German Edexcel A2 2016

There is barely anything about this here so I thought I should make a thread about it :smile:

How are people feeling about this exam? And if anyone else is doing the literature based question, what books are you doing?

Also anyone have any tips as to how to brush up on translation skills?

Reply 1

Kugelmugel

13

I am! Was feeling ok, but now I'm actually pretty nervous as my teacher keeps tearing my essays to shreds!

I'm doing the literature question too, but I'm doing a film :smile:

Do you have any essay writing tips??

Reply 2

BethM98

OP

2

Original post by Kugelmugel

I am! Was feeling ok, but now I'm actually pretty nervous as my teacher keeps tearing my essays to shreds!

I'm doing the literature question too, but I'm doing a film :smile:

Do you have any essay writing tips??

My teacher is doing that too! It's kind of knocking my confidence :/

Umm I would say one major thing that has helped me is doing plans for my essays in English. Even though you're writing them in German, its easier and a lot quicker to just write all your points down in English instead, then when it comes to writing the actual essay all you need to do is translate your plan :smile:

Another thing that will score you loads of marks is knowing loads of context and critics opinions surrounding the film. You probably know this already but my teacher really emphasises that we know loads of wider research!! However, when you do bring these links in make sure they're completely relevant as otherwise it doesn't really work. When structuring your essay, I would say the best thing to do is start each paragraph with your point, then back it up with examples in the film, then if you can relate your point to some contextual links e.g. considering the time period, setting, or particular events surrounding your film etc.

Other than those points, just make sure you don't go over the word count as anything over 270 words won't be read, and don't stray from the question at all!

Hope everything goes okay, good luck!! :smile:

Reply 3

Joeboyshop

11

my teacher thinks Gentechnik may come up for one of the discursives. Either of you doing goodbye lenin? for the translation, my teacher says always go with the perfect, not imperfect, if you're unsure what the ending is, because its easier to guess in the perfect, zB today i had "has recieved" using erhalten; i put erhaltete, but it should be erhielt, but using haben its much easier: hat erhalten.

Reply 4

BethM98

OP

2

Original post by Joeboyshop

my teacher thinks Gentechnik may come up for one of the discursives. Either of you doing goodbye lenin? for the translation, my teacher says always go with the perfect, not imperfect, if you're unsure what the ending is, because its easier to guess in the perfect, zB today i had "has recieved" using erhalten; i put erhaltete, but it should be erhielt, but using haben its much easier: hat erhalten.

That would be an awful topic for a discursive! And the book i'm doing is called der vorleser, do you know of any predictions for the literature questions this year?

Thank you for the tip, I was looking at the mark schemes for past translations and I'm concerned with how specific they are with words too :s-smilie:

Reply 5

Joeboyshop

11

For the lit question one of my teachers thinks it could be something to do with the director/writer, but that would be quite hard. It definitely wont be cultural background( last year's), but i would love style, techniques or themes to come up.

Not sure if you're aware, but for the translation, they brought in a new marking sytem last year which is far more ambiguous: the paragraph is split into 5 sections, each of which are worth 2 marks. Some words in each chunk are essential, and others just need to be there or can be implied with other words as long as the meaning is the same. It's debateable whether it is now fairer/easier, but grade boundaries will adjust anyway, and its only 5% of the the entire a-level.
http://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/A-Level/German/2013/Exam-materials/6GN04_01_msc_20150812.pdf

Also about gentechnik, if it comes up...
z.B Gentechnik kann die Welthunger lösen. Stimmen Sie auch?

Pro:
Es gibt immer mehr Menschen auf dem Planet, die sich ernähren müssen.
Wegen des Klimawandels, wird es immer schwieriger, einige Pfanzen in einigen Gebieten zu wachen: können wir das verändern, indem wir dem DNS bearbeiten, sodass sie in beispielsweise trockeneren Ländern wachen können.

Kontra:
Wir haben schon genug Essen auf dem Planet, wir müssen also nur weniger wegwerfen.
Es gibt mögliche Gefahren von genmanupielten Essen, die wir momentan nicht genau kennen.

Reply 6

BethM98

OP

2

Original post by Joeboyshop

For the lit question one of my teachers thinks it could be something to do with the director/writer, but that would be quite hard. It definitely wont be cultural background( last year's), but i would love style, techniques or themes to come up.

Not sure if you're aware, but for the translation, they brought in a new marking sytem last year which is far more ambiguous: the paragraph is split into 5 sections, each of which are worth 2 marks. Some words in each chunk are essential, and others just need to be there or can be implied with other words as long as the meaning is the same. It's debateable whether it is now fairer/easier, but grade boundaries will adjust anyway, and its only 5% of the the entire a-level.
http://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/A-Level/German/2013/Exam-materials/6GN04_01_msc_20150812.pdf

Also about gentechnik, if it comes up...
z.B Gentechnik kann die Welthunger lösen. Stimmen Sie auch?

Pro:
Es gibt immer mehr Menschen auf dem Planet, die sich ernähren müssen.
Wegen des Klimawandels, wird es immer schwieriger, einige Pfanzen in einigen Gebieten zu wachen: können wir das verändern, indem wir dem DNS bearbeiten, sodass sie in beispielsweise trockeneren Ländern wachen können.

Kontra:
Wir haben schon genug Essen auf dem Planet, wir müssen also nur weniger wegwerfen.
Es gibt mögliche Gefahren von genmanupielten Essen, die wir momentan nicht genau kennen.

