** 2014 LC French - all levels - discussion, predictions, practice your French **

linguist

@foxymm: What do you think about the 'comme'? It's not entirely extraneous in my view so I'd be hoping it wouldn't attract -1.

foxymm

Compréhension auditive: 2014
Sec 1
- her phone didn't have any more battery life.
- bags were too heavy - had to pay a fee / supplementary charge
- had to wait 4 hours as his plane / flight was delayed.
- They weren't on the right train.

Sec 2
- 25 years ago
- mornings: likes to be present / to be at the sunrise above /over the sea
- afternoons: likes to fish on lake Corrib
- that he's the laziest man in the world when he's on holidays.
- water's too cold
- produce a new album for children
- little outings into the woods looking for mushrooms (as he's interested in gastronomy)

Sec 3
- his French teacher
- his father did theatrical classes when he was at university.
- The story's about a group of criminals
- the action takes place at the beginning of the last century.
- it's his first time (getting up) on stage
- His sister is coming home from the US that day (20th December) and his mum has already promised to pick her up in Toulouse.


Sec 4
- waiter in a restaurant
- (restaurant located 60km from his home )and he turned it down due to price of petrol - wasn't worth it.
- politicians who do nothing
- not too affected by the economic crisis
- ask for help from charity organisations in town when they arrive.
- 2 doctors stopped working last year.
- one who continues to work is 92 years old.

Sec 5
- because of a huge / big flood.
- €30,000
- in the bin of the café
- he was driving a tractor on the motorway.

foxymm

linguist wrote: »

@foxymm: What do you think about the 'comme'? It's not entirely extraneous in my view so I'd be hoping it wouldn't attract -1.

Comme should be fine in or out

In because it highlights the fact she doesn't fear heading off AS she's dreamt about travels and faraway lands

Out too as it states the fact of wanting to do this didn't frighten her, duly fulfilling the " Pourquoi"

There could indeed well be battles about this at conference!

linguist

Your listening is well aligned with me. Just a couple of things: there's no way they can insist on Lough Corrib as it simply wasn't clear enough. It took me until the third listening to be sure. Also, yes I heard the 'grande inondation' but I'm hoping they won't insist on the adjective. I think it refers to the phenomenon of flooding rather than a flood in the Biblical sense or even a big puddle in the road, so there's an awful lot of possible translations (severe, major, bad etc...) I'm hoping they're lenient on that and just stick to flooding. 'Big flooding' just doesn't sound great in English!

foxymm

The more I think about that the more it sounds better IN.
Lol:D

ave123

just hoping i passes this exam to be honest. i felt like my grammer was awful in the written production, i didnt study grammer much before the exam, more essay type answers...i felt like i did better in the listening than i would normally do, but im afraid my answers were abit vague and i wont get marks....i found the comprehensions were moderately difficult, both question 4,5 on both comprehensions caught me...and i hope my english bit was up to scratch....just praying i pass it..

foxymm

I wasn't at all trying to formulate a marking scheme but everyone seem's to have found today's aural very easy so if that's the case across the board they will be insistent on certain specifics for full marks I'd imagine e.g. Sect 4 Q2: according to Alain, what are people fed up with...? Politicians WHO DO NOTHING ( qui ne font rien).

I wonder will they insist on the sunrise being ABOVE/OVER THE SEA (au-dessus de la mer). This is where the parameters could get interesting.

linguist

I'm in agreement with you virtually all the way - my point on the flooding was the fact that 'grande' would be better translated to other adjectives in English and from a marking point of view that could get complex.

Yes, I think the 'au dessus' will be in there for the 3 and I think you're right on the politicians too.

foxymm

On the job offer refusal I'd imagine a lot of students would have answered that it was 60km away without hearing and mentioning specifically "à cause du prix de l'essence".

Flooding will be awarded the marks no doubt without the need for the supplementary adjective 'grande'

Correction Q4 (ii) of second comp: should be

"Comme Lisbeth rêvait de voyages et de contrées lointaines."

Alannahokl

I have just finished my last leaving cert exam which was French. I did horrific its scary! I shouldn't have sat the higher level paper:( my oral was ok.. What's the chances of me passing? I need reassuring please:(

linguist wrote: »

Do you know at this point which mock paper you did? Examcraft was generally regarded as very challenging this year.

