Official Edexcel IGCSE French Thread

OP

Original post by purplesockmonkey

Hi guys,
So glad to find this thread. I'm a little confused about how the components are weighted. So I know speaking and listening are 25% each, but e.g listening max mark is 50 (out of 150 altogether), which is 1/3 not 1/4. So do they simply weight things differently? To add to my confusion, in mocks my teacher seemed to just calculate it out of overall marks (so like listening worth 1/3 not 1/4). Anyway thanks in advance!

Paper 1 is Listening - It is worth 50 marks- It is worth 25% of your overall grade.

Paper 2 is Reading and Writing- It is worth 60 marks- It is worth 50% of your overall grade.

Paper 3 is Speaking- It is worth 40 marks- It is worth 25% of your overall grade.

Reply 4

OP

Original post by Sonechka

Bonne chance à tous ! xx

If anyone needs help with French stuff you can ask me, French is my raison d'être xD (ugh that was bad)

Have you got any tips for writing?

Reply 5

Original post by JMR2017

Have you got any tips for writing?

Just show off, basically. The examiners just want a bunch of tenses and grammatical constructions they can tick off, so including all that and showing that you know how to use every bit of French grammar you've ever learnt (and some off-syllabus grammar perhaps, although that's not necessary) is the way to go. Complex vocab is important too of course, for the same reason. Also, never underestimate how easy it is in that exam hall to use a feminine/plural noun/pronoun, forget that you used it and mess up your verb/adjective agreement because of that. Checking your work for stupid things like that always pays off.

Reply 6

OP

Original post by Sonechka

Just show off, basically. The examiners just want a bunch of tenses and grammatical constructions they can tick off, so including all that and showing that you know how to use every bit of French grammar you've ever learnt (and some off-syllabus grammar perhaps, although that's not necessary) is the way to go. Complex vocab is important too of course, for the same reason. Also, never underestimate how easy it is in that exam hall to use a feminine/plural noun/pronoun, forget that you used it and mess up your verb/adjective agreement because of that. Checking your work for stupid things like that always pays off.

Do you think I should use the subjunctive? If so, I've never really understood how to do it properly.
Also do you know a way to remember what words are masculine, and what are feminine?

Reply 7

Original post by JMR2017

Do you think I should use the subjunctive? If so, I've never really understood how to do it properly.
Also do you know a way to remember what words are masculine, and what are feminine?

You don't have to use it, but it'll look impressive and it's an elegant construction. What aspect of it are you having trouble with? If all else fails, there are certain stock phrases you could use just to slip the subjunctive in there, for instance "bien que...soit" (although...is [a certain way]), "il faut que [pronoun][verb]" (roughly "one must/should [do something]"), "je veux que [pronoun][verb]" (I want [something] to [do something/be a certain way) and so on.

Honestly, the best thing to do is just to read and listen to lots of French so that you start picking up the genders of words the natural way. Sometimes you can tell by the end of the word, though: all -age words are masculine and all -tion words are feminine, for example.

Reply 8

OP

Original post by Sonechka

You don't have to use it, but it'll look impressive and it's an elegant construction. What aspect of it are you having trouble with? If all else fails, there are certain stock phrases you could use just to slip the subjunctive in there, for instance "bien que...soit" (although...is [a certain way]), "il faut que [pronoun][verb]" (roughly "one must/should [do something]" :wink:

, "je veux que [pronoun][verb]" (I want [something] to [do something/be a certain way) and so on.

Honestly, the best thing to do is just to read and listen to lots of French so that you start picking up the genders of words the natural way. Sometimes you can tell by the end of the word, though: all -age words are masculine and all -tion words are feminine, for example.

Thank you!

Reply 9

Original post by JMR2017

Thank you!

No problem :smile:

"il faut que..." is probably better described as "something should/must be [a certain way]", actually.

Reply 10

Fhutton

1

Original post by Sonechka

No problem :smile:

"il faut que..." is probably better described as "something should/must be [a certain way]", actually.

Have the french exam tomorrow aha. You seem good at french any last minute cramming tips in order to revise? I've pretty much just covered the past papers and done a bunch of memrise (website to learn vocab)

Reply 11