A1 In German?

Classof2013

Hey everyone. I love the languages I study very much. I watch german shows sometimes and listen to German music. However my teacher keeps telling our class how impossible it is to get the A1. I was just wondering if anyone here has gotten an A1 and what they did to achieve it?

dcam

Hi. It's certainly not impossible I got an A1 this year but you will obviously need to put in a huge amount of work. Basically know your oral inside out, that's pretty essential as in my opinion it's the easiest place to pick up marks. Keep on going over the role-plays and picture-stories/project all the time don't leave it all til the month before. Keep on practicing the past LC aurals also it's the only way to get better at the tape. For the written section know your grammar really really well and make sure you have a wide vocabulary, covering all of the major topics in particular. I'd also advice you to do all of the letters in the past papers as well as the comprehensions and give them up to your teacher to correct. Have a look at the marking scheme for the comprehensions also as what the examiner is looking for is often quite specific so you'll need to be familiar with the types of questions asked. Hope this helps.:)

Classof2013

dcam wrote: »

Hi. It's certainly not impossible I got an A1 this year but you will obviously need to put in a huge amount of work. Basically know your oral inside out, that's pretty essential as in my opinion it's the easiest place to pick up marks. Keep on going over the role-plays and picture-stories/project all the time don't leave it all til the month before. Keep on practicing the past LC aurals also it's the only way to get better at the tape. For the written section know your grammar really really well and make sure you have a wide vocabulary, covering all of the major topics in particular. I'd also advice you to do all of the letters in the past papers as well as the comprehensions and give them up to your teacher to correct. Have a look at the marking scheme for the comprehensions also as what the examiner is looking for is often quite specific so you'll need to be familiar with the types of questions asked. Hope this helps.:)

Well done for getting an A1! Thank you so much for the advice

Soriel

Hey, I got the A1 too, and I'm not going to repeat what's already been said but just thought I'd add an examiner insight because my parents correct the JC/LC and my mother in particular corrects the German LC. Something that really stands out is when a student has a grasp of a concept that other students don't have. This is easy enough to fake- take something like the genitive (possessive case) and find a way to incorporate it innocuously. What I did was "wegen des", or "due to the", and wegen takes a genitive. So it looks like you understand the genitive when you don't need to actually understand it. If this seems totally fake, it doesn't have to be. You can use it anywhere. "Due to the bad economic situation in Ireland...." "Wegen des schlechten Wohlstands der irischen Wirtschaft..." "Due to my sickness" "Wegen meiner Krankheit" etc. It's really handy and looks really good.

Secondly if you look at a corrected paper, part of what you'll see is 1 as a mark and [1] as a mark. Examiners are told to put [1] in brackets where a student has gotten all the points possible but has got beyond what was expected of them, it's an extra little bonus mark, called a discretionary mark. This is particularly important when a candidate is between say a B1 and and A2. An examiner can see how many extra little discretionary points you achieved and bump you up.

I did a Projekt instead of the Rollenspiele and found it a lot easier so don't be afraid to go that route. Most examiners have a genuine love of the language and enjoy seeing a student enthused about the language.

In the letter/Ausserung, make sure you answer every tiny mini question, e.g. Wie bist du? Wie ist deine Mutter? If you only say how you are, you don't get full marks for that section (and if you don't get full marks for a section you can't get discretionary marks). Also in the letter have TWO elements of closure. There are separate marks for this, i.e.
Bis bald (1)
Deine (1)
Don't skimp on the details, it all adds up. The more you write, the better it looks.

Good luck! It can totally be done.

spurious

No, the [1] is when a student has answered an extra part over and above what they needed to.
The marks in square brackets are not counted. Check this with whatever marker gave you the incorrect information.

Soriel

spurious wrote: »

No, the [1] is when a student has answered an extra part over and above what they needed to.
The marks in square brackets are not counted. Check this with whatever marker gave you the incorrect information.

That's what I intended to say. Sorry if it's unclear.

Geo10

Yeah there are discretionary marks buy they're not marked by a [1], they're marked by +1 in the margin.

Plus it's completely possible to get an A1 in German. I admittedly didn't put too much work into this subject over 5th and most of 6th year, but I started working like crazy just before the orals and then again just before the exam. I ended up with an A2 but that was because I made a mess up one particular section (probably due to lack of sleep, it was on the Friday after a week full of exams for me in which I probably got 4 hours sleep over the 4 days.) So a word of advice, get a good sleep before the exam!