The Student Room Group

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Reply 1
Yeah, I'm struggling on that an all. Listening is where I'll lose all my marks as well! Bummer. You've already done your oral though, haven't you? I bet that feels good. :smile: What exam board did you do? I'm really worried about role play:frown:
Reply 2
Don't worry about the role play, in the grand scheme of things it isn't worth that much.
For Listening, you can listen to sample exercises at www.bbc.co.uk/gcsebitesize. Trying listening to French radio or maybe a French story. The listening is hard, but for higher you need less than 1/2 marks to get an A*.
Reply 3
Oohh....really? Well, someone's just brightened my day :biggrin: (On second thoughts, I probably won't get half marks!)
Reply 4
Well for AQA, I think it is out of 45, and you need 21 I think for an A*.
Reply 5
The grade boundaries are quite short, like I think 15 is a C, 17 is a B, 19 is an A or something like that.
Reply 6
Yeah, that's what we had for the mocks. I'm on AQA too. I think that's stupid, and also very gutting! In my mocks I got A* in Oral (29/30), B in Reading (24/30), and a C in Listening (16/30)!!!! It's harsh, because you could be so, so, close!

I'm not sure I like it them being that close together! Because it means if you get 15, then you get a C, but technically, you're only 4 marks off an A! That's mean.
Reply 7
This may sound stupid but I swear its a good point! Don't let your mind wander whilst you're doing it! In the real thing my mind started wandering and I missed a couple of questions and had to guess the answers.
Reply 8
Yeah, my mind starts to wander because usually I don't have a clue what they're talking about, so I just slip off! I'm sure if I could understand my mind wouldn't wander so much!
Reply 9
zhivago
Yeah, my mind starts to wander because usually I don't have a clue what they're talking about, so I just slip off! I'm sure if I could understand my mind wouldn't wander so much!


that was exactly my problem. In the end I came to the conclusion that I had MORE chance of success by guessing
Try listening to French radio if you can find it on the net, and if you have cable or Sky, you can change the Euro News channel into French, which is really good because it repeats itself and gives you several chances to try and work out what's being said. There should be at least one French channel somewhere as well, and French films and songs are always good too. It just gets you used to the accent and you learn to pick out the important bits. Other than that, the only thing you can really do is practice questions on the Bitesize site and anywhere else you can find them.
Reply 11
Well for my French mock I think I got 2 A*s (Reading, Listening), although just. In some ways it is unfair, but I'll be satisfied if I get the A* mark!! I need to practice my French accent!
Reply 12
My accent is ok. And I'm predicted overall an A*. But I've improved a lot since the mocks. Hopefully I'll get an A* because I've got 60/60 for the coursework, and am expected to get near 100% in the orals. Which means I'll already have about 50% overall. Hopefully, if I can get half marks on the reading and listening I'll get into the A* brackets! If not an A would be ok. I suppose! I've alreay got a guarenteed G just thanks to my 100% coursework! lmao.
Reply 13
Haha! Well, I think I have dropped about 4 marks on my coursework, and we didn't have any mock speaking tests :s-smilie:. I have been going to a session every week though. I hope you get your A*, don't you find the cartoons on the Reading the worst! *I must get off the computer and start revising*
The cartoons, lol! I hate them, but.. if you don't know what anything means follow the pictures. You can usually tell the next stage just by the cartoon. And I hate the bit at the end where they give you massive French paragraphs and it's really hard to understand whats going on.

Oral in 8 days! Oh no i'm so scared.......what if I cant do the role play? They pick some pretty random things.
Reply 15
One way of preparing my listening exam for the mocks was to get some past papers and its transcripts. As I wasn't allowed to borrow the tapes, I got my friend to read out the transcript and recorded it on tape. So when it came to do the paper, I would just play the tape and answer the questions. I did about 3 of these and I got an A*! Try it, it might help!
I got full marks on my german listening last year. I asked my teacher for a tape of listening exams and I kept running through them until I could understand everything.

The listening tape is at a fast pace (the higher anyway)
Listen to conversations on the net/french radio/german radio weather reports etc.

Learn vocab as well.
Reply 17
I might ask my teacher for a listening transcript. Thanks for the advice.
Reply 18
zhivago
Yeah, I'm struggling on that an all. Listening is where I'll lose all my marks as well! Bummer. You've already done your oral though, haven't you? I bet that feels good. :smile: What exam board did you do? I'm really worried about role play:frown:
It's my next exam (in Spanish and French) so I needed tips :smile:. Yup, done both of my orals. Yay! I'm on OCR. Role play is quite simple and not worth many marks, just say what it tells you to and listen for the question.
Reply 19
Cheers fer that. Good luck with your Spanish exam. :smile: