AQA French A2 2015 [Unit 3]

Latin. What was wrong with the speaking? You will have done better than you think. I'm hoping for a good essay question too. I'm doing la casa de Bernarda Alba and la Guerra civil. You?

Omg I'm the only one doing A2 french too and the rest of my subjects.

Yeah me too! it could be literally anything, they are usually open ended though. What grade are you hoping for ?

It's so strange! Its like I've literally had one to one tuition for 2 years (I was the only student to do french at AS too and still failed) :P

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I'm doing Kiffe Kiffe Demain and La Haine

I really like La Haine and dislike the book but I'm unsure what I should choose

since I've done a few (and done badly) essays on the book and haven't studied the film as much I'm not sure which one I should do

also I don't know if theessay questions/style is different for films and more technical?

Just wondering what parts of the exam people tend to lose marks on?

I've just done section A (listening + reading + translation) of the June 2014 paper and got full marks on the listening, but managed to lose 9 marks on the reading and translation alone! My main issue is translation, so does anyone have any tips for what sort of things I could do to improve it? I've already done all the translation sections from each paper and marked it, but maybe some tips on what sort of grammar/ unfamiliar vocab I should be learning to prepare for this section?

I get near enough full marks on most translations, unless it's idiomatic phrases.
I dont really have many tips for translations, but the main one is synonyms = your best friend. Aqa like to trick students by throwing in synonyms that appear difficult, when actually they're synonyms for very simple words. Make sure you just remember synonyms that are likely to come up, I.e. for connectives and topic vocab. I did a past paper the other day and the translation had a synonym for 'working illegaly' which I'd never heard of. Also synonyms are good to show your flexibility in essays too so points aren't repeated!
Often the sentence doesn't need to be translated word for word. Normally it requires just a key word (or a tense) to be translated for one mark. Therefore, brush up on any confusing tenses and memorise all your key vocab for the topic (my teacher found these vocab sheets for every single word that could come up based on a specific topic, I think it's on the Kerboodle website).

Also, make sure the translation sounds like it actually 'flows' in English (imagine how you would talk about this specific topic in english and base it on that). In other words, don't always translate word for word UNLESS it sounds like it the translation 'flows' in English when translated word for word. Sometimes you may need to use idiomatic phrases etc instead
And - worst case situation - guess the translation! You know what the topic is on, you should know enough about the topic if you've revised and a lot of the time the translation is based on common sense - for instance, if there were a translation question on biofuels in french and you can't work out what the benefits of biofuels are that it is talking about - take an educated guess based on anything you've heard about biofuels in the news etc or weight it up quickly in your head

Hope this helps!

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Just wondering what parts of the exam people tend to lose marks on?

I've just done section A (listening + reading + translation) of the June 2014 paper and got full marks on the listening, but managed to lose 9 marks on the reading and translation alone! My main issue is translation, so does anyone have any tips for what sort of things I could do to improve it? I've already done all the translation sections from each paper and marked it, but maybe some tips on what sort of grammar/ unfamiliar vocab I should be learning to prepare for this section?

Have you done the specimen paper??


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The Specimen paper didn't seem like a real paper! They're usually so much harder than that

me!

Anyone got any guesses on what topics they think we'll get?!?

I have a horrible feeling that the translations might be on law and order. I really hope they aren't - I can do things like immigration, probably wealth and poverty, environment... But immigration (well, illegal immigrants) came up last year and environment came up both years before that...