Improving my grades?

SuperRobotWars

Hi,
I apoligise in advance if this is not in the correct thread but please forgive me as I am new to this site. I was wondering if anyone had any advice to improve grades. I've just received my Christmas exams and my results were as follows:
History(HL): B3
English(HL):B2
Art History(HL): B2
Maths(HL): C3
Geography(HL):C3
Irish(OL):D2
French(HL):C3

If anyone could give any advice, help or links to useful material it would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks,
SuperRobotWars

Calvin

SuperRobotWars wrote: »

Hi,
I apoligise in advance if this is not in the correct thread but please forgive me as I am new to this site. I was wondering if anyone had any advice to improve grades. I've just received my Christmas exams and my results were as follows:
History(HL): B3
English(HL):B2
Art History(HL): B2
Maths(HL): C3
Geography(HL):C3
Irish(OL):D2
French(HL):C3

If anyone could give any advice, help or links to useful material it would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks,
SuperRobotWars

For French, I'd strongly suggest working on oral work. Not only is it good for the oral exam, but you could also use some of that content for the written section in the paper.

For Geography, just make sure that all of your points are SRPs. Most geography students (like me) tend to give a lot of unnecessary information that doesn't relate to the question.

vamos!

Read your exam papers and see where you went wrong? Foe example in french could you identify if you lost marks in the listening section, reading comprehension or written pieces? It is much easier to address specific problems as opposed to every part of every sublect.

SuperRobotWars

@Calvin Leong thanks for the reply. I'm working on the oral exam at the moment and using Accent Francais by Cian Hogan but I also have bien dit. My french teacher gave me back my oral results and I got 46 out of 100 (10/20 for Pronunciation, 10/20 for Vocab, 13/30 for structure and Communication was 13/30). Personally, I find it difficult to understand fully the question being asked and tend to stick to wrought learning....any tips for understanding and answering questions (Knowing which tense to use and leading the examiner to learnt material?

Yeah my Geography scores fluctuate. I swithched from Physics to Geography half-way through fifth year so missed a lot of material on Earth, plates, volcanoes, earthquakes etc. I pretty much crammed the night before. I find that my geography notes can be tons of pages. Do you guys use flash cards with 12-15 srps?

SuperRobotWars

@vamos In the french comprehensions I didn't do too bad I got 130/190 and got 23/30 in my journal intime as well as 25/40 in general question. My general problem is the oral and aural, I honestly find it incredibly difficult to understand the conversations in the aural and some of the answers can be really obscure....

vamos!

SuperRobotWars wrote: »

@vamos In the french comprehensions I didn't do too bad I got 130/190 and got 23/30 in my journal intime as well as 25/40 in general question. My general problem is the oral and aural, I honestly find it incredibly difficult to understand the conversations in the aural and some of the answers can be really obscure....

For aural just keep doing your papers. Listen to the CDs. Download the transcripts from examinations.ie and read along until you can identify some keywords. Learn phrases for the news too- traffic accidents, disasters, weather, arrests all come up pretty frequently.

If understanding the question in the oral is difficult start making a list of verbs and their 'vous' question form and their 'je' positive and negative answers in all tenses. eg Avez-vous? Oui, j'ai..., non, je n'ai pas.... Learn your question words too eg Comment, Qui, Quelle. Francais.ie has nice grammar explainations. If you are struggling with learning off long answers keep it short and sweet. Bien Dit is probably easier than Accent Francais.
*Just noticed that you had 13/30 for communication. This is easy to improve. You need to believe in yourself and just go for it. It is a conversation so you have to speak! If you practice the questions you have a better chance of answering confidently.

SuperRobotWars

vamos! wrote: »

For aural just keep doing your papers. Listen to the CDs. Download the transcripts from examinations.ie and read along until you can identify some keywords. Learn phrases for the news too- traffic accidents, disasters, weather, arrests all come up pretty frequently.

If understanding the question in the oral is difficult start making a list of verbs and their 'vous' question form and their 'je' positive and negative answers in all tenses. eg Avez-vous? Oui, j'ai..., non, je n'ai pas.... Learn your question words too eg Comment, Qui, Quelle. Francais.ie has nice grammar explainations. If you are struggling with learning off long answers keep it short and sweet. Bien Dit is probably easier than Accent Francais.
*Just noticed that you had 13/30 for communication. This is easy to improve. You need to believe in yourself and just go for it. It is a conversation so you have to speak! If you practice the questions you have a better chance of answering confidently.

Thanks for the quick reply!
Do you recommend putting the french aurals on your phone and listening to it while walking home on the bus or luas etc.
Making a list is an excellent idea, why didn't I think of that . I'll do that this weekend. Yeah, I'm mostly using accent Francais but will also take a look at bien dit.
Haha cheers man, it's just that I'm so use to wrought learning and examiners always try to put you on the spot. I just get flustered and my mind goes blank

Canard

Rather than just the aurals (which are obviously important), what about French music? Much more enjoyable. Plus because they're much faster, once you get a bit used to it (by looking up the lyrics usually), the aurals seem way less intimidating.

For the oral what might help is trying to think of things randomly - e.g. take some of your random, daily thoughts and ask yourself after 'Could I say that to myself in French?', and if not, look up what the words you didn't know were. It helps with spontaneity as well as vocabulary and grammar.

vamos!

Canard wrote: »

Rather than just the aurals (which are obviously important), what about French music? Much more enjoyable. Plus because they're much faster, once you get a bit used to it (by looking up the lyrics usually), the aurals seem way less intimidating.

Great idea and really good fun.I always suggest the actual aurals for 6th years who are struggling with aural though because similar things can come up and some of the speakers could be on this years paper. I know it's not really interesting but it works. The songs thing, for me, is great for 5th years and potential B1+ 6th years. If not, there is a danger that people won't spot slang and words shortened to suit the music.

Canard

That's true - and I even found myself occasionally taking a chunk from a song and forgetting to change it to fit the context, e.g. "il faut sors un peu de ta bulle" For oral pronunciation maybe it could help a bit more than the relatively awkward conversations in the aural, but you're right, they're no substitute for the real aurals.

SuperRobotWars

Haha I actually already put some french music on my phone, a bit of Stromae (Alors on danse, tous les memes and papaoutai etc) . As well as flight of the conchords foux da fafa :P