How to get an A1 in french and Irish?

truebeliever

Hiya, just wondering if anyone who has taught or done higher level french or Irish has any tips on how to get an A1 in them?:)

jamo2oo9

My guess is just study...

Canard

I got an A1 in HL Irish but only an A2 in French, but yeah, I don't know what happened in French. :P I'll try give some advice.

Irish: For the oral, being 40%, make sure you're well prepared. Write the picture sequences out, the book for them is pretty handy, but put in seanfhocail and stuff too to make it stand out. Another factor is that you won't remember it 100% accurately - e.g. I got an easy one but forgot some of my fancy phrases but I had put so many in that it didn't matter, I remembered enough. Try and slip a conditional mood into the conversation - I did and my examiner didn't ask me any directly, so much easier than getting asked something like "what would you do if you were president" and being stuck for an answer simply because of a lack of knowledge or having thought about it.
For Paper 1 I think you'd have to learn the language completely to be okay with it. I learned off 4 essays (well, the general idea in them) and none came up, so I improvised on the day with the Oraid and wrote 5 pages. I'm sure there were plenty of spelling mistakes butttttt...my grammar might have been good, but sure I can't tell :pac:
Paper 2 is pretty easy too. The comprehensions were a walk in the park given that we don't have to rephrase them anymore (not sure if that was just for this year though). For the 30 mark poetry/prose, write as much as you can think of - I think I wrote ~3 pages, 3.5/4 for An Triail. Of course a smaller amount of quality stuff will work just fine, but it's nicer to know you've done a bit extra to stand out.

French: All I did was listen to French music for the aural, learn my tenses inside out for written pieces / comprehensions, try to learn as many words as I could and learned nice phrases. I really think that's all there is to getting an A1 in French...just do that consistently. I didn't use a document for my oral, but I think I would have liked to, I just left it too late. So my advice there is do it early if you plan on it, but also prepare answers to any other questions and try to predict how the conversation will flow - our examiner asked us all the same stuff, really, and the first thing she asked me was a very nice "Tell me about the social problems in your area".

Hope this helps, good luck.

jwof2006

Learn **** off. And work hard on vocab.A1 in French and Irish. Don't worry too much about grammar especially in French,learn nice phrases that are correct.

ChemHickey

jwof2006 wrote: »

Learn **** off. And work hard on vocab.A1 in French and Irish. Don't worry too much about grammar especially in French,learn nice phrases that are correct.

I disagree with learning stuff off for Irish, except debate opening closing. all you need for Paper 1 is to know the grammatical rules and gender of words inside out and then you can write nonstop. I learned nothing for Irish P1 except grammar. Went in, picked my title, debate start down, made a plan for 25mins, wrote down all the idioms my teacher gave me. Wrote a 6.5page essay, read over it until time was up. Got the a1! =D

grantyrs10

I got an A1 in both Irish and French this year... i agree with what patchy says definately.My advice would be vocab is critical,avoiding learning off anything,it is virtually pointless.

Firstly for French,it is so important to tune in your ear but i wouldn't recommend particularly french radio as it canbe quite fast.Listen to all past paper tapes and pay a visit to francaisauthentique.com and subscribe to the podcasts and i guarantee you will be able to comfortly breeze through the aural without any problem. For the oral i would prepare any possible question i could think off and have them written down in a hardback. Lots of prctice is key to oral success and a good accent can impress. If you have a friend or parent who can help you with the oral that's great ! for the reading comprehensions which are super important 30 % of final grade,again, do all past questions but i think you should also read a french novel in 6th year,which can also be used for oral, i did le petit prince by saint exupéry.Practice is also the key to written questions,you must do lots and get them corrected by a teacher,subjunctive and pronouns re important. Have nice phrases learned to open and close and for the diary eg: Cet article me fait réagir et me fait penser.... quelle journée je viens de passer, chacun a son propre avis.
If you are really interested in french all this should be enjoyable and you should be picking up an ability tomake sentences of french wherever you are,in your head walking to school, when you feel tired and its time to go to bed think...il faut que je me couche!
Best of luck...pm me if you have any questions.

