French Exam Question - Reading/Writing/Listening

[Tyleralp1]

Greetings all,

I am doing French in Year 11, and have a question. I used to be afraid of the oral exam, however once I found out it is relatively structured and you basically prepare for it, it seems a lot less intimidating. However, what does now raise my eyebrow is the reading, writing and listening component of the written exam. The reason I say this as it can be potentially on anything French..so I think. I'm wondering if any past students, or any Year 12's give me some clarification on this. Because, unlike the other subjects, French seems as if any could come up, which may either make or break you.

Is it easy if you prepared well? Does it relate to the coursework, or can it literally be 100% pure random?

All responses are highly appreciated.

Cheers!
Tyleralp1

[alondouek]

Firstly, let me impart some important (if somewhat obvious) information: Do well in your SACs. I got a high A in the exam, a high A+ for the oral, but only a B+ average for SACs. This netted me a 34 (scaled to 45, happily).

Regarding your question; technically the passages that compose the listening and written sections of the exam can be on anything French, but they won't be overly difficult or obscure. The best way to get around any difficulty you may encounter is to broaden your vocabulary as much as possible, especially through French conversation and media.

If you can get an audio copy of past years' VCAA listening section passages (your school should have these, or VCAA might have them for download), have a listen - they'll give you a good idea of what's required. Also, companies such as IARTV give good (but variable in difficulty) practice exams.

Good luck!

[Niskii]

I did French last year, and you're right about the oral - you can really prepare for it!

Obviously it probably varies with the actual person you get - but from what I've heard the majority of them are really nice and they follow a logical pattern with their questions, which is probably what makes it possible to anticipate what they'll ask next, and prepare to be asked it! For example, when talking about how I planned to go to Monash after finishing Year 12 they asked me things like, why do you want to go that university/what are you thinking about studying and why.

With the written exam, it's true that it can be on anything. That said there's probably broad topics that usually come up more than others: holidays, school, French culture, that kind of thing.

Our exam last year had a listening text about going to a carnival, and another one was something to do with French cuisine - it really varies! But yeah as alondouek said, one thing they won't do is chuck in a text with a lot of technical words/jargon that will leave everyone completely confused. A lot of it is usually using quite general language, but of course, the more vocabulary you know, the better! Also you have your dictionary to look up any key words you don't understand. (Use the time wisely though!)

In the writing section especially there's usually a range of topics and text types - I think in most years there's a 'personal' topic ('letter to a friend' kind of thing) which you should be able to do without having to look up/know any words specific to a certain topic (e.g. the environment).

If you happen to know all about a particular topic that one of the texts is based around, then that's great of course! But in the end, I think the key is to expose yourself to as much French as possible and ideally you'll be able to adapt to give the exam, no matter what topics turn up, your best shot   Hope this helps a little!