused with the marking scheme!

è and une
And I'm not too sure on that sentence, it seems very learned off and a little long winded! Perhaps try to relate it to whatever Q comes up instead of writing it on its own. For example; "C'est un problème croissant l'abus d'alcool chez les jeunes...."