With regard to Irish,you should have a good vocab range...you should understand most of the irish in any notes you may receive and be ahead of the game. Try to know different ways of conveying the same idea which is great for all aspects of the course eg: táim in ann,táim abálta,is féidir liom,tá sé ar mo chumas srl...
I would recommend buying foinse each week and reading it noting new vocab which will increase greatly from this. Be very familiar with the poems and prós, know a good summary for all. And as mentioned you should be picking up an ability to make upirish without anysort of rote learning. I would download podcasts for filiocht and pros on radionalife,you can refresh the material in your mind,inthe language you want not in english translations like in school! This is also great practice for aural and oral.
Speaking is essential for oral,you must practice to be capable of thinking on the spot. Just like french i would prepare any question i could think of and practice with relative or friend. I would stress the importance of doing many mock orals with your irish teacher or former jc teacher,many would be more than willing to help, as oral exams can go quite different ways for the worse and for the better infact. You must not sound like you have anything rote learned this is essential particularly with sraith pictiur...just practice one a night every night it will take 5 mins. Prepare phrases like gan a thuilleadh moille, gan amhras, gan choinne,ní mór dom a rá, déarfainn...

Hope that helps !:D:D:D:D

seriouslysweet

I got an A1 in Irish, didn't do French.
My biggest tip is to do well in the oral, I'm dying to figure out my mark as it went VERY well. Get a few mock orals from someone who does the orals, there are a few teachers around the country known as being good for this, PM me and I'll tell you of the two I know. The one I went to was savage, I went in as cocky as hell and know I aced it. Other than that, condense your notes, learn how to write a good essay. End of basically, It's the easiest to get an A in if you ask me.

mathstalk

One word: initiative. Do your homework and look over grammar as your teacher instructs you to, but the only way to get an A1 is to take an active and enthusiastic approach to learning French; that may involve reading listening or writing through French. Everybody learns differently but the best learners all have initiate. Personally, I installed the French language pack on my computer. I typed away my notes, learning from my mistakes using the "spelling check" function. Make use of the web. That was my technique. There's a very kind lady over at about.french.com who has contributed a huge pool of French grammar and vocab to the web. Impress the examiner by learning grammar that's not on the course.

biohaiid

I got an A2 in Irish , but heres some advice anyways:

The oral is SO important. Work on it from day 1. The pictures really aren't so bad, but do not learn them in the order you do them at school. This will lead to you knowing the first 10 better than the last. Try and mix them up every time.
You need to sound confident and have the ability to converse on the spot. If you sound like you've just memorised everything they're gonna throw some tricky questions your way. Be flexible and casual. Have the craic like.
The poems, stories and literary piece do not deserve as much attention as other aspects of the course. Know the basics.
Reguarly listen to Irish tape throughout the year. No point leaving it a week or 2 before, this wont count for anything.
For the Essay/Debate etc know your STRUCTURE.
Know a good opening, closing and relevant lines for each type.
Good grammar is essential - try and use the TG and as many CORRECT tenses as possible.
2 common mistakes that examiners hate are the mispelling of 'fadbh' and 'Eireann'.
Know a few handy phrases and seanfocals.

The most important thing about Irish I think it, it's not what you say but it's the way that you say it.
Thats the one thing our teacher drilled into us. It resulted in a relatively light and stress-free workload, and enjoyable subject and a pretty handy A2.

ChemHickey

biohaiid wrote: »

I got an A2 in Irish , but heres some advice anyways:

The oral is SO important. Work on it from day 1. The pictures really aren't so bad, but do not learn them in the order you do them at school. This will lead to you knowing the first 10 better than the last. Try and mix them up every time.
You need to sound confident and have the ability to converse on the spot. If you sound like you've just memorised everything they're gonna throw some tricky questions your way. Be flexible and casual. Have the craic like.
The poems, stories and literary piece do not deserve as much attention as other aspects of the course. Know the basics.
Reguarly listen to Irish tape throughout the year. No point leaving it a week or 2 before, this wont count for anything.
For the Essay/Debate etc know your STRUCTURE.
Know a good opening, closing and relevant lines for each type.
Good grammar is essential - try and use the TG and as many CORRECT tenses as possible.
2 common mistakes that examiners hate are the mispelling of 'fadbh' and 'Eireann'.
Know a few handy phrases and seanfocals.