My hunch would be not to drop if you got a D1. How did the oral go? As with any exam, there are sections on the ordinary, particularly the written, that would require practice and the chances are you've done nothing specific on it. Moreover, As on ordinary level French are very rare since very high precision is required on the postcards/notes etc.

I sat it anyway at HL. I don't know how to feel. I think I did around the same as the Pre! I litteratly only want to pass it anyway so I can get into university. Just hate that bad feeling you get when I think you failed:( chances of failing are slim though are they?
Thanks for your help

Dee15

I actually thought this exam went really well until I looked at the marking schemes that people posted!

yoajing

Dee15 wrote: »

I actually thought this exam went really well until I looked at the marking schemes that people posted!

lol i know right? I'm the exact same

Dee15

yoajing wrote: »

lol i know right? I'm the exact same

Hopefully I'll get marks, even 3 out of 5 per question in the first reading comprehension otherwise I'm in trouble! I wanted a high B in french!

Alannahokl

Dee15 wrote: »

Hopefully I'll get marks, even 3 out of 5 per question in the first reading comprehension otherwise I'm in trouble! I wanted a high B in french!

Could you tell me where the marking scheme is please?:O

Alannahokl

mec1 wrote: »

You have 4 pieces written so they normally correct all 4 and choose your best 3. First of all you did the obligatory question 1. Then you did one each from q2, q3 & q4. These will be corrected and the best ones chosen. Examiners understand that mistakes like this can be made. You won't be penalised.

Do you get any marks if you misunderstood the question but still wrote something?

Dee15

Alannahokl wrote: »

Could you tell me where the marking scheme is please?:O

I haven't seen it yet, that's why I said I hope I'll get the marks! But someone put up the right answers a few posts back so you could look at that

linguist

The key point here is the difference between a solution such as the one I posted and a marking scheme.

A solution aims to give the 'right' answer - the one that should carry five marks. However, there will be many partial mark answers. One of the difficulties on the reading comprehension this year was the fact, in my view, that more questions required manipulation rather than direct quotation than in previous years. The general penalty for failing to manipulate where required and just lifting your answer from the text is one mark. However, I've spoken to a few colleagues about this, and Q.5.(i) on the journalistic comprehension is so complex that I can't see a way you can arrive at a correct answer without substantially manipulating along the lines I and others have suggested. That said, there will always be one or two really hard ones because the exam must discriminate between candidates of different abilities.

Here is what anybody worried needs to take by way of reassurance. At the end of the marking process, the same broad spread of A1, A2, B1... grades will be arrived at as in every other year. So the marking scheme will have to be developed and adjusted until it achieves that. Every year in August, people stress the night before their results about that horrible Maths/Biology/French exam, and every year the fears are dispelled because the same overall results have to issue. So if you've always been a C, the chances are you'll still be a C after yesterday. And if you finally got a B3 in that extra mock you did in May, you've every chance of holding it.

mec1

My understanding is that the examiners are sympathetic to students. If what you write or part of it even can be understood to address the question in any way, the benefit of doubt will be given to the student. A good examiner will always try to see things from the student's point of view. Remember that the majority of examiners are teachers themselves. They are acting on behalf of the student believe it or not. What you write has to have some relevance to the question asked as you can imagine so as long as some effort is being made to tackle the topic, marks will be awarded accordingly.

Alannahokl

mec1 wrote: »

My understanding is that the examiners are sympathetic to students. If what you write or part of it even can be understood to address the question in any way, the benefit of doubt will be given to the student. A good examiner will always try to see things from the student's point of view. Remember that the majority of examiners are teachers themselves. They are acting on behalf of the student believe it or not. What you write has to have some relevance to the question asked as you can imagine so as long as some effort is being made to tackle the topic, marks will be awarded accordingly.

Thanks. I made a fairly big mistake tho!:( it said Irish sport n I saw 'admire' n I thought it said Irish sportsman r woman u admire n started talking about soccer! That's bad:o hopefully I get something ?:(

mec1

Fair enough. However, the question is in 2 parts. You are asked to answer 2 questions posed by Claudine. First of all, it's talk about a sport that you are doing at the moment and then it asks about an Irish sports star that you admire the most so if it's any consolation, you will still be on track for the first 15 marks and may get some of the remaining for the second part of the answer also. 15 marks is 3.75% of the total 400 and you may even pick up some of them?

curlyclodagh

For the listening comp, do you think they'll let me get away with saying "he was driving a tractor on the motorway TO Calais" and "he had to pay a FINE because his bags were too heavy?

