OCR French AS-timing?

Hi all,
For the French AS listening rading and writing exam(OCR), I'm finding it really hard to finish the paper in thehour and 30 mins. Does anyone have any tips?

Alice_G

Reply 1

city_chic

I do WJEC. Are you talking about AS level here?

Reply 2

Dinoceros

Um, I'm with OCR too, but I must say I've never had any problems with timing.

Do you often get stuck on a certain bit, eg listening, reading, specifically? Example: my weakest point is listening, so if Im listening to the first listening task and don't understand it for like the first 15 minutes and 700 plays : D, then I'll move onto allthe writing sections, and then go back, to make sure Im scoring marks where I know Im strong. THEN go back and (try) and finish the listening.

Other than that, practice practice practice - it doesnt make perfect but it will help you no end. Maybe do some at home but have a time limit of 1 hour 15, so that you're pushing yourself........?

Good luck and good luck with the exams!!

x

Reply 3

Gooner

Well, first of all, trt to stick to the time recommendations given for the sections. For example, you may have a 7 mark listening and have a recommended 10 minutes to do this in. Try not to go over this time. Also, if listening is your hardest part then try transcribing what is being said somewhere. I find this helpful, especially when the phrase ne...que is used, because it highlights the phrase when I see it written down. Then for the world of work section, there are, generally speaking, equal amounts of sentences to answers to be written and therefore each sentence is going to be equal to an answer. Most of the time you should be advised just to write down what the tape says (transcription again) and then afterwards change the subjects for example, a woman may say: "J'ai perdu mon sac chez vous....". You could first of all write this down, and then change it to "elle a perdu son sac chez ...." afterwards. This apparently means that you get higher marks for your accuracy too. Then for the writing section, if you don't understand something don't spend valuable time pondering over what you've written. Most of the time what you've written is right, and you end up changing things to the wrong answer :p:

Anyways, I don't know whether I've answered your question, but good luck :yy:

Reply 4

lcj

i don't generally have any problems with time on this paper, just try and be strict with yourself and move on to the next section when you need to. if you're better at the writing / translation bit do that first and then work out how much time you have left and divide it up for the listening sections, the first couple are normally quite easy with the writing sentence long answers in french bit taking longer. writing complicated bits out in pencil how you hear them can help you to decipher what is being said if you can't understand, and always read the questions before beginning the listening so you know what to look out for. good luck! xx

Reply 5

charazard

i always do the writing comprehension bit first then i can think in french better for the listening if that makes sense. it worked last year.. 106 out of 120 get in! but im still resitting it tomorrow every point counts!

Reply 6

Gooner

charazard

Completely disagree here. I think the writing part is best left until last. It means that you can take in the vocabulary from the listening section, and use it in both the translation and the original writing section for the WOW part. But then again, everybody's different aren't they? :rolleyes: