Should I retake my French oral?

I got my AS results last week and got 3 good AS, but I was 1 point off an A in French dammit! I was so annoyed as that's what I want to do at uni... anyway it turns out I got As in the listening, reading and writing papers but flunked the oral.. getting 1 mark above a D. I really do think I deserved more than that as I got an A in my mock. Anyway, how easy is it to retake an oral.. and would u say it's worth it?
Lucinda

Reply 1

tash087

2

loose_moose

I got my AS results last week and got 3 good AS, but I was 1 point off an A in French dammit! I was so annoyed as that's what I want to do at uni... anyway it turns out I got As in the listening, reading and writing papers but flunked the oral.. getting 1 mark above a D. I really do think I deserved more than that as I got an A in my mock. Anyway, how easy is it to retake an oral.. and would u say it's worth it?
Lucinda

You could always get a remark of your oral. One of my friends had the same problem last year and her oral pulled her down to a B. She was devastated to have gotten a similar mark to yours for her oral, despite getting high As for the other units. Although the remark didn't bring her up, she re-took her oral in January. This time she got a very high A, although she felt she wasn't much better than originally.

So i'd say it's definitely worth it if you feel you can do a lot better. Just get your school to enter you in again for the exam. The only drawback is having to learn your oral again, which in January, if you have other exams at that time, can feel like it's the last thing you want to do. So therefore in that sense it's not easy, but getting the grade you want can make it all worthwhile.

Reply 2

Seren

loose_moose

I got my AS results last week and got 3 good AS, but I was 1 point off an A in French dammit! I was so annoyed as that's what I want to do at uni... anyway it turns out I got As in the listening, reading and writing papers but flunked the oral.. getting 1 mark above a D. I really do think I deserved more than that as I got an A in my mock. Anyway, how easy is it to retake an oral.. and would u say it's worth it?
Lucinda

I'd say retake it. If you're taking French at A2, your oral French will get better anyway so a retake shouldn't be that difficult. At my school loads of people retake orals, because by the time you're ready for an A2 oral, AS is not only pretty easy, but also good practice for the A2 one. I'm going to retake my AS oral (like you, I did well in the other modules and not so well in the oral, and like you I want to study French at Uni).

In your case, it definitely sounds like a retake would be worth it, as the low C seems so out of character considering your As in other exams and your mock. If you want to do French at uni, you'll want to get the highest overall grade you can, so it's really worth getting the extra UMS marks to help you get an A rather than a B.

Reply 3

polythenepam

2

i'd deffinately retake it because it sounds like you're capable of acheiving a lot higher. maybe u were just having a bad day? Besides if u take it in jan this year, ull no a lot more vocab for the roleplay and surely u can resuse the same presentation or write a new one if that was the weak element

Reply 4

Champagne Breakfast

16

Go to France for a couple of weeks, come back and retake it - try and freestyle a bit more than you might have done, or at least pretend you haven't learnt the chunks of text. Look at the markscheme and find out what gets you the marks. Use loadsa vocab, tenses etc. Try and relax in the exam room, listen to the questions and answer them as opposed to answering anything that wasn't asked. Bring some water in if you want.. Also if your examiner is a teacher he/she might not know how to get you to show your full potential so you might wanna consider that as well

Reply 5

Cessie

2

Go for it. I'm going to retake mine probably. I got an A in French but the oral was a C - I couldn't believe it.

Reply 6

Jezrey

Loads of my french mates had the same problem last year- me included. The examiners can apparently be really harsh when it comes to marking orals so i'd def re-take. Thats what i did anyway. It did take a bit of work and re-writing but you will learn loadsa new fancy tenses and structures before you retake in Jan to impress the examiners with!!

Reply 7

dappleddawndrawndauphin

3

loose_moose

I got my AS results last week and got 3 good AS, but I was 1 point off an A in French dammit! I was so annoyed as that's what I want to do at uni... anyway it turns out I got As in the listening, reading and writing papers but flunked the oral.. getting 1 mark above a D. I really do think I deserved more than that as I got an A in my mock. Anyway, how easy is it to retake an oral.. and would u say it's worth it?
Lucinda

Omg I got 3 high As and 1 mark off an A in French too :frown:

am applying for Eng Lit though. aaw that's so harsh, surely there must've been a marking error if you did so well in the other parts? Try having a remark, maybe? I got 96/120, 70/90 and 71/90 and am retaking 1 or 2 of the written papers, but not the oral even though that was my lowest. If I were you, if you think it's possible you could get a higher A in one of the written papers I'd retake one of those and enter the oral for a remark. That's mainly because I find orals so extremely stressful though, and preparing an A2 and AS one at the same time would be a nightmare for me; if you don't mind them as much, retake that.

Reply 8

leannemarie

11

I got As at AS, but my Spanish oral was really poor! It turns out that I got 40/60 raw marks (according to the examiners' report) when I got 47/60 in my mock in March. And I thought it had gone a lot better?! I'm having it remarked but I can't decide whether to retake it or not (after) as I'm doing far too much next year already! I would also have to do it on a totally different topic.

Reply 9

musical_moose

OP

8

thanks for all your replies... I'm pretty sure I will retake it.. it'll be quite stressful as I've also got maths and history modules in January, but it'll be worth it if I can push my grade up to an A!

Reply 10

-xsarahx-

I retook my german oral, i got a C in it. Retakes in languages are worth it - in January you have progressed in the language regardless, you dont need to do much specific revision. I retook didn't work anywhere near as hard as first time round and got a B! (in the oral...still got a C overall in a level lol - languages are hard!)

Reply 11

kellywood_5

17

I'd get it remarked if I were you- it's very suspicious that you got As in the 2 written papers and an A in your mock oral, but did so much worse in the real thing. If it doesn't change or goes down, resit in January. As others have said, your French will have improved by then anyway, so it won't be that much work.

Reply 12

deer87

loose_moose

I got my AS results last week and got 3 good AS, but I was 1 point off an A in French dammit! I was so annoyed as that's what I want to do at uni... anyway it turns out I got As in the listening, reading and writing papers but flunked the oral.. getting 1 mark above a D. I really do think I deserved more than that as I got an A in my mock. Anyway, how easy is it to retake an oral.. and would u say it's worth it?
Lucinda

Am having exactly the same problem with Spanish. Am tempted to retake it but I'm not sure if I can do better than I did. I thought it had gone well. If you think you can, go for it.

Should I retake my French oral?

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