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Spanish GCSE Writing-A* tips?

I'm going to be doing my Spanish writing controlled assessment next week which counts for a large percentage of my grade. Does anybody have any tips on what to include to get an A*/A ?

Content:

1st para- Introductory Information on a past holiday

2nd- Accommodation

3rd- What you did during the holiday

4th-Plans for a future holiday
Original post by etherealll
I'm going to be doing my Spanish writing controlled assessment next week which counts for a large percentage of my grade. Does anybody have any tips on what to include to get an A*/A ?

Content:

1st para- Introductory Information on a past holiday

2nd- Accommodation

3rd- What you did during the holiday

4th-Plans for a future holiday


Sorry I don't do spanih but I couldn't help but notice you don't have any conditional brackets- like your dream holiday or where you would go on holiday if you won the lottery- I was under the impression for an A* you needed this.

-make sure your paragraphs are structured, use modal verbs, good sentence starters like 'Furthermore' good opinions like ' I think that' or 'In my opinion'- make sure you justify them. Phrases like 'in order to' and make sure you use a wide range of language(relative pronouns, imperfect tense, conditional tense etc).

I did my German controlled assessment on Holidays :smile:
Reply 2
Include subjunctive

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Reply 3
Always try and use as wide a variety of verb tenses as you can - make sure you get in at least preterite, present, future and conditional. It seems like your essay plan will accommodate this, so good start! :smile: Make sure you use verbs for different people, so 1st person (I, we), and 3rd person (he, she, they).

Careful to always remember accents as well. It's a good habit to get into (especially if you want to go further with Spanish), and some examiners are really nitpicky about them.

Make sure you use a variety of different verbs/constructions (eg. "pienso que", "creo que", "a mi juicio", "en mi opinión" can all be used to state your opinion), and you should be fine. If you have a good revision guide and Spanish-English dictionary, that will hopefully be enough to help you find out some good phrases and words to use.

If you aren't sure of something you've written, make sure to ask your teacher for help while you're preparing.

If you haven't learnt about the subjunctive, I would steer clear of it for now. You shouldn't be expected to know that for GCSE and it's really difficult stuff - if you get it wrong then it looks like you don't know how to conjugate your verbs correctly. I got an A* in GCSE Spanish with WJEC without having even heard of the subjunctive, and I've only really started learning about it for A2. Unless the curriculum has changed since I sat my GCSEs, you should be fine without using it.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by koweja
Always try and use as wide a variety of verb tenses as you can - make sure you get in at least preterite, present, future and conditional. It seems like your essay plan will accommodate this, so good start! :smile: Make sure you use verbs for different people, so 1st person (I, we), and 3rd person (he, she, they).

Careful to always remember accents as well. It's a good habit to get into (especially if you want to go further with Spanish), and some examiners are really nitpicky about them.

Make sure you use a variety of different verbs/constructions (eg. "pienso que", "creo que", "a mi juicio", "en mi opinión" can all be used to state your opinion), and you should be fine. If you have a good revision guide and Spanish-English dictionary, that will hopefully be enough to help you find out some good phrases and words to use.

If you aren't sure of something you've written, make sure to ask your teacher for help while you're preparing.

If you haven't learnt about the subjunctive, I would steer clear of it for now. You shouldn't be expected to know that for GCSE and it's really difficult stuff - if you get it wrong then it looks like you don't know how to conjugate your verbs correctly. I got an A* in GCSE Spanish with WJEC without having even heard of the subjunctive, and I've only really started learning about it for A2. Unless the curriculum has changed since I sat my GCSEs, you should be fine without using it.


I was taught about the subjunctive at gcse, so that's why I was suggesting it :smile:

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Reply 5
Original post by lucy_123
I was taught about the subjunctive at gcse, so that's why I was suggesting it :smile:

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Ah, I wondered if it was something like that :smile:

Then OP, if you've been taught subjunctive, try and use it in your writing. If you haven't, don't worry about it. I suppose it depends on what your exam board wants
Reply 6
I took Spanish iGCSE and got an A*

- the key to scoring highly especially in writing is to make sure you include lots of different tenses, past, present, subjunctive etc. Pack your writing full of different tenses - this will really show your skills.

Good luck :smile:
Reply 7
I'm not sure which exam board you are, but I'm guessing it's pretty much the same. Here's the mark scheme to show you what they're looking for and how to get the highest marks: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-46954-W-MS-JUN13.PDF

Oh and here's the examiner report which kinda elaborates on what has been said in the mark scheme: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-46954-WRE-JUN13.PDF
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 8
just use subjunctives and don't ramble when explaining, justify and compare things, when describing your accommodation try to use different adjectives instead of the really basic ones, possibly look into some sort of Spanish thesaurus or such, avoid using basic adjectives you get me. But I would deffo just add subjunctives, just learn how to do/use them or learn a couple of phrases which you could add in which is relative to your topic (obviously tf). you're clearly using different tenses, but just try to get as many conjugated verbs in there as possible and maybe you could mention, instead of using first person singular constantly, maybe describe what your friend or parent wants to go or summat or to stay. Especially for you accommodation one, instead of just describing, you could say what you would prefer as well, or what one of your parents would prefer, you could compare it to one you'd previously stayed at and what the good and bad things are.
hope that's helpful looool
sickkkk
(edited 8 years ago)

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