French - Higher Level Phrases?

Hi. As exams are approaching I was wondering if anybody had any higher level phrases to reach the 8's or 9's in GCSE French? Or maybe any tenses that I could try to include besides the obvious?

Thanks!

Hi there!! haven’t touched french since I sat my GCSEs last year so forgive me if any of this is a little shaky!!

For the speaking exam, I found that idioms enabled me to reach a lot of the higher marks, so saying things like “voler de ses propres ailes” (to stand on your own two feet), “faire d’une pierre deux coups” (kill two birds with one stone), “maia, c’est la vie” (but that’s life) and “être aux anges” (over the moon) to name a few will definitely help out. I slipped these into the conversation so as to make it sound more natural and fluent.

As for tenses, so long as you have a good balanced mix between past, present, future, conditional and maybe even some pluperfect, you’ll be able to reach the higher marks no problem.

I also found it really useful to use a lot of adverbs like “personnellement” to start sentences as well as more complex adjectives.

Try and make your writing and speaking stand out a little as well, I tried to be a bit more creative and unique with some of the things I chose to discuss, and added some humour in (obviously nothing too out there!!)

I hope this helps in some way

Hi. As exams are approaching I was wondering if anybody had any higher level phrases to reach the 8's or 9's in GCSE French? Or maybe any tenses that I could try to include besides the obvious?

Thanks!

If you want to use the subjunctive, here as some ready-made phrases for you!
- bien que ce soit... (Although it might be...)
- je ne pense pas que l'on puisse (I don't think I can...)
- il faut que je sois (I have to be)
- Avant qu'on juge (Before one judges...)

Other good phrases are
- il me fait penser de (it makes me think of)
- j'ai le cafard (I'm in a bad mood)
- je vais y aller (I'm going to go there)

I don't recommend using this one: je ne pense pas que l'on puisse (I don't think I can...)
If you want to say I don't think I can, it's more natural to say: Je ne pense pas pouvoir

Yes, but it's a way of getting the subjunctive in if you need to, and I mean, GCSE always seemed to me like an exercise in how many different grammatical structures I could use correctly in 150 words!

It's the subjunctive, yes; but, it's not a very good use of it. If I heard that, I'd be confused as to what you were on about... There are many other natural ways to employ the subjunctive mood.

I originally made the following document about 7 years ago when I was tutoring a friend in the year below during my final year of school.

You're most welcome