Advanced Higher French 2011-12

Not to come crashing in but I do AH German and was wondering,how do you guys improve marks in discursive essays? Well,in fact my teacher doesn't give us marks(with that pegged marking system) just constructive criticism.I feel my essays lack a cohesive structure,we have never been taught to write something along the lines of:argument for,against and conclusion and some questions are hard to answer as such.And my teacher hasn't covered everything,and I've tried to myself as it AH after all,but we have little resources(like vocab packs etc..) so now I'm at a loose end with that so to speak...help would be appreciated.

For my Spanish essays (I love how this thread has turned into French, Spanish and German ) I do an introduction, paragraph supporting the question, paragraph opposing the question, and then a conclusion.

For example, my essay on racism and how it will never diminish -

I always speak in third person (one can say that etc.). In my introduction I say things like:
Para 1 (intro):
First of all, one cannot deny that the problem of racism has been debated frequently by more and more people in the modern day, and therefore there is a wide divergence of views on this theme. The overriding concerned that racism will never diminish is ambivalent, and for this reason, to clear the ground, it is of great importance that we are able to micro-analyse the arguments.
<--------------- I say all of this in Spanish baby My Spanish essays are more sophisticated than my English ones.

Para 2 (For): And then I say in a paragraph why racism will never diminish.

Para 3 (Against): How racism is diminishing, and will diminish

Para 4 (conclusion): I repeat the question in the first sentence (like I would do in an English essay). And then I say on the one hand (stuff from 'For' said in different words), on the other hand (stuff from 'Against" said in different words). Ultimately, (I make a judgement and say something short and sweet which makes the reader go )

Good luck!

Got my Camus essay done a few days ago, I definitely feel a lot less stressed now

got my reading prelim on friday...finding that the hardest bit this year, anyone got tips on how to answer the literary style last question?

This thread's getting too quiet for my liking

My prelim's tomorrow - aaaaaaaaaargh! I'm listening to France Info online with fury I feel SO unprepared. I'm barely scarping passes in Listening.

Has anyone else done their prelim yet?

Ah I did my prelim last Wednesday! It was semi-hard. We had Perfect Papers too. The listening was a bitch and I always am unsure of how I do on the writings but I rather enjoyed the first paper, despite writing only 5 lines for the inferrential question - woops... but I completed everything else! Hoping for an A, I am sure I'll cry if I don't. Failing in the one thing I've always been good at is not something I want to go for... On a concrete positive note: I got an A1 for my crash higher German prelim!

Oh, I'm sure you did very well. Please tell me it's a decent variety of things with a least one thing that's not too obscure? I've been kidding myself there'll be family or media or education or something, woops I'm very nervous indeed, I'd find it hilarious if I got any higher than a C purely because it's so unlikely. I'm hoping to pick up marks on the reading and translation bit. The listening doesn't sound great here, oh dear me. However, I'm sure you did excellently, and well done on the German

Merci! You know I can't tell you in case it's the same paper, but it's nothing you would expect for either papers. But no challenging new vocab I thought. The writing questions are excellent I'm just not sure how exactly to get full - or near full - marks in that. Obviously precision, structure, etc, but... Guess I'll find out tomorrow how I did, been ill the past few days! Then it's off to France! Good luck with your prelim And everyone else! xoxo

I always thought that the guy was glaswegian!