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GCSE German Oral

Hi all,
I've got my German Oral Exam next monday and am pretty worried to say the least. I have spent a fair bit of time revising(or what I consider a fair bit of time) but nothing seems to be going in.
I need to learn one 1 minute presentation, learn some role play phrases and then learn some general conversation phrases but it just seems like too much for me to handle.
In the mocks I got an A overall, a B in speaking, an A in coursework, A in listening and A* in writing, I'm hoping I'll do better this time because I'll have revised more and hopefully because I've had those few extra weeks of german lessons I should have picked up some more useful phrases.
I wondered firstly if any of you could suggest ways in which you revised or plan to revise for German Orals.
Secondly do any of you have a german grade boundries sheet or something, because I would be interested to see what I would get if I completely failed the oral -0 marks, and got the same marks in coursework, reading and listening as I did for my mocks.
Lastly if I completely mess up do any of you know if I can just resit the oral exam or do I have to resit the whole course?

Thanks for your help, as I'm sure you can tell I'm pretty stressed and worried :frown:


Rather Game Than Revise

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Permission to be rather blunt? Stop gaming. :wink:

It's not too much for you to handle. Do you know anyone who speaks any German? You should have a big list of potential conversation phrases - go and write up model answers to them (though it's really not necessary, or helpful, to learn them), and then ask someone else to test you by asking you some German questions. If you don't know anyone outside of school, ask someone in your class, and then in return you can test them. As for learning your presentation - uh, just learn it?! Read it through to yourself, out loud, as many times as possible, using the piece of paper it's written on the least possible. And the roleplay doesn't require you to be any good at German, really. If you've got the conversation phrases down and have stayed awake during the year, you should be able to do the roleplay with minimal German knowledge and a bit of exam technique.
Yeh, i have mine in two weeks, though unlike you my course doesnt have coursework which is a mixed blessing really cos it means i have nothing in the bag already. Perhaps ask you teacher whether you can do another run through of the Oral?

Also be aware that in my course, the oral presentation is only worth 4 marks....so concentrate revising for the other aspects like the role play and general conversation.
If your school is anything like mine was, the teacher will give you a few hints before they start the tape.

If not, it really isn't that bad. And if you do balls up, you can still pull your marks up on the other papers.

Don't panic, and good luck :smile:
Reply 4
I have mine in two weeks later as well.
However, my teacher doesn't give any hint, so we basically have tor evise everything. T__T.
What I do is memorise some set phrases, and "waffle phrases" to buy myself some time! :biggrin:
Like:
Im Augenblick bin ich nicht so sicher...
Meiner Meinung nach...
Im Goßen und Ganzen...
...and small words like: Tja, jein, vielleicht, also, begreiflicherweise and so on (don't under-estimate them, they are unbelievably helpful in the exams, saved me from total failure - as I always go blank in speaking tests!XD).
And try to talk to yourself in German if it helps and just go for it!

And about grade boundaries, which exam board are yuo with? I think for Edexcel and AQA, roughly it's 80% UMS for A and 90% UMS for A* and the marks for each individual component varies.
I think you can find the grade boundaries on the exam board's websites.

I hope this is helpful!^__^
Thanks for your replies everyone. I have basically learnt my 1 minute presentation now, I just keep going over it again and again. I have a sheet of about 24 role play phrases which I have learnt, and I have prepared answers for various topic areas.

Nimbus 'Im Augenblick bin ich nicht so sicher...' what a few of those phrases mean (that was my attempt at a joke), I tried to look them up but couldn't find:
begreiflicherweise
jein
Im Goßen und Ganzen

Thanks for the advice everyone. My gaming is definitely going to suffer but some things are more important than Halo 3 lol :P
James
Reply 6
rather game than revise

Nimbus 'Im Augenblick bin ich nicht so sicher...' what a few of those phrases mean (that was my attempt at a joke), I tried to look them up but couldn't find:
begreiflicherweise
jein
Im Goßen und Ganzen

Thanks for the advice everyone. My gaming is definitely going to suffer but some things are more important than Halo 3 lol :P
James


Hiya,
---
Glad to know that you have done your presentation!

Ah, some of those are some set phrases which I've learnt (I think one or two is not on some GCSE syllabus but my teacher said it's good to use them and they are really useful! :biggrin:):
---Im Augenblick bin ich nicht so sicher... - At the moment, I am not sure
---begreiflicherweise - it's "understandably", like "verständlicherweise", but a bit shorter so i use it.XD
---jein - it is basically "not sure@, between "ja" and "nein", so it's like one of the hesitants like Tja and it is good for giving advantages and disadvantages of something.
---Im Goßen und Ganzen - It's like "on the whole", "overall", it's quite long so perfect for buying time at the end of some questions without sounding too waffle like.

