[J'adoreMaCachette]

(Original post by _Stephieee)
I found out I passed the reading NAB comfortably which was good.

Indeed, apparently so, but then, we have literally got no resources, which is a bother.

Well done

[christielovesyou]

We're meant to have finished our literature essays soon and I haven't even done a full paragraph plan with quotes yet.

Oops.

[OddThings]

Not to come crashing in but I do AH German and was wondering,how do you guys improve marks in discursive essays? Well,in fact my teacher doesn't give us marks(with that pegged marking system) just constructive criticism.I feel my essays lack a cohesive structure,we have never been taught to write something along the lines of:argument for,against and conclusion and some questions are hard to answer as such.And my teacher hasn't covered everything,and I've tried to myself as it AH after all,but we have little resources(like vocab packs etc..) so now I'm at a loose end with that so to speak...help would be appreciated.

[Quick-use]

(Original post by OddThings)
Not to come crashing in but I do AH German and was wondering,how do you guys improve marks in discursive essays? Well,in fact my teacher doesn't give us marks(with that pegged marking system) just constructive criticism.I feel my essays lack a cohesive structure,we have never been taught to write something along the lines of:argument for,against and conclusion and some questions are hard to answer as such.And my teacher hasn't covered everything,and I've tried to myself as it AH after all,but we have little resources(like vocab packs etc..) so now I'm at a loose end with that so to speak...help would be appreciated.

For my Spanish essays (I love how this thread has turned into French, Spanish and German ) I do an introduction, paragraph supporting the question, paragraph opposing the question, and then a conclusion.

For example, my essay on racism and how it will never diminish -

I always speak in third person (one can say that etc.). In my introduction I say things like:
Para 1 (intro):
First of all, one cannot deny that the problem of racism has been debated frequently by more and more people in the modern day, and therefore there is a wide divergence of views on this theme. The overriding concerned that racism will never diminish is ambivalent, and for this reason, to clear the ground, it is of great importance that we are able to micro-analyse the arguments.
<--------------- I say all of this in Spanish baby My Spanish essays are more sophisticated than my English ones.

Para 2 (For): And then I say in a paragraph why racism will never diminish.

Para 3 (Against): How racism is diminishing, and will diminish

Para 4 (conclusion): I repeat the question in the first sentence (like I would do in an English essay). And then I say on the one hand (stuff from 'For' said in different words), on the other hand (stuff from 'Against" said in different words). Ultimately, (I make a judgement and say something short and sweet which makes the reader go )

Good luck!

[OddThings]

(Original post by Quick-use)
For my Spanish essays (I love how this thread has turned into French, Spanish and German ) I do an introduction, paragraph supporting the question, paragraph opposing the question, and then a conclusion.

For example, my essay on racism and how it will never diminish -

I always speak in third person (one can say that etc.). In my introduction I say things like:
Para 1 (intro):
First of all, one cannot deny that the problem of racism has been debated frequently by more and more people in the modern day, and therefore there is a wide divergence of views on this theme. The overriding concerned that racism will never diminish is ambivalent, and for this reason, to clear the ground, it is of great importance that we are able to micro-analyse the arguments.
<--------------- I say all of this in Spanish baby My Spanish essays are more sophisticated than my English ones.

Para 2 (For): And then I say in a paragraph why racism will never diminish.

Para 3 (Against): How racism is diminishing, and will diminish

Para 4 (conclusion): I repeat the question in the first sentence (like I would do in an English essay). And then I say on the one hand (stuff from 'For' said in different words), on the other hand (stuff from 'Against" said in different words). Ultimately, (I make a judgement and say something short and sweet which makes the reader go )

Good luck!

Thanks. Wow impressive all in spanish? I'm all auf Deutsch naturlich!

[missbanana21]

I just noticed this thread exists and I'm so happy! I'm doing AH French and Spanish, and in actual fact I'm meant to be redrafting my Spanish history essay for the folio right now :P

[christielovesyou]

Got my Camus essay done a few days ago, I definitely feel a lot less stressed now

Also...Hello AH Spanish and German-ers! Maybe your appearance will get Katie and I back on track from our general chatter

[missbanana21]

(Original post by christielovesyou)
Got my Camus essay done a few days ago, I definitely feel a lot less stressed now

I know that feeling all too well, have got the final draft of my Spanish Civil War essay pretty much done, and 1st draft of my Vichy France essay. Have the French ERV NAB coming up though

[christielovesyou]

This thread's getting too quiet for my liking

My prelim's tomorrow - aaaaaaaaaargh! I'm listening to France Info online with fury I feel SO unprepared. I'm barely scarping passes in Listening.

Has anyone else done their prelim yet?

[Caitlin94]

got my reading prelim on friday...finding that the hardest bit this year, anyone got tips on how to answer the literary style last question?

[_Stephieee]

My prelim is on Friday, we're doing the perfect paper and they're always hard, so I'm very nervous, especially about the discursive writing.

