GCSE French Speaking AQA 9-1 Quick Tips

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If you don't have time, you don't have to memorize every single answer to every single question, just make sure you know what the questions mean, and understand what you have to write and talk about in every question. For the role play and photocard, the questions do come from some of the modules and overlap. it really helps to understand and formulate a brief answer for the questions not only for the general conversation, but also for the role play and photocards.

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A lot of the modules overlap with each other, so make sure to use it to your advantage to further your grade. Make sure you try to use atleast a couple of if clauses and subjunctives, if you want to really pazazzzzz your grades. They're super easy to form and if you know just a few of them, you can repeat them constantly. I kept on saying stuff like "Il est important que je puisse me detendre". I would use it while talking about school and vacation, so you can repeat a lot of your subjunctives and if clauses. You can also use phrases such as "Si j'avais les temps, je jouerais au foot dans mon temps libre" to talk about your hobbies and whenever it suits you, just change the verb. So if you're talking about going out with friends, you could say "Si j'avais les temps, je sortirais avec mes amis." As long as you know the rules for if clauses, you'll be golden. You can also use these if clauses and subjunctives in your role play when you prepare your answers. It's definitely a way to impress your examiners, because I believe the subjunctive is an AS level tense, but its still super easy.

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In the general conversation, the examiner usually has a tick list of list of tenses you've used, so don't over saturate your work with if clauses and subjunctives, use other tenses such as conditional and past/present/future/imperfect etc....

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Remember to drink lots of water and keep your voice clear and fluent. Avoid stuttering, because the recorders they use are absolutely shite, so you need to make that extra effort to be clear.

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If you don't know the answer to a question, instead of trying to formulate one on the spot and messing up your fluency, it would be better to just give a short answer or an opinion, which would result in higher marks for fluency, and you can make up for content in latter questions.

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Try to incorporate a reason for everything. As long as you have a reason/justification, you'll be golden and you'll do well. Also give your opinion on things, again, it's super easy to do. Just say "Je pense que c'est........"

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Lastly, if you have a week or more left till your speaking exam, honestly just do your best to memorize your answers to all the questions, but keep your answers to a line or two. It's so much better to have only a line or two for every question and understand them all, rather than write an essay for one question and barely know what to say for all the others. It took my a couple of days to memorize all 80 questions, because my answers were only a couple of lines, so they were easy to memorize, and trust me - Memorizing your answers is one of the easiest ways to achieve top marks if you're not as confident in your abilities like me. Because I memorized my answers, I knew what most of the questions meant in my role play, or else I would've been screwed. But take these tips with a grain of salt, if you don't memorize your questions completely, you might be stuck in the exam with a completely blank mind, so always have backup phrases to say. As long as you know what to talk about, I'm sure you'll be able to think of something on the spot.