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I'm doing GCSE AQA Bengali. Anyone doing their motherlanguage? Help!

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Original post by 2_versions
PAPER 1
40 marks in 35 mins F or 50 marks in 45 mins H

Questions
Foundation Tier and Higher Tier
Section A questions in English, to be answered in English or non-verbally.
Section B questions in Bengali, to be answered in Bengali or non-verbally.

So here you will be given questions in audio, which you must respond to in the other language, this is 25%

PAPER 2
60 marks, 7-9 mins + prep time F or 10-12 mins + prep time H

Questions
Role-play 15 marks (2 minutes at Foundation Tier; 2 minutes at Higher Tier)
Photo card 15 marks (2 minutes at Foundation Tier; 3 minutes at Higher Tier)
General conversation 30 marks (3–5 minutes at Foundation Tier; 5–7 minutes at Higher Tier)

You're given a stimulus which you must act out / answer the question to (role play). This is 25%

PAPER 3
60 marks in 45 mins F or 1h H

Questions
Section A questions in English, to be answered in English or non-verbally.
Section B questions in Bengali, to be answered in Bengali or non-verbally.
Section C translation from Bengali into English (a minimum of 35 words for Foundation Tier and 50 words for Higher Tier).

You're given text in both languages, which in Section A and B you answer the questions in the other language, and in Section C you translate as much as you can. This is 25%

PAPER 4
50 marks at 1h F or 60 marks at 1h 15m H

Questions
Foundation Tier
Question 1 message (student produces four sentences in response to a photo) 8 marks.
Question 2 short passage (student writes a piece of continuous text in response to four brief bullet points, approximately 40 words in total) 16 marks.
Question 3 translation from English into Bengali (minimum 35 words) 10 marks.
Question 4 structured writing task (student responds to four compulsory detailed bullet points, producing approximately 90 words in total) there is a choice from two questions 16 marks.
Higher Tier
Question 1 structured writing task (student responds to four compulsory detailed bullet points, producing approximately 90 words in total) there is a choice from two questions 16 marks.
Question 2 open-ended writing task (student responds to two compulsory detailed bullet points, producing approximately 150 words in total) there is a choice from two questions 32 marks.
Question 3 translation from English into Bengali (minimum 50 words) 12 marks.

This is pretty self explanatory, mix between answering questions and translation. This is 25%


All this information courtesy of your specification, hope it helps clear things up.
Specification at a glance: https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/languages/gcse/bengali-8638/specification-at-a-glance

i literally showed OP that exact specification and she says it does not help
Here's the exam board page with the specification etc: https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/languages/gcse/bengali-8638

Here are some specimen papers and mark schemes https://www.aqa.org.uk/find-past-papers-and-mark-schemes Because it was a new spec in 2019 there aren't many past papers but if you search around the internet I am sure you can find some of them from the old spec, e.g. https://pastpapers.co/aqa/?dir=GCSE%2FBengali-4635&__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=b9005d686516a39b582e80d2669d908914d744b0-1599050186-0-Ad65u3zM3739W6NemPJt52HOA8pW1msHTcmF73lvjiqfJOqc1NnVGBFUD7hYMgXOXEQoKeBAh5PPrAmRtyIiEDC2jNp_qfzTdnD54PcOrMcJ8nw5Kbm_mE_5YaIkkXAStB9I1cNmI0_IR7TDsMPr_3YiXKpKGf0viieZ8DqQMSS1TuNPcMc2hr22dQW54p0K0lF5jsLkh2BRCRkE_tbeljeo4lFx_xutwUxP3O5RDalfGtZaHn-C4IsBZ_FJZRd2XaWwlRGWE4tkc6zXgU3eWGkzchg8l0bOzoZrjC0QBtBbr42uSXcbVl9E_EKAxofDqg


There may be Bengali classes near you - councils in big cities run a load of community language classes. Have a look.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by owlknightdragon
i literally showed OP that exact specification and she says it does not help

Maybe they're just confused about how the information is presented, AQA never has had a good web design imo - they use too many links to other pages and bad tables lol. I hope they somewhat understood what I posted, even if it's the same information... :smile:
If your problem is finding AQA resources, you could check out the Pearson Edexcel resources.

In my experience, Edexcel and AQA share a lot of material, and I would sometimes study for my Pearson IGCSE Bio exams using AQA materials.
If it's the same thing with Bangla, you could try going through past papers to get an idea of what to expect.

Pearson Bangla was a breeze. Free A* imo. It consisted of translating a bunch of sentences and two paragraphs from Bangla to English, and English to Bangla.

Some other specifications like Cambridge have a segment on Bangla language, where they make you memorize idioms and stuff, I don't know if you have that in AQA though.
Original post by UltayFalabo1121
If your problem is finding AQA resources, you could check out the Pearson Edexcel resources.

In my experience, Edexcel and AQA share a lot of material, and I would sometimes study for my Pearson IGCSE Bio exams using AQA materials.
If it's the same thing with Bangla, you could try going through past papers to get an idea of what to expect.

Pearson Bangla was a breeze. Free A* imo. It consisted of translating a bunch of sentences and two paragraphs from Bangla to English, and English to Bangla.

Some other specifications like Cambridge have a segment on Bangla language, where they make you memorize idioms and stuff, I don't know if you have that in AQA though.

AQA is the only exam board to offer a GCSE in Bengali, but you're right that IGCSE is available with other boards.
quite a waste to take a GCSE in ur own language cus you will already be fluent in it and some universities won't accept this GCSE due to it being your motherland language.
Original post by TheRealSaifali
quite a waste to take a GCSE in ur own language cus you will already be fluent in it and some universities won't accept this GCSE due to it being your motherland language.

No I wouldn't say this is the case, universities only really look at core GCSE's like Maths, English, Science - and even then they only really care if you've achieved a good grade. Mostly they'll just be looking at high grades in general not specific subjects.. Bengali isn't going to hinder his application.
Perhaps Oxford might not like the GCSE, but I'm not too sure about anything to do with Oxbridge, and if you want more information on that you can DM Oxford Mum. She seems to be the community expert :smile:

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