The most important thing about Irish I think it, it's not what you say but it's the way that you say it.
Thats the one thing our teacher drilled into us. It resulted in a relatively light and stress-free workload, and enjoyable subject and a pretty handy A2.

Yeah! Biohaiid made a lot of good points.

also, the correct spelling is 'fadhb' and it's a feminine word. 'Éireann' is the TG of Éirinn

biohaiid

ChemHickey wrote: »

Yeah! Biohaiid made a lot of good points.

also, the correct spelling is 'fadhb' and it's a feminine word. 'Éireann' is the TG of Éirinn

Thank you
Maybe this is why I didn't get the A1. :L
Could never get them, although I'm pretty sure I was extra careful the day of the exam.

gaeilgegrinds1

Had more A1s than ever before this year, the exam in Irish is getting much easier.

Wesc.

I got A1s in both French and Irish.. so here's a bit of advice:

French
--- Ok, well for the Aural test, it's all about tuning your ear to the language. Listening to French music (CoeurdePirate for example) is a nice, easy way of doing this. Also, I had a book called "Ecoutez Bien" and completed the book by myself in the month before the exam which really helped. But above all I found, as mentioned earlier, the website http://www.francaisauthentique.com/ extremely useful. He speaks in a clear, simple way, not too dissimilar from the actual exam and I found it a great help!
--- Right, well for the written section, the first step you have to overcome is completely understanding every grammar aspect required for the course. I even went a step further in the exam by using the "Si Clause" with the "plus-que-Parfait" and "Past Conditional", which obviously impressed the examiner. Oh and also learn the subjunctive tense. Then when you know the grammar section of the course extremely well, I'd recommend trying to pick up nice, short phrases that you fit into every essay.. such as "Cela saute aux yeux" (it's as plain as day). Then it's just practice, practice, practice...
--- The comprehension is also easy marks. I never bothered noting vocab that apparently come up every year but if it helps you then by all means do! Most questions ask for an expression/sentence so usually it's quite easy to narrow down the potential answers. But of course practice is key and you should aim to do all the comprehensions from the past papers before the exam if not more. The timing I'd suggest for them would be 20 mins on the 1st one and 30 mins on the 2nd one... and then a check over at the end of the exam.
--- And for the Oral the best method for achieving high marks is to constantly speak the language to the extent that you may end up even thinking in it! What I did was prepare very complex, impressive answers for the basic questions that are guaranteed to come up... and would always have a link at the end of my answer which would lead me into another prepared topic. But it's vital that you can mke up answers to random questions on the spot without making grammar mistakes. Oh and I'd prepare a few subjunctive sentences too, they're very impressive. Haha and during the exam be as friendly, lively and engaging as you can! A bit of charm never hurts either for the lady examiners :P You'll get extra marks for making good conversation.. an aul joke or two doesn't hurt either!


Irish
Well tbh I was never counting this subject and just wanted a B in it so the A1 was a bit of a surprise to say the least! Hence my advice mightn't be as valuable as other advice but if there's one thing I'll say is ACE THAT ORAL!!!! Have every topic prepared and prepared well. I remember my oral was on a Tuesday and the weekend before I spent hours upon hours learning a range of sentences that I could use in sraith pictuiri and I had also perfected my oral notes! So in the end it did pay off
Oh and I never studied Pros/Poetry and spent minimal time studying A Thig Na Tit Orm as the amount of work required for them was not worth it imo. I just had a very basic knowledge of them and in the exam bullsh*tted 3 page answers out of them all!
Oh and I had 1 topic prepared for the essay (Drink) and it came up...

