French B Exams: Level 7

[WVW]

As you all know, French B exams are creeping up (22nd), so I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to get a level 7.

I know that in order to do well in paper 1, past exams are a must.

Another useful tip for paper 1 is to know the linking words and some common vocabulary that comes up over and over on exams (again see past exams)

For paper 2, I guess the main thing is knowing the formats. Does anyone have a list of the formats and what they involve? Here are a few:

Formal Letter

Informal Letter

Brochure

Tract (flyer)

Newspaper article

Discours

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I really want that level 7 but have not been given very much guidance as to how to attain it.

[Guest]

There's the Journal Intime for Paper 2 as well - I haven't seen them come up as much recently but they tend to be quite easy to do as they're personal and informal; they're great for using some colloquial phrases if you can.

As for the others, I'm really not sure either. I've had 3 different teachers over the past 2 years and have ended up pretty mixed up over the whole thing. I'd love to hear other people's insight, or to see a clear structure for a letter if it's out there.

[Sandwich]

If you can memorise some flashy phrases/grammar to stick in, that's always a good idea. Like a really complicated example of the subjunctive (if French has a subjunctive) or some complicated vocabulary/sentence constructions. Especially things which are very 'french' - if you translated them into english it would sound totally weird but in french it's the correct way to express something. For my spanish exam I learned some cool sounding phrases from a short story I read by Garcia Marquez and actually managed to pop a few of them in, which I was well chuffed with!

If you sort out some potentially general phrases which you know are 100% correct before you go in, then you can try and stick them into your writing - guaranteed to score bonus points for having excellent command of french and you don't have to worry about them being wrong

Some things are hard to predict what's going to come up... I remember needing to know loads of airport vocabulary in order to write my letter of complaint about a delayed flight or something, which I didn't know. Also random verbs like 'to throw' which I didn't know! But you can't really predict those things - sometimes you can work it out from the context, sometimes you can't. Part of it is just luck/having good general vocab, which is hard to achieve except by osmosis over the 2 years!

[WVW]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Does anyone know what would be considerd impressive french? I know subjunctive is typically considered difficult, and idiomatic phrases are always good. I've also heard that using a wide variety of past tenses correctly can impress examiners (passe comp. imparfait plus que parfait etc.)

Any other ideas?

[Summer Glau]

"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" is always an impressive question to insert in a composition

But to be more serious, you have to show off your French with fancy stuff to get a 7. Like Sandwich said, using subjunctive wherever possible is a very good idea. Learn a few expressions that you can use in your compositions.

That being said, if you don't know how to use an expression, or you're not 100% sure what it means, don't use it. If it doesn't make sense in the context of what you're writing, you'll get docked points for sure. It's better to be simple and be understood than to try to be fancy and be totally misunderstood, where you would lose a lot more marks. So if mastering subjunctive is out of your reach, then don't try to master it and just focus on getting the basics right, like indicatif present, imparfait, futur, passe compose, etc.

And always, always do whatever composition you find easiest. It may seem obvious but people in my class thought that writing a lettre formelle when they clearly didn't know how to write one would look more "impressive" than a journal intime This is completely untrue, you get marked out of 30 for either one and they're assumed to be of similar difficulty. So pick whatever is easiest

[Award Winning Boss]

Don't forget the really basic stuff either... like capital letters and punctuation It's quite easy to get carried away with fancy language work and forget the simple stuff. So things like capital letters for nouns and commas in the right place are things you should keep in the back of your mind.

Also wear a beret, drink some wine and eat a croissant before you begin.

[Harve]

I think articles and similar text types are some of the most useful ones to choose: they allow you to write interesting French with idioms in, like you would with a journal intime, as well as making it formal, showing knowledge of 'impressive' grammatical rules such as the pleonastic 'ne' or whatever.

When using idioms, it doesn't necessarily have to be proverbs as these can look a little inappropriate in some texts. I think phrases such as 'couper le souffle' (breathtaking) or 'jeter un coup d'oeil' (throw a glance) are equally rewarding: they don't have to be forced.

Also, read markschemes in detail. There are often horrible "pour atteindre les meilleurs notes (8-10)" criteria that you just wouldn't have normally guessed; try to predict what the markschemes will be wanting!

This is perhaps too late, but to any IB1s reading this: put everything in French! Any games you play, films' subtitles, Facebook, your phone. I read the first and last Harry Potter books in French, trying to guess the meaning of words I don't know from context, and if not underlining them and using a dictionary. It's really satisfying watching yourself having underlined every other word in the first few chapters to only underlining a few random words such as "aubépine" (hawthorn!) by the end. It's incredibly time consuming though but it actually makes for reasonably effortless ways to improve your grades: a lot of it is passive and enjoyable compared to slaving yourself over psychology notes or what have you.

I didn't give very good responses in my oral (my speaking has never been very good, anyway) and I think it will be moderated down to 21ish, so I don't think I can get a 7! It's a shame as it's the subject I've worked hardest in.

[Guest Linnsan]

Harve is so right. I regret not practicing more French than I did. Setting my computer in French would have been a great start (.. as I spend a lot of time on the computer...).

Also, speak French. I thought I practiced a lot, but I still screwed up my individual oral quite badly. I don't think I passed that oral to be honest, but I'm still not too worried as I know that my interactive orals went ok. I've also done zillions of old exams and feel very confident about those.

If you don't master French (yet), I wouldn't recommend you to try to impress the examinator in the few ways you can. As far as I've understood, your language is not assessed by its "fancyness" but by its appropriatness to the task and text type. I personally think that I'm going to choose one out of the "easier" text types for the Paper 2, if there is one, like le journal intime or une lettre formelle.