How to get an A* in GCSE german writing?

OP

Really? I always gave my teacher a draft piece of coursework, she corrected it, I memorised it, then wrote the piece out from memory under controlled conditions D:

That's exactly what my French teacher did, except i'm better at French than german! Well he thinks that we should take pieces from our homeworks where we answered similar questions and use it for our coursework, but I wanted to expand on my answers and use more tenses. haha :smile:

Reply 21

shan-shan

1

Original post by econam

Try use some idiomatic sentences, ones that don't have a direct translation back into English. This always looks impressive.

Posted from TSR Mobile

hey can you give me a 2/3 examples of them it will be really help.please :smile:

Reply 22

Erin1998

Definitely get a good German tutor. My former university teacher is a qualified German tutor who has his own tuition company now. Check him out, his name is Jens Olesen, Olesen Tuition. http://www.olesentuition.co.uk

Reply 23

kittykatieboo

OP

12

Not sure if anyone's still around, but in my german GCSE last year I got an A
A in my writing, speaking and reading
A* in my listening

Reply 24

Daito

6

Does anyone know how long the writing should be?

Reply 25

Daito

6

Original post by kittykatieboo

Not sure if anyone's still around, but in my german GCSE last year I got an A
A in my writing, speaking and reading
A* in my listening

Oh um, would you mind checking through mine for like mistakes and such? Also if you've any ideas for improvement?

Reply 26

Asolare

20

Original post by Daito

Oh um, would you mind checking through mine for like mistakes and such? Also if you've any ideas for improvement?

I can try and look at yours for any mistakes, but I did the GCSE a longggg time ago so I wouldn't be able to help beyond that except give basic tips about advanced grammar and stuff.

Reply 27

kittykatieboo

OP

12

Original post by Daito

Oh um, would you mind checking through mine for like mistakes and such? Also if you've any ideas for improvement?

Haha almost a year ago since I've done german, but i'll have a look if you would like :smile:

Reply 28

AdamCee

18

Original post by Daito

Oh um, would you mind checking through mine for like mistakes and such? Also if you've any ideas for improvement?

I'm currently doing German A Level, if you want to PM it to me I'd be happy to check :smile:

Reply 29

Findears

Hi guys
My names fin and im doing my german gcse this year - i really struggle with it.
In my mocks i got straight A and A* and in german i got a D so...
For speaking i have learnt my speech andam just asking myself quesrions on it.
For writing im just go8ng to try and learn question words and verbs because i know all the grammer and vocab but need to understand what im being asked to do.

However with listening and reading im clueless. Ive tried learning vocab but i still cant get above 50% in either.
I have 4 weeks to go from 50 to 70 any ideas??

Thanks for those that reply

Reply 30

Pythacurus

Original post by Findears

Hi guys
My names fin and im doing my german gcse this year - i really struggle with it.
In my mocks i got straight A and A* and in german i got a D so...
For speaking i have learnt my speech andam just asking myself quesrions on it.
For writing im just go8ng to try and learn question words and verbs because i know all the grammer and vocab but need to understand what im being asked to do.

However with listening and reading im clueless. Ive tried learning vocab but i still cant get above 50% in either.
I have 4 weeks to go from 50 to 70 any ideas??

Thanks for those that reply

Hi Fin
If they ask questions in German, I'd say make sure you learn the question words (same as you were saying for the writing).
For the listening, learning time periods (like this year, last year, yesterday, 2 weeks ago etc) is helpful as well as numbers and times of the day (e.g. 2.30pm would be halb drei)
If a question is worth one mark but you have 2 possible answers, put the one that you think is more likely to be correct first!
Also in the listening, try scribbling down what you can - it might help you to pick out the most important things.
And for the reading, I'd say pick apart the passages that they give you, try breaking words up if you don't know them, or look for similar sounding words in English, or just try and guess from the context of the sentence.
You might already have been told this, but don't leave any blanks! Even if you think an answer sounds ridiculous, put it down anyway :smile:

Things that come up quite often (not guaranteed though) are weather, free time activities.
Do lots of past papers for the reading, then when you mark them try and learn the words you didn't know, since they could easily come up again. (we did a lot of that and I found it helpful)

Hope that helps, and good luck!