I hope that helps! ^_^ Good luck with your German (it's a cool language!)!XD
hi, with those grades you'd probably get a low B overall, a C at the least (that's only if you got a U at speaking and then your As and A*s in the rest)

i found it also very hard when i did mine, but came out with an A* overall in my speaking. learn your presentation three words at a time. spend every waking moment on it, you break times, lunch times etc. going to school, coming home from school, getting up an hour early just to revise. go over and over and it will eventually go in.

don't bother too much with the role play, it really is a piece of piss, and with predicted grades as good as yours, i assume you know quite a bit of vocab already. learn a few phrases, and the "hidden" question is usually something really simple, mine was "what did you and your german friend do last weekend". our teacher said the hardest one was "describe what was in your hotel room" :rolleyes:

with your conversation, the most important thing is to understand the set questions. once you understand them, even if you forget your answers, you'll be able to blag your way through it and come out with an A. again, just practise, practise, practise.

they're not after anything dramatic at GCSE. just know that you know how to form a few sentences in the three main tenses (present, perfect past and future) and that you know a bit of vocab.
Hedgehunter
Yeh, i have mine in two weeks, though unlike you my course doesnt have coursework which is a mixed blessing really cos it means i have nothing in the bag already. Perhaps ask you teacher whether you can do another run through of the Oral?

Also be aware that in my course, the oral presentation is only worth 4 marks....so concentrate revising for the other aspects like the role play and general conversation.


isn't the role play and the presentation both worth 10 marks :s-smilie: and then the general conversation worth 30
It depends on the exam board. Personally I don't do German but all language exams have the same format- with AQA it's roleplay (8 marks), presentation and discussion (12 marks) and general conversation (20 marks), but with OCR I think the presentation is only worth 4 marks.
SpiritedAway
isn't the role play and the presentation both worth 10 marks :s-smilie: and then the general conversation worth 30


Our teacher told us that for the Presentation without the conversation afterwards is only worth 4 marks. I'm doing OCR.
Reply 11
Speaking exams with Edexcel is really weird:
2 role plays, 2 conversations
Each role-play worths 10 marks (the foundation one is like a billion times easier than the High tier one and they worth the same number of marks as well!!o__O).
I don't nkow how many marks the conversations worth but the total is out of 150.
And you ahve to get 140/150 to get the A*!! That's like..$£%^£%^&£%^£%.
And we will lose 5 marks automatically if we fail to answer/answer correctly one of the role play questions!
I seriously don't mind that kind of mark for reading/listening but speaking....urrgggh. I have no idea how I survived that onen the mocks.>___>
Nimbus
Speaking exams with Edexcel is really weird:
2 role plays, 2 conversations
Each role-play worths 10 marks (the foundation one is like a billion times easier than the High tier one and they worth the same number of marks as well!!o__O).
I don't nkow how many marks the conversations worth but the total is out of 150.
And you ahve to get 140/150 to get the A*!! That's like..$£%^£%^&£%^£%.
And we will lose 5 marks automatically if we fail to answer/answer correctly one of the role play questions!
I seriously don't mind that kind of mark for reading/listening but speaking....urrgggh. I have no idea how I survived that onen the mocks.>___>



Yeh well in the foundation tier one can only get the maximum grade of a C...though people at my school are mixing/matching higher/lower tier in different aspects of the exams.
140/150 to get A*?! :shock:
I think with AQA it's 33/40 or something!
Reply 14
Hedgehunter
Yeh well in the foundation tier one can only get the maximum grade of a C...though people at my school are mixing/matching higher/lower tier in different aspects of the exams.

Yeah, true enough.
At least the good thing is that you don't have to say in full sentences for the first role-play.XD

lil_miss_rapunzel
140/150 to get A*?! :shock:
I think with AQA it's 33/40 or something!


I know! Something like 93%!
It's like..."Edexcel, you're suppose to be an easy board!!".
It would be fun to see how it goes though, because if the worst comes to the worst for my class, we always have the option of hiding the cassette or literally destroy the whole tape....muhahaha.XD
Hedgehunter
Our teacher told us that for the Presentation without the conversation afterwards is only worth 4 marks. I'm doing OCR.


ah, ok, i was doing AQA
Hi all, thanks for the replies. I seem to be quite well prepared compared to the rest of my class, I'm basically the only one who has learnt the presentaton.
My exam board is Edexcel and the C roleplay(the higher one) I find really difficult, In the mocks I didnt even understand the questions. In class I'm good at conversations and german in general, but Im worried my brain will go blank in the exam.
Nimbus thank you for the phrases.
Thanks all for your input and good luck everyone. I'll keep you all posted.

James
Well people how did it go? I think mine went okay, my c role play was pretty tough but i improvised, the B roleplay was quite easy. Unfortuantely the second conversation topic wasn't one I had revised, I had been revising all the tough stuff and had forgotten about house home and daily routine but I think it went well. How did all of yours go?
i did my AS on friday...he asked me my name and i replied "gut" :P however...after i got over the whole nerves thing i did great. could answer and understand everything he threw at me. i saw i got a 9 for my fluency and i got an 8 for my "card". i think i ****ed up on my grammar so i think i'd better slit my wrists or something, especially when out of the little grammar i actually can do, subordinate clauses is included
Edexcel is

320/360 UMS for A* = 89%
280/360 UMS for A = 78%
240/360 UMS for B = 67%
200/360 UMS for C = 56%

Pattern? :biggrin: