Official AQA German AS

Yes - I'm doing exactly the same thing for A2 right now. The more exposure you get to exam-style questions, the better, so if you haven't already you should also make use of the Kerboodle assessments (though I'd say they're quite a bit easier than the real thing!) The only problem with other exam boards, as useful as they are, is that they all follow slightly different specifications so you kinda have to go through the paper and cherry pick whatever's relevant and ignore the rest. I'd start doing that about now, and then sometime in April focus only on the AQA papers, because it's important to understand the style of the examiners that will be writing your paper. As you'll notice, they're all slightly different, and those kind of nuances could equate to a couple of marks, you never know.



Not sure, really! My teachers told me to get a remark but I was really happy with those scores. I never actually saw the breakdown of my marks on the oral, though I suspect pronunciation may have been a factor and perhaps fluency - I had a slight pause to think about my answer at one point which they may have considered 'unnatural'. Some things you can't really change no matter how much practice you do.

Sorry for not being very clear! I mean the reading and listening questions that test your understanding of the texts. There are lots of marks to grab there.

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This structure I'm about to explain is for AQA AS Level German.
Firstly, you will be given a couple of 'cards' with a picture perhaps and some text on it, followed by 5 questions. You will choose one of these and then have 20 minutes in silence, by yourself, to plan your answers. 20 minutes is not a long time so hopefully you can spontaneously speak German to a good standard.
When this 20 minutes is up you will start your oral exam.
The examiner will start by asking you the questions on the card that you have prepared. This lasts 5 minutes.
Next comes your "special topic". You should pre-plan an answer (maybe 4 extended paragraphs) on a topic that you have leart as part of your course specification. It is ideal that you learn this to ensure best marks. This shall last 5 minutes also.
Lastly, you will have 5 minutes of random questions about topics in your specification that you have not already talked about. Noteably, the cards at the start will be on a different topic to your chosen special topic.
Good luck!

This structure I'm about to explain is for AQA AS Level German.
Firstly, you will be given a couple of 'cards' with a picture perhaps and some text on it, followed by 5 questions. You will choose one of these and then have 20 minutes in silence, by yourself, to plan your answers. 20 minutes is not a long time so hopefully you can spontaneously speak German to a good standard.
When this 20 minutes is up you will start your oral exam.
The examiner will start by asking you the questions on the card that you have prepared. This lasts 5 minutes.
Next comes your "special topic". You should pre-plan an answer (maybe 4 extended paragraphs) on a topic that you have leart as part of your course specification. It is ideal that you learn this to ensure best marks. This shall last 5 minutes also.
Lastly, you will have 5 minutes of random questions about topics in your specification that you have not already talked about. Noteably, the cards at the start will be on a different topic to your chosen special topic.
Good luck!

That was really informative! Thank you! It seems like you did a lot of work. I haven't done nearly a fraction of the amount of work that you've done, do you reckon I've still got time to boost my speaking and writing grades up? (My grammar is really bad and is my weak point so I'll mainly need to be focusing on that, as well as other things such as fluency etc.)

No problem! Certainly - I've just started 3 weeks' Easter and that's a lot of time to make big improvements, as long as you keep at it! For me, fluency came from familiarising myself with a set of key oral phrases that I could go back to in case I forgot everything else. (e.g. Ich bin der Ansicht, dass... Ich bin überzeugt, dass... Es steht außer Frage, dass...) I had a German friend who I Skyped regularly, which obviously I was very lucky to have but I also practised with English friends over Skype and that was equally helpful. Just immerse yourself as much as possible this holiday (opt for German radio rather than whatever you normally listen to!) and you'll definitely see improvements before long. It's good you've recognised that grammar is a problem, because that gives you something concrete to work on rather than wasting your time. Viel Glück!

Apologies as I know Jack has already answered you, but there's always time to improve your grades See the bit in my signature about worrying about your grades rn.

I am relatively good at writing so if there's anything you find yourself constantly stuck on (what marks do you get for /content /vocab /structure /accuracy ?) I can try and give you some pointers. I myself seem to find content the hardest barrier to max - have yet to score more than 18/20

Danke! And I think sometimes when I'm writing I am literally lost for words, my mind just goes blank when I need to write something but other than that, I'd say my vocab is something I wouldn't find too tricky improving on, but my structure and accuracy is definitely losing me a lot of points. Is there any advice you have for those? Thank you!

Before you write the essay, sketch out a brief plan of what you could write. Jot down a few points for/against (if it's one of those questions - usually is) in english and then you'll be able to translate that into German and build upon them. Just constantly think about trying to expand your opinions e.g.:

There should be more smoking shelters > (why?) > so that smokers have a location to go to and don't have to smoke around other vulnerable people > (why?) > so other people aren't victims to second-hand smoke > (why?) > thus creating an overall healthier society with less cases of certain diseases > (Iike what?) > z..B. Krebs.