Megatron_X

ChemHickey wrote: »

'Éireann' is the TG of Éirinn

Just as a quick note,

Éire is the Irish for Ireland.

Éireann is the Tuiseal Ginideach of Éire. Mar shampla: 'Bus Éireann', 'Dáil Éireann' agus 'daonra na hÉireann'.

Éirinn is used when following the words 'go' or 'in'. Mar shampla: 'Rugadh in Éirinn mé.' agus 'Bí cinnte go bfhuil seaicéad báistí ceannaithe agat sula dtagann tú go hÉirinn'.

iLikePiano99

grantyrs10 wrote: »

Firstly for French,it is so important to tune in your ear but i wouldn't recommend particularly french radio as it canbe quite fast.Listen to all past paper tapes and pay a visit to francaisauthentique.com and subscribe to the podcasts and i guarantee you will be able to comfortly breeze through the aural without any problem.

Hope that helps !:D:D:D:D

What type of things do the podcasts cover? And is everything completely free?

Wesc.

iLikePiano99 wrote: »

What type of things do the podcasts cover? And is everything completely free?

Yes they're all free! He talks about a good variety of things but more often than not he'll give you an old French phrase and try explain explain what it means to you in plain simple French. Every podcast has a title so just click on the one that most interests you!

iLikePiano99

Wesc. wrote: »

Yes they're all free! He talks about a good variety of things but more often than not he'll give you an old French phrase and try explain explain what it means to you in plain simple French. Every podcast has a title so just click on the one that most interests you!

That's great, thank you! Really appreciate it!

FaoiSin

ChemHickey wrote: »

I disagree with learning stuff off for Irish, except debate opening closing. all you need for Paper 1 is to know the grammatical rules and gender of words inside out and then you can write nonstop. I learned nothing for Irish P1 except grammar. Went in, picked my title, debate start down, made a plan for 25mins, wrote down all the idioms my teacher gave me. Wrote a 6.5page essay, read over it until time was up. Got the a1! =D

How can you disagree with learning things off? :P It can never hurt having a few A1 standard essays in your head I had about 6 essays I wrote during 6th year and I learned them off the day before and used bits of each on the day. I'm well able to compose one on the spot but I wouldn't totally dismiss having a few essays prepared that you may have spent a few hours on throughout the year

Also I only did French for the JC so I can't comment on it :P

spuddy

truebeliever wrote: »

Hiya, just wondering if anyone who has taught or done higher level french or Irish has any tips on how to get an A1 in them?:)

Get a summer job in an Irish pub in France. I'd recommend Rennes or Nantes, they're small & friendly places, you'll be fluent in 3 months. I wish I did it before my Leaving.

It won't guarantee success, but it will make it easier and much more enjoyable, which is what learning languages should be about.

For Irish, I guess there's the Gaeltacht, but I'm not the expert there.

Bonne chance!

felixfelicis

I can't really help you with Irish, but I got an A1 in French myself this year, so I could try and help you out!

Comprehensions: Practice makes perfect! Really. Keep doing them. And look up every word you don't know (wordreference.com is my favourite!), and keep a huge list of them, and learn them. This sounds daunting, but learning 5 words or so a night isn't going to hurt! (Note: I had a crazy teacher who made us learn two pages of vocab a night... Difficult, but it payed off!).
Make sure you know how the comprehension marking scheme works. It can be really, really specific. I'm so glad my teacher helped us with this. You can find them on examinations.ie. Do a comprehension, and then open the marking scheme and correct it properly, giving actual marks instead of just ticks. You'll learn how to get maximum marks this way . It's invaluable!

Aural: Just practice practice practice. Listen to it without the text, then with the text, then learn the words in the text you don't know, then listen to it all over again, understanding everything. You'll get better very quickly! And if you keep studying the listening exams, you'll see the patterns in theme (getting new jobs, car accidents etc), and you'll know what sections to focus on!