AtomicKoala

curlyclodagh wrote: »

For the listening comp, do you think they'll let me get away with saying "he was driving a tractor on the motorway TO Calais" and "he had to pay a FINE because his bags were too heavy?

Well, given the first is a 2 marker I'd say you'll get the 2 marks.

I think you may only get 2 of 3 though for the second one (assume they don't mess around with the marking scheme). But sure who knows!

curlyclodagh

AtomicKoala wrote: »

Well, given the first is a 2 marker I'd say you'll get the 2 marks.

I think you may only get 2 of 3 though for the second one (assume they don't mess around with the marking scheme). But sure who knows!

Gaahhh so frustrating because I was going to write supplement, but I thought they'd be looking for a less direct translation hopefully they'll see 'fine' as a synonym! Thanks!

Flickka

curlyclodagh wrote: »

Gaahhh so frustrating because I was going to write supplement, but I thought they'd be looking for a less direct translation hopefully they'll see 'fine' as a synonym! Thanks!

That's what I thought too except I translated supplément as "extra". Not sure if I'll get the marks for that either...

Did anyone else give the line "Les animaux de la ménagerie font partie du spectacle" for the question about ferocious animal in the 1st comprehension? I just assumed that Ménagerie meant household but can't find a translation... It was a kind of a stupid question though because exotic animals aren't necessarily ferocious and then Lions and Tigers aren't the only ones that are!

Dee15

Flickka wrote: »

Did anyone else give the line "Les animaux de la ménagerie font partie du spectacle" for the question about ferocious animal in the 1st comprehension? I just assumed that Ménagerie meant household but can't find a translation... It was a kind of a stupid question though because exotic animals aren't necessarily ferocious and then Lions and Tigers aren't the only ones that are!

I wrote the same thing! Yeah it seemed like there was more than one answer for some parts of it!

robman60

Flickka wrote: »

That's what I thought too except I translated supplément as "extra". Not sure if I'll get the marks for that either...

Did anyone else give the line "Les animaux de la ménagerie font partie du spectacle" for the question about ferocious animal in the 1st comprehension? I just assumed that Ménagerie meant household but can't find a translation... It was a kind of a stupid question though because exotic animals aren't necessarily ferocious and then Lions and Tigers aren't the only ones that are!

I just knew menagerie because it's an (uncommon) English word. It just means a place where wild animals are kept, I think.

It was a stupid question though. I got the correct answer because I wasn't sure even though I understood all of the surrounding text. The absence of lions, tigers and elephants doesn't prove there weren't any ferocious animals there.

scareyc

robman60 wrote: »

I just knew menagerie because it's an (uncommon) English word. It just means a place where wild animals are kept, I think.

It was a stupid question though. I got the correct answer because I wasn't sure even though I understood all of the surrounding text. The absence of lions, tigers and elephants doesn't prove there weren't any ferocious animals there.

I said 'ni lion, ni tigre' cuz in my head they're ferocious, but it was a pretty vague question..

AtomicKoala

Yes, I thought the questions in general on the first comprehension were badly worded. I hope it doesn't cost me my grade

Flickka

robman60 wrote: »

I just knew menagerie because it's an (uncommon) English word. It just means a place where wild animals are kept, I think.

It was a stupid question though. I got the correct answer because I wasn't sure even though I understood all of the surrounding text. The absence of lions, tigers and elephants doesn't prove there weren't any ferocious animals there.

Aww damn. That's so frustrating. I bet that's going to cost me my A

robman60

Flickka wrote: »

Aww damn. That's so frustrating. I bet that's going to cost me my A

Well it'll cost you 5 marks maximum, so 1.25% of your total grade. I won't be too concerned about one error like that.

On a side note; one can't underestimate the value of a good English vocabulary for French. The reading comprehensions are loaded with words that are very similar to English words. In many cases, they aren't common English words so a wider vocabulary can be necessary. The "menagerie" case in our exam exemplifies this.

I remember doing one recently where it was necessary to know the word "nonchalant" in order to get the correct answer.