French A-Level Specimen papers are so difficult?

There's a 2018 Specimen paper 1 on the AQA website for A-Level French and I just finished doing it and it's actually atrocious?? For my last mock the school used a Specimen paper and the average grade was a C (when normally it's an A)
(For reference, I can get 80/100 comfortably in paper 1 but for this one I'm fighting to get 70/100, it doesn't help either that 70% is a B in French)

Does anyone know why the Specimen papers are more challenging than the actual A-level papers?

Reply 1

BarnabyK

15

I'm busy going through the past papers too (first time lol, can't believe I've gone this long) - my average is 92-3/100, the specimen one is ridiculously hard and I was pulling an 80. Translations are very odd as well, so is the formatting.

I believe it was a prototype for the future qualification (seems like it was written in 2015) so I wouldn't bother with it. Why the hell did your school use the specimen paper? Surely the 2022 one would suffice? (And that was quite difficult!)

Reply 2

selectiveattntn

OP

1

We did the 2022 paper for a January mock (in my opinion they should've saved it for the final set of mocks we did in April) and doing a specimen paper for the April mocks demoralised all of us lol

You've given me hope 🙏 Good luck with your exams!!

Original post by BarnabyK

I'm busy going through the past papers too (first time lol, can't believe I've gone this long) - my average is 92-3/100, the specimen one is ridiculously hard and I was pulling an 80. Translations are very odd as well, so is the formatting.

I believe it was a prototype for the future qualification (seems like it was written in 2015) so I wouldn't bother with it. Why the hell did your school use the specimen paper? Surely the 2022 one would suffice? (And that was quite difficult!)

Reply 3

BarnabyK

15

Original post by selectiveattntn

We did the 2022 paper for a January mock (in my opinion they should've saved it for the final set of mocks we did in April) and doing a specimen paper for the April mocks demoralised all of us lol

You've given me hope 🙏 Good luck with your exams!!

Bad move by your school, given it was written before the qualification was even finalised! You’ll be more than fine with an 80 on usual papers. Best of luck for monday :smile:

French A-Level Specimen papers are so difficult?

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