Written: Always write more than the given amount. I usually wrote double. Learn off key sentences that can apply to any question. The way to do well in French is not to cover every topic possible and hope that it comes it - it's to prepare yourself to be able to answer anything. Some questions can seem really weird and difficult to even answer in English, but if you just jot down some ideas and use very simple French, you realize after a while that it's not so hard after all! You need lots of impressive sentences, I'm sure your teacher will give you these! (Even easy ones like J'avoue que/Je does admettre que/Je does dire que/Il faut sans dire que/On ne peut pas nicer que ETC!). Vary your vocab from question to question. Don't keep saying "c'est genial!", say "c'est chouette/super/extra" etc! And learn lots of emotional phrases for the diary entries! (e.g. J'ai fondu en larmes!)

Oral Exam: The examiner rarely deviates from the standard questions, so just learn about your school/family/town/hobbies/future/this summer/last summer/this weekend/last weekend and you should be fine! Speak french as much as possible! Have a nice document prepared (these really do help! it's crazy not to do one).

Good luck

Or I should probably say, bonne chance!

dcam

For French know all your verbs inside out. I cannot stress this enough! Learn one irregular verb every night in all of the main tenses and it will really stand to you. There's no point in trying to learn them all the month before the exam if you want them to be correct. Seriously now you can learn as many fancy phrases as you like but if you haven't got the basics nailed you have no chance of getting an A. For the written section in French make sure to use lots of nice linking words eg. cependant, en general, qui plus est (sorry about the lack of accents!). A good idea is to keep a small notebook and fill it will lots of nice linking words and phrases eg. ceci etant dit, that you can use no matter what questions come up.

For the French oral practice is key and you should try to speak French for ten minutes every night whilst standing in front of the mirror. You'd be amazed how much better you will sound after only a week or two. This is a much better approach than simply practicing your oral for a solid hour or two once a week. Remember a little and often:). Verbs are also critical in your oral by the way, they are especially listening out for them. Make sure you know all the verbs that take etre inside out and get them right in the oral. I'm not obsessed with verbs I swear!:) I had a nasty habit of getting them right in the written section and wrong in the oral! Everything else has already been said I think. Hope this helps a bit.:)

iiHyPeRize

For French just learn basic phrases and perfect your grammar. Also the Oral is a huge part of both exams so I'd focus on that.

amymak

A1 in Irish. (I've never been so delighted with a grade in my life. I worked ridiculously hard at it, but I would have been happy with a low B. I had a rubbish teacher for 5 years. However I got a new one for 6th year who was brilliant, but a slave driver.) Got an A2 in French.

Irish: NATHANNA, nathanna, nathanna. I can't emphasise it enough. Obviously there are some that are unique to the oral, or to the prose etc., but there's a huge amount of crossover. If you try to constantly practice using a certain bank of nathanna, it will quickly become second nature and they'll sound very natural. e.g. "An fhirinne a rá." "Chomh fada agus is eol dom" etc. Select a few for the day of the exam, and make a conscious effort to use each of them at least once.

With regards the aural, just practice listening to CDs. You can listen to the radio as well, but that can be a bit fast so you might not gain much from it. It took me 50 minutes to drive to school in the morning, and 30 to 50 minutes to drive home and I always spent that time listening to either Irish or French CDs.

For the essay, don't learn any off. The people setting the paper deliberately twist the questions to prevent people from regurgitating essays. Learn plenty of nathanna instead that will work for any topic and have plenty of vocabulary for each topic.

For the poetry, make sure you have 2 points on each poet and know 2 of their works. They will ask you to talk about the poet, as this is the replacement for Stair na Gaeilge. Make sure that you quote, it's very important and simple as the poem is right in front of you.

For Tig Ná Tit (or whatever you're doing), you need to know lots of examples from the book and be able to refer to them. For every point you make, you should give at least 3 examples.

