Getting above 40

[Max Peters]

I'm just wondering what type of SAC marks and what type of exam results would you need to get  40 and more for French.

[Jdog]

sac marks, 90+/100

and not sure about exams.

[alypew]

Low-mid A+ for the exams, I think?

[appianway]

Doesn't French have a median of B+ for the exams? I'd suggest aiming to drop no more than 7 marks on the written paper...

[Max Peters]

Have any of you guys completed French for Year 12?

[appianway]

Yeah, I got 47 raw last year.

[Max Peters]

Yeah, I got 47 raw last year.

Just wondering, what scores did you get for SACS and for both exams.

[appianway]

I didn't get a statement of marks. I got full marks (or -0.5 marks) in all of my SACs to my knowledge/recollection (maybe I lost more on one or two? I really can't remember), but a handful of us did well and had similar scores. My school was an exceptionally highly performing school for French last year - we had two 49s, a 47, and two 45s. This is not usual for my school - we just had a whole bunch of people who were really good at French, and we'd dominated the Alliance Francaise from year 9. I was pretty unhappy with both my oral and written exams (my score was a complete surprise after both those efforts) - I didn't have time to properly proofread my written exam, so I'm guessing I dropped 3 marks or so, and I probably dropped a few marks in the oral. Sort of wonder what would have happened had I not felt so horrible about both exams, but maybe the outcome would've been the same or even worse. I'm pretty sure that all of my answers on the exam were factually correct; it's just whether my grammar was correct and whether my vocabulary was varied enough.

[Max Peters]

How did you improve your listening skills? Did you listen to a lot of French news, watch movies, listen to songs or were you naturally good at listening?

[appianway]

I spent 5 weeks in France, and that really helped me to improve my listening skills. I found the listening section of the VCE paper ridiculously simple and very slow, but that might also be because I also took the SAT French paper and the DELF B2, both of which had much more difficult listening sections. I also watched French movies and listened to some French podcasts on SBS.

[Max Peters]

Just wondering what you need to do in the Oral Exam to get an A+

[appianway]

Alors, parlez tres bien! En tout cas, vous aurez besoin de defendre vos points de vue: faites attention a vos idees.

[Max Peters]

So can we speak slowly as I can't speak very fast as I tend to muddle up my sentences. Also, does vocabulary matter and for what sort of things do you loose marks in the oral exam?