Ah yeah you said you had problems with grammar (called structure on essays weirdly). If you want to achieve 5/5 on essays for structure you generally need to include:

- The conditional/subjunctive [2]
- The passive

at least. Other complex things such as:

- konjunktiv [1]
- pluperfect
- future perfect

will help as well. I have found that the first two are the most important- if you use lots of conditional (not just würde..., but also hätte or modal ones like müsste) that will so easily get you to at least 4/5, if you have some passive as well that might get you up to 5. If you're completely confused about any terms mentioned tell me

With vocab, I found that in my last essay I used 30 vocab-specific words and that was the first time I got 5/5 for vocab. So I'm using that as a ballpark figure to aim for now

Wow this is really helpful! Thanks! (You might have just helped me more than my teacher has throughout the entire year). Could you please explain what a konjuktive is? I find that throughout this course I'm having to learn English grammar as well as German grammar (was hardly taught English grammar at school)

Der Konjunktiv = the subjunctive (which contains the conditional)

Subjunctive 2 is what you should use - to express possibility primarily e.g.

Ich würde tanzen, aber meine Fuße tun mir weh. Würde is conditional, "would".

Would have and would be are hätte and wäre respectively. You normally see subjunctive two in a wenn clause e.g.

Wenn ich mehr Geld hätte, könnte ich alles machen.

IF I /were to have/ more money, i /would be able to/ do anything.

Subjunctive 1 is not required in AS or A2 but its useful to recognise it (especially the word sei) and amazing to construct it. Its used for reporting indirect speech and third person commands.

This site http://www.dartmouth.edu/~deutsch/Grammatik/Subjunctive/KonjunktivI.html gives a lit of info on it.

I wouldnt use konjunktiv eins too much, but certain phrases e.g. Es solle ihnen egal! (it shouldnt matter to them!) are useful and higj level.

Would wtite more but on mobile, has ypur teacher covered subjunctive or passive at all?

What a coincidence! We were constructing sentences starting with 'Wenn' with two verbs in the middle. But I'm not sure about passive, could you give some examples

I haven't been taught the passive really at AS at all 0 only had it mentioned in passing, but I've read into it a lot.

Example in english - active: The man builds the house
english - passive: The house is being built by the man

In German - active: Der Mann baut das Haus
German - passive: Das Haus wird von dem Mann gebaut.

/Usually/ if you have to use 'is being [verb]' the sentence is in the passive, you construct it using werden & past participle of the other verb so;

werden geschaffen - being created
werden geschrieben - being written
werden gegessen - being eaten

In the perfect tenses in the past you need to use sein + pastparticiple + worden e.g.

Die Katze ist gegessen worden.
The cat was being eaten. = perfect present

Die Katze war gegessen worden
The cat had been being eaten = pluperfect/perfect past.

if you need to say 'by X' e.g by the dog you add 'von dem Hund'. E.g. Die Katze war von dem Hund gegessen worden.

'being' in the past in this sense can also just translate as 'been' so - The cat had been eaten, the cat had been eaten,

Ah okay, is it okay if I occasionally ask you for grammar help (I'll try not to be too persistent ) you're really good at explaining it!

Any ideas how I could improve my speaking grade? I think it's a C/B at the moment and I'd really like to get an A, my lowest marks are in fluency and interaction because I get so nervous and I have to stop to think of what to say and I don't really know how to improve it. Also the Goethe Institut offers free online courses for German which look super useful if anyone's interested

Try to use the time you need to think by using filler statements, e.g.:

"Das ist eine schwierige Frage [name here] und wir müssen viele Dinge in Betracht ziehen..."
"Was für ein Quatsch! Ich stimme mit dir nicht zu, weil..."
"Dies Frage ist ein sehr wichtiges Thema in unserer Gesellschaft heutzutage. Ich glaube, etc."

Also by using lots of opinion phrases - use longer ones like Ich bin davon überzeugt instead of "ich denke" WHEN APPROPRIATE this can fill time.

Before the exams you should go through loads of past speaking cards and practice example answers - think of answers you could have to basic questions that could come up to - e..g [dis]advantages of advertising/tv/fashion/sport, your favourite holiday, importance of nuclear family nowadays etc. That way you'll have something in your head already when you go into the exam.

For interaction, try to like have a convo with the examiner - if they ask a question , once you've finished responding you could say "don't you agree with that too?" for example. Don't just let the convo be one sided essentially =)