Oxford language aptitude test preparation / revision??? HELP!!

Hi all,
I'm planning to apply to Oxford for French and Arabic, and so will have to do the MLAT (Modern Languages aptitude test) for French and the OLAT (Oriental languages aptitude test) for Arabic in November of this year.

I am wondering if anyone knows of some good revision I can do for them (i.e. websites/books/anything) - particularly for the French grammar, I need to learn advanced french grammar and was wondering if anyone had/knew of any good resources for this!

And YES I have seen and had a go at the two specimen papers!!!

Many thanks :smile:

Reply 1

Anna Schoon

13

Original post by 221Breezeblocks

Hi all,
I'm planning to apply to Oxford for French and Arabic, and so will have to do the MLAT (Modern Languages aptitude test) for French and the OLAT (Oriental languages aptitude test) for Arabic in November of this year.

I am wondering if anyone knows of some good revision I can do for them (i.e. websites/books/anything) - particularly for the French grammar, I need to learn advanced french grammar and was wondering if anyone had/knew of any good resources for this!

And YES I have seen and had a go at the two specimen papers!!!

Many thanks :smile:

As a teacher of many years' experience I can recommend this book for French grammar - by far the best on the market at the moment!
www.amazon.co.uk/French-Grammar-Essential-Sixth-Beyond/dp/095706120X

The MLAT really focuses on agreement of tenses, particularly where tenses work differently in French and in English. So you need to be confident with:
- si clauses
- tenses with depuis
- tenses in reported speech
- the subjunctive
- the "hidden" future (after expressions of time)

General accuracy is important so you need to be good on agreements of adjectives and of past participles - particularly the "preceding direct object" rule and the rules on reflexive verbs. They also are very strict on the correct use of articles.

They've recently become keen on testing use of prepositions, again, focusing on situations where different ones are used in French and in English.

Bon courage!

Reply 2

alessandra4444

2

Original post by 221Breezeblocks

Hi all,
I'm planning to apply to Oxford for French and Arabic, and so will have to do the MLAT (Modern Languages aptitude test) for French and the OLAT (Oriental languages aptitude test) for Arabic in November of this year.

I am wondering if anyone knows of some good revision I can do for them (i.e. websites/books/anything) - particularly for the French grammar, I need to learn advanced french grammar and was wondering if anyone had/knew of any good resources for this!

And YES I have seen and had a go at the two specimen papers!!!

Many thanks :smile:

Hey! I'm applying to do Russian and Persian so I also have to do the OLAT. I'm having a hard time finding specimen papers for it. I could only find the 2014 past paper but then I couldn't find the markscheme for it. Did you find any OLAT stuff other than this?

Reply 3

221Breezeblocks

OP

13

Original post by alessandra4444

Hey! I'm applying to do Russian and Persian so I also have to do the OLAT. I'm having a hard time finding specimen papers for it. I could only find the 2014 past paper but then I couldn't find the markscheme for it. Did you find any OLAT stuff other than this?

I couldn't find anything else no, however, I'd look into taking part in the UK Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO) which is a national linguistics competition that tests you in a very similar way to the OLAT. The first round for the UKLO isn't usually till February but there are many many many past papers which I'm pretty sure go beyond the difficulty of the OLAT. Definitely have a look at that and it would be quite a good thing to talk about on your PS !

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 4

alessandra4444

2

Original post by 221Breezeblocks

I couldn't find anything else no, however, I'd look into taking part in the UK Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO) which is a national linguistics competition that tests you in a very similar way to the OLAT. The first round for the UKLO isn't usually till February but there are many many many past papers which I'm pretty sure go beyond the difficulty of the OLAT. Definitely have a look at that and it would be quite a good thing to talk about on your PS !

they look super helpful, thank you!! Good luck with your tests! :smile:

)

Oxford language aptitude test preparation / revision??? HELP!!

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