GCSE language speaking exams

10

Hi, I have my gcse mandarin speaking exam in a couple weeks and I'm so scared because the pressure really gets to me, our teacher made us write 'speeches' that we are meant to learn as little bits and memorise for the real thing but I have no clue how to do this so I'm prepared for questions. Does anyone have any tips?

Reply 1

Unknown-human

7

Original post

by dak1

Hi, I have my gcse mandarin speaking exam in a couple weeks and I'm so scared because the pressure really gets to me, our teacher made us write 'speeches' that we are meant to learn as little bits and memorise for the real thing but I have no clue how to do this so I'm prepared for questions. Does anyone have any tips?

Hey! I did my French gcse last year with aqa, so it would help if I knew your exam board? Regardless, the most useful thing to do would be to practice improvising! In the actual exam, memorised paragraphs are easily forgotten, so the easiest thing for me was to improvise. I learnt a few key phrases as well to incorporate into my answers. This is also good practice for unknown questions and prompts. Of course this won’t work for everyone, but I wouldn’t stress over memorising whole paragraphs.
Good luck!! :smile:

Reply 2

Mickey Mouse 1

14

Original post

by dak1

Hi, I have my gcse mandarin speaking exam in a couple weeks and I'm so scared because the pressure really gets to me, our teacher made us write 'speeches' that we are meant to learn as little bits and memorise for the real thing but I have no clue how to do this so I'm prepared for questions. Does anyone have any tips?

Hi! I did my Mandarin GCSE last year with AQA and got a 9. I’m not sure what exam board you’re doing but I think the above advice sounds really good.

For me what helped was memorising only the harder questions. For example, I mostly only memorised answers topics I struggled with, like the environment. I did this by creating a document with all my questions and answers and then learnt them by just repeating them over and over. After that I also recorded some of the questions and then played it back before answer it out loud to myself.

I also had a really good teacher though, so I was able to send her my recordings and get feedback.

For the other questions, I practiced improvising them but kept a few phrases similar each time.

Obviously, this may not work for you as you may find you have a different way of learning. For French and Spanish, I actually find it easier to not bother memorising any paragraphs!

Try not to stress too much though!

Bottom line is that practice is everything. Good luck and let me know if you have any more questions!

(edited 11 months ago)

GCSE language speaking exams

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