For the oral, learn your nathanna. Also, people get caught up in the abstract topics like drugs and alcohol, but the most important topics are the basics. Make sure that you know your family, your school, your hobbies etc. inside out. Because the oral is so short now (seriously, it's unbelievably short when you're in there), the examiner doesn't have time to go into great detail in anything. They have to ask you a question in the past, future and conditional, so ensure that you're prepared for that. Practicing for the oral with a friend is really helpful. Every Saturday until the oral and every second day at Easter I went to a friends house to speak in Irish and French. It's more fun than it sounds, as you'll find that you'll get plenty of English chat in and it's a much more interesting way of studying.
Learn your nathanna for the picture series. Also, seriously practice your timing. You shouldn't spend more than 30 seconds at any picture. (Four minutes total. 3 minutes to talk about the 6 pictures. One minute to ask and answer 3 questions.) This is much harder than it sounds.

For the grammar, learn your irregular verbs and know the rules for the regular ones. Know the rules for the TG and how to recognise them. It's really helpful to be constantly be looking at the grammar of a sentence when you're reading in Irish. It's amazing how quickly you begin to become aware of the rules when you start noticing the grammar yourself.

French: Overall, it's a lot of the same stuff. For the oral, do have a document prepared. It's a fantastic opportunity to show off nice phrases and it's something that is guaranteed to come up. Do it on an abstract topic, something that isn't likely to come up organically in the conversation. Do not bring in a photo of a family holiday. They've probably seen over a hundred of them in that week alone. If they're in a better mood, they'll see your oral in a more generous light.

Again, practice your listening and oral. It's the easiest way to improve.

Practice comprehensions and ensure that you're able to answer every grammar question in the papers that has ever come up. If you can't answer those questions, that's 10 marks gone. When answering questions, feel free to quote directly from the text, just ensure you are able to do a little bit of manipulation when it's required in the question.

For the written pieces, have lots of stock phrases prepared and have a bank of vocabulary prepared on each topic. Be aware of the subjunctive and try to throw in at least one. Don't write too much. You're just giving yourself the opportunity to make mistakes.
Be prepared for the journal. It's generally a relatively easy question to answer. Have lots and lots of phrases expressing negative emotion in particular. (Mes parents me tapent sur les nerfs. Je suis hors de moi. etc) You're generally writing because you're disappointed, angry etc. It's much easier to focus on your emotions rather than the events that occurred and it sounds more natural in the diary as that's what diary writers normally do. If you focus on what happened, you can very quickly run out of vocabulary. If you're smart about it, two thirds of the journal could be filled with learned off phrases. (And you'll generally use the same phrases every time you do a journal.)

I'm sorry if this is very long, but I hope that you can benefit from my experience. Let me know if you have any questions.

RedTexan

Got an A1 in both and unless you intend pursuing either in college I would advise you to just learn stuff off and write it out over and over. Both exams are so you can compose high standard written pieces without understanding what you are writing (as long as it makes sense for the examiner), so while this may undermine the ideals for learning a language I would suggest learn good strong pieces off, ones with different and more expansive content than that provided by your teacher or perhaps just extensions on to their work. At the end of the day, your work will be compared to that of your peers so a bit of diversity may make all the difference for an examiner sick of reading the same stuff

amymak

RedTexan wrote: »

Got an A1 in both and unless you intend pursuing either in college I would advise you to just learn stuff off and write it out over and over. Both exams are so you can compose high standard written pieces without understanding what you are writing (as long as it makes sense for the examiner), so while this may undermine the ideals for learning a language I would suggest learn good strong pieces off, ones with different and more expansive content than that provided by your teacher or perhaps just extensions on to their work. At the end of the day, your work will be compared to that of your peers so a bit of diversity may make all the difference for an examiner sick of reading the same stuff

I wouldn't agree with this. It leaves you very limited and adds a lot to your stress in the lead up to the exam as if they throw you a curve ball, there's little that you can do. Examiners can spot people who have just learned off pieces a mile off. If they phrase the question just a little bit differently, you could lose a lot of marks by just regurgitating your answer. It's extremely difficult to learn off an essay for every eventuality. In fact, it's much harder to learn off anything if you don't understand it. (And often the examiner will know that you don't as well unless you're very lucky.) If you have a wide range of phrases and vocabulary instead, you can twist these to answer any question that comes up.