Reply 31

Findears

Original post by Pythacurus

Hi Fin
If they ask questions in German, I'd say make sure you learn the question words (same as you were saying for the writing).
For the listening, learning time periods (like this year, last year, yesterday, 2 weeks ago etc) is helpful as well as numbers and times of the day (e.g. 2.30pm would be halb drei)
If a question is worth one mark but you have 2 possible answers, put the one that you think is more likely to be correct first!
Also in the listening, try scribbling down what you can - it might help you to pick out the most important things.
And for the reading, I'd say pick apart the passages that they give you, try breaking words up if you don't know them, or look for similar sounding words in English, or just try and guess from the context of the sentence.
You might already have been told this, but don't leave any blanks! Even if you think an answer sounds ridiculous, put it down anyway :smile:

Things that come up quite often (not guaranteed though) are weather, free time activities.
Do lots of past papers for the reading, then when you mark them try and learn the words you didn't know, since they could easily come up again. (we did a lot of that and I found it helpful)

Hope that helps, and good luck!

Thank you so much that is really helpful

Reply 32

Asolare

20

Original post by Findears

Hi guys
My names fin and im doing my german gcse this year - i really struggle with it.
In my mocks i got straight A and A* and in german i got a D so...
For speaking i have learnt my speech andam just asking myself quesrions on it.
For writing im just go8ng to try and learn question words and verbs because i know all the grammer and vocab but need to understand what im being asked to do.

However with listening and reading im clueless. Ive tried learning vocab but i still cant get above 50% in either.
I have 4 weeks to go from 50 to 70 any ideas??

Thanks for those that reply

Where are you dropping marks on reading/listening papers? Try and identify which types of questions or which topics keep bringing down your grade a lot and focus on learning vocab for those instead of just vocab in general.

Reply 33

kittykatieboo

OP

12

Original post by Findears

Hi guys
My names fin and im doing my german gcse this year - i really struggle with it.
In my mocks i got straight A and A* and in german i got a D so...
For speaking i have learnt my speech andam just asking myself quesrions on it.
For writing im just go8ng to try and learn question words and verbs because i know all the grammer and vocab but need to understand what im being asked to do.

However with listening and reading im clueless. Ive tried learning vocab but i still cant get above 50% in either.
I have 4 weeks to go from 50 to 70 any ideas??

Thanks for those that reply

The others have given you good advice which I did and really helped me, I found coursework so much easier than exams. In the reading underline words where you think the answer may be, they usually do the questions in order so as you go down the questions the answer to it will be further down in the passage of writing. If you underline the words, you may not know what it is but you can always flick back to it and take a guess at what it could be, if you really are stuck do not leave it blank just put what you think it sounds like in English. I made flashcards to help learn vocab, but you could try online flashcard apps where people have already made flashcards but you test yourself on them (focus on the topics which you know will come up) - try the quizlet app. I used it in conjunction with my handmade flashcards and it really helped.

For listening, it feels much more fast paced because it is so you have to be on the ball for the first time you hear it so by the time it goes the second time you can just confirm your answers. If you don't know an answer, write down what you hear first time, try saying it to yourself in your head in german (sounds so stupid but this actually really helped in the real exam) and hopefully that will trigger the translating word. Another tip, they put massive emphasis on voices so make sure if they raise their voice on a certain word, that is usually the answer so jot it down. If they sound sad or angry or whatever and the question asks how they felt about a certain thing and if you're not sure, use the tone of voice to help. If they sound angry, put down they felt angry (usually at a particular thing - within context). Last thing, listen to german music and tv to tune yourself into the language, don't be disappointed if you have no idea what the hell is going on because trust me I didn't either, but it will help you familiarise yourself with the sound of it and you may pick up words too (with the aid of subtitles).

Hope this helped, just my take on it :smile:

How to get an A* in GCSE german writing?

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