Advanced Higher French

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Hiya! I have my Advanced Higher speaking exam tomorrow morning- good luck to everyone in the same boat! :smile:

The topics I've chosen are Marriage, the Role of Women, and Social Problems, and for Literature we did L'etranger by Albert Camus and Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Sainte Exupery.

Initially, I found the leap from Higher enormous, especially the listening, but you do get used to it- I got a solid 'A' for the prelim- if I can, anyone can! :smile:

It does help if you are genuinely interested in the language as you do touch on wider current issues such as poverty, the European Union and gender roles/inequalities, but it is very enjoyable and very useful if you intend to study French at Uni. However, it isn't restrictive in that it's only useful if you want to study French later on- you will find yourself forming opinions on issues that you probably never thought about before, so it is ultimately very rewarding!

Hope that helps!

Reply 41

ArcadiaHouse

namedeprived

I wouldn't worry too much about not sounding French. Mine hardly sounded French at all, got 25/25. Good luck with it, I'm sure you'll do great.

It went really really well, thanks!! My teacher said she was "delighted". Very relieved!! :biggrin:

Reply 42

ArcadiaHouse

ladylaz

Hiya! I have my Advanced Higher speaking exam tomorrow morning- good luck to everyone in the same boat! :smile:

And there's me worrying about getting 25/25. Good luck!! You'll be great!!

Reply 43

namedeprived

ArcadiaHouse

It went really really well, thanks!! My teacher said she was "delighted". Very relieved!! :biggrin:

Well done. : :woo:

Reply 44

sarahleslie1

Just had my AH French Speaking Test.
If anyone's still to have their's (and particularly if you have a Mrs MacCallum (not sure about spelling)) then this is how mine went:

At the start, before recording, went through STL form in English with me, checking which text I wanted to do and that I was comfortable with all the topics I'd put down on the first bit, or if I'd done anything new since.

Then tape was switched on and she asked subjects this year, what I was doing next year, and my experiences of France. Hard to guage time but probably about 3 minutes on that.
Then she went on to ask me about l'environnement (this was my presentation for my NAB, so managed to incorporate quite a lot in there!), then l'agrandissement de l'UE - I'd done about the EU, but not this aspect so just kind of hedged my answer there with lots of "a mon avis"s - then talked about the euro, then la vie en famille, then Internet. Probably lasted about 9 minutes.

So if, like me, you are worrying because you haven't done one or two topics in lots of depth like a lot of people seem to have, I think it's still fine (though, of course, the proof will be in my final grade!)

Finally, she asked me which book I'd prefered, then asked me what the themes were in it, a brief plot summary, why it was called "sac de billes", then how I'd found reading it.

Then that was it! It was over in a flash, bizarrely!

(And, further to someone else's post, I'd say she spoke maybe 30% of the time to my 70%)

Good luck to everyone else!

Reply 45

andrew.

does anyone happen to know where i can find answers to the 2004 AH reading/translation paper? it's not on the sqa website

THANKS

Reply 46

KrazyKate

Hey everyone, im doing advanced higher french this year and was wondering what to do for my background topic? i was thinking either architecture or fashion? any ideas? :confused:

any hep would be appreciated as its got to be done before october weekend! :eek3:

Reply 47

NatalieGardot

Anyone doing AH French speaking in 2 weeks time ?

Reply 48

_summer09_

NatalieGardot

Anyone doing AH French speaking in 2 weeks time ?

Mine's on March 17th. Dreading it! I haven't picked my three current affairs topics yet...

Reply 49

Laura2222

I have mine on the 18th of march and im so worried about it. Speaking isnt exactly my strong point. What areas are you planning on covering in your speaking ?

Reply 50

RachyJayne

I've studied Advanced Higher French this year and didn't find the majority of the work than much harder that higher, although the discursive essay is really tricky because you can't really prepare any specific topics as the questions are so unpredictable. The speaking wasn't honestly as bad as I had thought, and I'd been dreading it for months! I had the lovliest examiner EVER for my speaking, and although I found it difficult at times to answer his questions, he was fantastic at repeating his question a slightly different way or prompting me more in bits that I found most difficult. Also the 20 minutes passes far quicker than you'd expect, and you aren't speaking for the whole time as it is a conversation, so it's honestly far less daunting than you might expect. If you enjoy and work well in Higher French I'd definitely reccommend studying Advanced Higher.

Hope that helps :smile: