Edexcel French, Unit 4, 14th June 2016

Did anyone choose the energy question for the discursive essay?

did you do la haine for the rbe ?
i think the translation was ok

omg... I think i did everything wrong... when it sais secondary characters i talked about hubert and said.. do you think thats right ???

Well the question asked for secondary characters, and Hubert/Said/Vinz are primary/main characters so probably not! Unless you said Vinz is the only main character.

Thank you, you've calmed my panic about that haha. In my intro for that one I talked about Schengen to give some background info. My points were: immigrants have contributed £13 billion to the economy in 2014 which eases the effects of austerity after the financial crisis (for some reason they love it when you refer to the financial crisis), and 100 scientists say we must allow movement of young European scientists so if we reduced free movement scientific progress would suffer. Then for the other paragraph I discussed the strain on employment - 24.7% unemployment rate in France etc. - and the strain on social security followed by a strange but hopefully relevant statistic on people waiting for organ donations (7,000 are on the waiting list so we can't afford to allow more people to come and join that). My conclusion was essentially: freedom of movement is good, as long as it isn't harmful towards native citizens. I sounded very bigoted towards the end though...

Did you put lots of quotes in and include a bibliography?

I went 18 words over the limit - woops - but because my conclusion was one long 60-word run on sentence it fit within the boundaries, I hope.

Did you put lots of quotes in and include a bibliography?

I went 18 words over the limit - woops - but because my conclusion was one long 60-word run on sentence it fit within the boundaries, I hope.

Haha no problem Oh my gosh you've mentioned so much you're making me feel a bit anxious! How did you know so much about it beforehand?

In my intro I mentioned a bit about how the negotiations in January and the whole debate about leaving the EU have highlighted the issue of free movement. In my first paragraph I just mentioned that 3 million jobs in the UK are linked to the EU which both improves the traditionally weak British language standards and also benefits our economy. I said that the multicultural society we have contributes to our status as the 5th largest economy in the world - and also that vacations are cheaper which benefits the tourist industry and economies in general.

In my other paragraph (against) I mentioned that 500 people sleep rough every night and in the midst of this crisis we can't allow more migrants to come in - also the strikes and protests against migrants are just a fraction of what could happen if we allowed in more, especially given pressures on the NHS and benefits (but no statistics haha ) and finally how the prejudice sparked by migrants has led to an unsatisfactory British response to the migrant crisis.

My conclusion was kind of like yours - I said that although rich countries face pressures due to free movement, Europe should be characterised by freedom. I don't think yours was bigoted, that's quite a reasonable weighing up of both sides! I hope I did okay!

Sounds like you know lots yourself! That looks like a great, well-rounded essay.

VERY luckily, in the speaking debate my topic was on the migration crisis so I picked up lots of stats when researching that.

I did include a lot of quotes - although I was running out of time and none of them were actually quotes by the characters - mostly quotes by the main character about the other characters, but he does most of the talking anyways

I didn't include a bibliography! I don't think it's a requirement - our teacher told us to, but I didn't have the time. The only external sources I used were a quote by the author and a quote Sartre used to describe the book. What about you?

Why thank you! I'm aiming for an A* (fingers and toes crossed!) so hopefully it'll be enough.

Wow there are too many coincidences here! My speaking was also on the migration crisis but I came at it from a humanitarian angle rather than an economic one so I didn't actually have too many stats for this one - they weren't that relevant

Yeah mine is all first person so I had to highlight that she, as the narrator, was describing them all. Did you grow to hate your literature as much as I did mine? My teacher made me read it five times over so I hope the effort was worth it

Nah the bibliography isn't a requirement, I only stuck it in because I was panicked about getting some marks for research but I don't even know if they pick up the marks. I used a quote from some unknown website, and I've realised that I put down the URL incorrectly for it so hopefully they don't check that

I had to do exactly the same! Well to be completely honest, a lot of our French lessons weren't at all intense and we only read through the book once! It sounds like your teacher put in a lot of prep! I didn't grow to hate it but it became quite difficult to know where to draw boundaries between topics (a lot of it centres around the philosophy of the absurd). I'm sure it was, it sounds like it went well

OK phew *breathes a sigh of relief* I'm thinking (hoping) that the external reference in itself will be enough for that. I think if the examiners are URL checking they have too much time on their hands! What other subjects are you doing?

I talked about Raymond and Cyril - same about how Raymond's influence on Cecile of showing her a careful and promiscuous life led her to feel false entitlement towards her father and youthful impetuosity, and so when Anne upsets her current life she creates the plot

Then I briefly talked about Cyril being important in moving Cecile's plot along.

For the contrary, I said maybe Raymond wasn't so important because Cecile talks about 'la chaleur' being the cause of her irrational thoughts all the time, and Cyril's only role in the book being to give the main character physical pleasure and being a tool in the plot - a means to an end. I think I tried to briefly mention Sagan's feminism there because both men are presented as sideline characters to the central plot between the women.

I'm so glad someone else did BT, felt like I was the only one!

History and Biology. History finished first so just two biology exams to go now - home stretch

What about you? Are you nearly finished?

yh i did the energy question . what did u you talk about ?
did u you do La Haine for the RBE ?

Nice! This week and next? I have a friend who does biology too

No just started actually! French was my first exam! I'm also doing Maths, English and Spanish so I finish on the 24th

Last bio exam is the 23rd, yeah.

Spanish too?! Wow! Good luck in that, my friend has to do German as well as French so she's finding that tough.

Four subjects, that sounds so hard in general

So soon it will all be over and we can have a great relaxing summer. I think you've earned it

Yup! Thank you! It is tough, I kind of forgot Spanish was a language until I started revising it again today

I had to do 4 as my school doesn't do Spanish and I really wanted to take it so I do it outside school It's okay though. Yes it will be! I think you've earned it too! What are you up to next year?