[J'adoreMaCachette]

Ah I did my prelim last Wednesday! It was semi-hard. We had Perfect Papers too. The listening was a bitch and I always am unsure of how I do on the writings but I rather enjoyed the first paper, despite writing only 5 lines for the inferrential question - woops... but I completed everything else! Hoping for an A, I am sure I'll cry if I don't. Failing in the one thing I've always been good at is not something I want to go for... On a concrete positive note: I got an A1 for my crash higher German prelim!

[J'adoreMaCachette]

(Original post by Caitlin94)
got my reading prelim on friday...finding that the hardest bit this year, anyone got tips on how to answer the literary style last question?

When I actually get round to answering these I'm good at them. My tips:
Answer it like a Higher English Close Reading Evaluation question
Set aside at least 10 mins for it - trust me, 5 won't cut it...
Make sure if you don't get round to it, you've aced the rest of the paper

I'd say the most important thing to cover in that paper is the translation. BIG marks!!

[J'adoreMaCachette]

(Original post by christielovesyou)
This thread's getting too quiet for my liking

My prelim's tomorrow - aaaaaaaaaargh! I'm listening to France Info online with fury I feel SO unprepared. I'm barely scarping passes in Listening.

Has anyone else done their prelim yet?

I know! I was just thinking yesterday that I miss our chats!
Plenty to talk of now!

[_Stephieee]

(Original post by J'adoreMaCachette)
Ah I did my prelim last Wednesday! It was semi-hard. We had Perfect Papers too. The listening was a bitch and I always am unsure of how I do on the writings but I rather enjoyed the first paper, despite writing only 5 lines for the inferrential question - woops... but I completed everything else! Hoping for an A, I am sure I'll cry if I don't. Failing in the one thing I've always been good at is not something I want to go for... On a concrete positive note: I got an A1 for my crash higher German prelim!

Oh, I'm sure you did very well. Please tell me it's a decent variety of things with a least one thing that's not too obscure? I've been kidding myself there'll be family or media or education or something, woops I'm very nervous indeed, I'd find it hilarious if I got any higher than a C purely because it's so unlikely. I'm hoping to pick up marks on the reading and translation bit. The listening doesn't sound great here, oh dear me. However, I'm sure you did excellently, and well done on the German

[J'adoreMaCachette]

(Original post by _Stephieee)
Oh, I'm sure you did very well. Please tell me it's a decent variety of things with a least one thing that's not too obscure? I've been kidding myself there'll be family or media or education or something, woops I'm very nervous indeed, I'd find it hilarious if I got any higher than a C purely because it's so unlikely. I'm hoping to pick up marks on the reading and translation bit. The listening doesn't sound great here, oh dear me. However, I'm sure you did excellently, and well done on the German

Merci! You know I can't tell you in case it's the same paper, but it's nothing you would expect for either papers. But no challenging new vocab I thought. The writing questions are excellent I'm just not sure how exactly to get full - or near full - marks in that. Obviously precision, structure, etc, but... Guess I'll find out tomorrow how I did, been ill the past few days! Then it's off to France! Good luck with your prelim And everyone else! xoxo

[_Stephieee]

(Original post by J'adoreMaCachette)
Merci! You know I can't tell you in case it's the same paper, but it's nothing you would expect for either papers. But no challenging new vocab I thought. The writing questions are excellent I'm just not sure how exactly to get full - or near full - marks in that. Obviously precision, structure, etc, but... Guess I'll find out tomorrow how I did, been ill the past few days! Then it's off to France! Good luck with your prelim And everyone else! xoxo

Of course, but I suspected it would be the case when I found out we were going with perfect, you just never know what's going to creep up so my deluding myself it'll be common topics is useless. I hate the writing, it's probably what I find hardest, but I always put in a few obvious structure phrases in the hope of picking up marks. I'm sure it was good, well done, thank you and enjoy

[christielovesyou]

Mine went surprisingly well yesterday, I think I'm just checking my email like crazy because my teacher said she was marking them yesterday and said she'd email us the results, and the one other person doing AH has had an email to say she's passed already. I've heard nothing! Argh!

I loooooved the paper, I can't remember if it was Perfect or P&N we used, so I'll put my thoughts in spoiler tags in case anyone hasn't done it yet and is using these papers.

Spoiler:

Show

The reading was actually adorable - prison inmates being given pets to look after. I really liked it. Cutest passage ever. The listening was on young people's attitudes towards classical music, which was PERFECT for me, as a young classical musician. We got lots of vocab for it, so it was totally fine. In fact, it's the first time I've ever not left questions blank in a listening. And then, the perfect question for the alcohol essay which I memorised came up! I got the essay down in 5 minutes, sat for about 15 minutes afterwards, then got to leave early

Bonne chance pour le vendredi, Caitlin et Stephie!

[christielovesyou]

Kind of a random question, but does anyone else find the Perfect Papers listening guy's voice really funny? I crack up whenever I hear him say in his weird Scottish-Irish-American accent, "answer the questions, IN EEEEENGLISH".

[Quick-use]

I always thought that the guy was glaswegian!