French

claire h

Anyone got any tips for studying French? Je suis nulle!

subway_ie

Firstly, get a sex-change so that you can use the masculine of adjectives, etc. Way easier, even though I always get them wrong. Apart from that, just read lots of french passages, use a dictionary if you have to, but try to understand it before you go at the dictionary.
Practice reaction questions - have a stock of good phrases you can use in any essay "il faut prendre des mesures..." etc., just don't get too dependent on them. Maybe planning some questions beforehand (racism, pollution, immigration, poverty, sport, hobbies, they're always popular).
Be sure to know the layout of letters/faxes/e-mails - it's probably not the easiest question, but you might be stuck. Also look over some diary entries - you use a much less formal tone, and probably some slang too.
Verbs. Learn them. Make sure they're *PERFECT*. Revise the present subjunctive, imperative, conditional, passé simple, etc. as well as the usual past, present, future, etc. These are the key to doing well in the written pieces. Vocabulary and phrases are built on the verbs.
Tapework *should* be easy marks (but it's usually not...), try and get some CDs of past papers, keep doing them, even just listening to get used to the sounds. If they recycle the actors like they do for the irish tapes, then it's useful to get to know the accents of the people who are going to be on the actual exam. I know my weakest section is the aural.

EDIT: If you live anywhere near Easons, they do a little book called "Mot á Mot", it's a bit like a thesaurus, but with phrases instead of words. Very handy for the written pieces, planning and getting vocabulary for them. Worth a look if you don't have a great collection of phrases/vocabulary on different topics.

Don't bother with the Less Stress books on French (or english, physics and business either), they're pretty useless.