RedTexan

amymak wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with this. It leaves you very limited and adds a lot to your stress in the lead up to the exam as if they throw you a curve ball, there's little that you can do. Examiners can spot people who have just learned off pieces a mile off. If they phrase the question just a little bit differently, you could lose a lot of marks by just regurgitating your answer. It's extremely difficult to learn off an essay for every eventuality. In fact, it's much harder to learn off anything if you don't understand it. (And often the examiner will know that you don't as well unless you're very lucky.) If you have a wide range of phrases and vocabulary instead, you can twist these to answer any question that comes up.

Horses for courses, I had little or no interest in mastering a language for the leaving and took measures to ensure the best grade possible to contribute to my points total. This is certainly not the best way to learn a language, a lot of my vocab from this year has already deserted me, however I got my A1 grades which to be honest are all I desired out of the languages

Canard

You probably knew more than you thought, RT, because your oral wouldn't have gone very well by rote-learning and the aural would have been hard. In any case, it sounds like a very tedious and stressful way to get an A1!

Gumbi

RedTexan wrote: »

amymak wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with this. It leaves you very limited and adds a lot to your stress in the lead up to the exam as if they throw you a curve ball, there's little that you can do. Examiners can spot people who have just learned off pieces a mile off. If they phrase the question just a little bit differently, you could lose a lot of marks by just regurgitating your answer. It's extremely difficult to learn off an essay for every eventuality. In fact, it's much harder to learn off anything if you don't understand it. (And often the examiner will know that you don't as well unless you're very lucky.) If you have a wide range of phrases and vocabulary instead, you can twist these to answer any question that comes up.

Horses for courses, I had little or no interest in mastering a language for the leaving and took measures to ensure the best grade possible to contribute to my points total. This is certainly not the best way to learn a language, a lot of my vocab from this year has already deserted me, however I got my A1 grades which to be honest are all I desired out of the languages

Sounds (or rather, is) horribly inefficient.

I must strongly disagree with the "nathanna" comment. I don't like it web people throw around "just learn tons of good phrases etc". I would reccomend using them sparsely and naturally. A clear, concise style with good vocabulary and grammar will score high marks. After that, it's up to content.

Namlub

Patchy~ wrote: »

In any case, it sounds like a very tedious and stressful way to get an A1!

+1, I'd have ended up haaating my languages by the end of sixth year if I had approached them like that...

FaoiSin

RedTexan wrote: »

Got an A1 in both and unless you intend pursuing either in college I would advise you to just learn stuff off and write it out over and over. Both exams are so you can compose high standard written pieces without understanding what you are writing (as long as it makes sense for the examiner), so while this may undermine the ideals for learning a language I would suggest learn good strong pieces off, ones with different and more expansive content than that provided by your teacher or perhaps just extensions on to their work. At the end of the day, your work will be compared to that of your peers so a bit of diversity may make all the difference for an examiner sick of reading the same stuff

I agree with this :P Tbh I'd be more stressed if I hadn't them learned off

Gumbi

JeaicMaG wrote: »

RedTexan wrote: »

Got an A1 in both and unless you intend pursuing either in college I would advise you to just learn stuff off and write it out over and over. Both exams are so you can compose high standard written pieces without understanding what you are writing (as long as it makes sense for the examiner), so while this may undermine the ideals for learning a language I would suggest learn good strong pieces off, ones with different and more expansive content than that provided by your teacher or perhaps just extensions on to their work. At the end of the day, your work will be compared to that of your peers so a bit of diversity may make all the difference for an examiner sick of reading the same stuff

I agree with this :P Tbh I'd be more stressed if I hadn't them learned off

Not if you actually understand what you intend to write. It's much easier then. If you learn off a ton of crap you don't jdeetand you could be screwing yourself if an unusual essay comes up.