I did see the change in the mark scheme and it does look better than they were in previous years

I'd love those to come up in the question too, but so far the papers have asked about an event (2010) the relationship between two characters (2011) a character's development (2012) a theme (2013) techniques (2014) and cultural background in 2015, as you said. I think something to do with the author may come up, but because they used a contextual question last year I'm hoping we won't have a similar one last year, as I would hate to get the cultural background question

Thanks for the points on Gentechnik!

Reply 7

Kugelmugel

13

That was actually so helpful thank you!! I didn't know those things at all actually, my teacher is so unhelpful! She just critisises me, but doesn't ever tell me how to improve!

And this might be an unpopular view but I hope gene technology comes up!! I loved that topic haha! At least with the discursive ssay you get a choice of topics :smile:

Reply 8

BethM98

OP

2

Original post by Kugelmugel

That was actually so helpful thank you!! I didn't know those things at all actually, my teacher is so unhelpful! She just critisises me, but doesn't ever tell me how to improve!

And this might be an unpopular view but I hope gene technology comes up!! I loved that topic haha! At least with the discursive ssay you get a choice of topics :smile:

Glad I could help :smile:

good luck with everything!

Reply 9

Kugelmugel

13

Original post by BethM98

Glad I could help :smile:

good luck with everything!

She was marking an essay I did last week and said it improved a lot, so she gave me 31/45, last time she gave me 30/45... such an improvement :colonhash:

Reply 10

BethM98

OP

2

thats kinda annoying :/ even though they're still good scores! pretty sure they would still get you like a B :biggrin:

Reply 11

elen90

12

Hey, I'm not studying German but I'm doing the Edexcel French spec and am having similar problems. Teachers just demolish my essays and refuse to mark more without evidence of planning, then redrafts of the plans, etc. until it takes 6 weeks to get a complete essay! By this point I only have three that have been marked to A* quality after many reattempts. Such progress.

I think all Edexcel language courses are ridiculous, especially the RBEs because they create a generalised question that's supposed to apply to every film/book in the language's existence; which of course it doesn't always. And that's not even considering the native speakers who take the exam and pull the grades up.

No wonder people are dissuaded from taking languages, it's so incredibly difficult to get into the A/A* zones. /rant

Good luck to all of us!

Reply 12

BethM98

OP

2

Original post by elen90

Hey, I'm not studying German but I'm doing the Edexcel French spec and am having similar problems. Teachers just demolish my essays and refuse to mark more without evidence of planning, then redrafts of the plans, etc. until it takes 6 weeks to get a complete essay! By this point I only have three that have been marked to A* quality after many reattempts. Such progress.

I think all Edexcel language courses are ridiculous, especially the RBEs because they create a generalised question that's supposed to apply to every film/book in the language's existence; which of course it doesn't always. And that's not even considering the native speakers who take the exam and pull the grades up.

No wonder people are dissuaded from taking languages, it's so incredibly difficult to get into the A/A* zones. /rant

Good luck to all of us!

I agree, I find answering the literature questions really difficult and it's really hard to know how to write the essays so that you can get a high grade :unimpressed:

Reply 13

Maisiephilipps

Hey is anyone planning on doing the geographical question? I'm a bit worried about what might come up. My teacher thinks demographics could definitely be there, any tips would be much appreciated, really feeling the pressure now 😁. I was thinking about doing the literature essay but I think my fact based essays always seem to get higher marks, I feel like it's harder to get a higher mark with the literature question. Good luck everyone!!

Reply 14

shaylux

8

for the literature Q, how in depth does everyone have research on their book & author? I've got a little background info but I'm not sure it's enough (and it's so hard to cram in 250 words!)

Reply 15

BethM98

OP

2

Original post by shaylux

for the literature Q, how in depth does everyone have research on their book & author? I've got a little background info but I'm not sure it's enough (and it's so hard to cram in 250 words!)

you don't need loads, but a few points like events surrounding when your book was set are credited; we were also told that critics opinions of the book are good to include too :smile:

but maybe know like 2/3 contextual points because you're right, it is only 250 words and that's not enough to include loads of background :frown:

Reply 16

seanbrennan

Hey I might do the geographical question on the RBE and environmental issues might come up, and if the question came up about the director how would it be worded don't really know a whole load about Becker :s-smilie:

?

Reply 17

BethM98

OP

2

How are people managing to get the accuracy of translations? I know I already asked this but the mark schemes are still quite specific :frown:

Reply 18

Joeboyshop

11

They are still specific, but I think the examiners have more power, like they may not dock a mark just for a missing umlaut. I think as general adice, translate directly, there's never any marks for the meaning, they want an exact translation. Also, learn some common adjectives: I did one where it wanted beautiful and pretty, and I put schön for both, but pretty is actually hübsch

Reply 19

BethM98

OP

2

Original post by Joeboyshop

They are still specific, but I think the examiners have more power, like they may not dock a mark just for a missing umlaut. I think as general adice, translate directly, there's never any marks for the meaning, they want an exact translation. Also, learn some common adjectives: I did one where it wanted beautiful and pretty, and I put schön for both, but pretty is actually hübsch

I did that before as a practice, and I put hübsch but my teacher told me I wouldn't get a mark :/ I just don't get how we are supposed to know how specific we are meant to be with vocabulary

German Edexcel A2 2016

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