French (H)

Richard_Fonzie

I thought it was a pretty handy paper! The aural wasn't too difficult (seemed easier than any of the past ones), the comprehension was fairly straight forward. The only thing was that there was no formal letter , and the opinion questionsi weren't really anything that I thought would come up (women's role, grass is always greener, being lazy is good etc.). What did anyone else think?

*Angel*

It was bad, I was banking on letters or notes coming up, or at least an own opinion that I had prepared but no, I messed it up. :mad:

captain_frances

Yeah, I found it fairly hard going, I don't know how I did on the comprehensions, and I was kind of banking on them to pull me up! So fingers crossed anyway. At least I did well in the oral.
The listening went quite well I think. Couple of dodgy parts, but hey...I've worse things on my mind...like history. Tomorrow. :eek:

love_the_chocol

The paper was grand, nicer and more understandable than anything in the papers and comprehensions wer real nice. I hated the listening tho, pile of bull crapy!!! Ah well, think i did okay :rolleyes:

Scratch Acid

Some of the vocabulary in the second comprehension was kinda difficult, but other than that twasn't that bad a paper. Aural was simple up until the third and fourth sections. Section 3 was particularly hard I thought. Section five was...setion five. The usual 15 second clip that leaves everyone looking around stunned, wondering what the f*ck.

mrs. hamlet

I didn't like the paper AT ALL! The first comprehension was just stupid and some of the qs were really hard! The second comprehension was ok tho.
What was with no letters/notes at all?!
The topics were kinda strange, it was hard to think of things to write about and to use good vocab and i think my answers were way too short!
The tape was ok but the section about the fathers was quite hard!

Not happy with french 1 BIT but at least it's over!!

segadreamcast

Handy paper. Shame about no letters.. the written tasks seemed to be specifically constructed to circumvent any prepared things from, say, the Cian Hogan book - which kinda pi$$es me off a little but oh well.

Aural - possibly THE easiest one I've ever heard. That was a bit too easy, I'd say they're gonna mark things harder for that if they can.

Reading comps - Nothing difficult about them. No verb identification, which is a shame, as I had studied like crazy for it.

Written comps - see above.

jacksie

mrs. hamlet wrote:

I didn't like the paper AT ALL! The first comprehension was just stupid and some of the qs were really hard! The second comprehension was ok tho.
What was with no letters/notes at all?!
The topics were kinda strange, it was hard to think of things to write about and to use good vocab and i think my answers were way too short!
The tape was ok but the section about the fathers was quite hard!

Not happy with french 1 BIT but at least it's over!!

exact same

OTliddy

I did ok in the written(a few weird questions but ahyhoo), then i went and failed the listening. I know it was easy, that makes it even worse. Quel disastre!

*Angel*

Scratch Acid wrote:

Section five was...setion five. The usual 15 second clip that leaves everyone looking around stunned, wondering what the f*ck.

Yeah what was the thing they were selling? people in my school were confused I ended up writing 'a bottle'.

mrs. hamlet

Bottled water!

OTliddy

When I saw Thierry Henry I thought "yes!", I hear him talking every other weekend! Then when his voice was really deep and NOT HIS, I was really put off and ended up getting none of that section!

*Angel*

mrs. hamlet wrote:

Bottled water!

Damn it, I heard a bottle 'du monde', and I was like what the f*ck?

segadreamcast

Yep, bottled water - I had two bottles with me, and when two or three people gave me a glance (I'm known for drinking like 2 litres + of water in school a day), I kinda knew the answer :P.


They always do that with the fake celebrity voices - I was practising and listening to 'George Clooney' last night. Otherwise I might have been put off too.

Breezer

OTliddy wrote:

When I saw Thierry Henry I thought "yes!", I hear him talking every other weekend! Then when his voice was really deep and NOT HIS, I was really put off and ended up getting none of that section!

Yeah I had a practice run with "Jennifer Anniston" and "Mary Kate et Ashley Olsen" - twas interesting to say the least... You don't think the exams commission is actually going to pay money to get the rights to use real celebrity interviews do you?

Quick questions: what did you all put for the "lack of statistics" question in comprehension 1 (the last question)? What lack, they were everywhere! I just disagreed and gave two examples where he used them, do you think that'll be ok?

And what the hell did television contribute to the kid in the warzone's life? I said it gave him a chance to escape and enter into the "other" world because he'd be on the TV screens...

And in the aural Section 4 what did she want to do when she arrived? Settle into her room and discover what her new life would be like? Please say yes...

Richard_Fonzie

Damn, I'd heard 'litres' and 'france behind italy', and just assumed it was wine (because it's normally a pretty difficult word to hear). Someone else told be it was olive oil though..

Richard_Fonzie

Breezer wrote:

Yeah I had a practice run with "Jennifer Anniston" and "Mary Kate et Ashley Olsen" - twas interesting to say the least... You don't think the exams commission is actually going to pay money to get the rights to use real celebrity interviews do you?

Quick questions: what did you all put for the "lack of statistics" question in comprehension 1 (the last question)? What lack, they were everywhere! I just disagreed and gave two examples where he used them, do you think that'll be ok?

And what the hell did television contribute to the kid in the warzone's life? I said it gave him a chance to escape and enter into the "other" world because he'd be on the TV screens...

And in the aural Section 4 what did she want to do when she arrived? Settle into her room and discover what her new life would be like? Please say yes...

I think that question in section one wanted you to look at the way he's used real "statistics" for his argument (like x% more than y country etc.), against the way he's used "signifcant detail" (which is actually a pretty difficult literary term, that goes into alot more depth than you'd expect to find in a French paper...) in the way that he's described the imaginary person's life.

snappieT

The written parts were quite easy, and I made the one about writing to the principal into a formal letter for extra length.

The comprehensions were, á mon avis, quite easy to understand, however the questions asked left a bit to be desired.

That was the easiset test for me so far, and yet I usually hate French.

Somehow I just couldn't stop writing. I wrote over 200 words for the mandatory question, and about 150 each for the other two.

I got most of the comprehension questions right, although I did guess a few.

I only noticed while I was leaving the exam that it said on the front that you were allowed to write in pencil, and I wrote the whole thing in pencil! Hopefully they'll be nice and let me away with it.

We were suppose to have the aural in the hall again, but for once my complainig worked and we were put into separate rooms. I could clearly hear it this time and I think I did really well. That's really annoying me now coz I'm better at Irish and I really think I would have aced that too if I was in the same small room.


All in all, a good test.

nobodythere

Breezer wrote:

Quick questions: what did you all put for the "lack of statistics" question in comprehension 1 (the last question)? What lack, they were everywhere! I just disagreed and gave two examples where he used them, do you think that'll be ok?

And what the hell did television contribute to the kid in the warzone's life? I said it gave him a chance to escape and enter into the "other" world because he'd be on the TV screens...

And in the aural Section 4 what did she want to do when she arrived? Settle into her room and discover what her new life would be like? Please say yes...

Don't know about the oral. There were very few statistics in the Q1 comprehension, it was specifically about ONE GUY until they gave an irrelevant statistic about electricity prices and then at the end gave the retirement age statistic. Kid in the warzone, I took from one of the questions about "what distractions were there...", I just said it gave him a bried distraction from a harsh life

nobodythere

Deleted User wrote:

Somehow I just couldn't stop writing. I wrote over 200 words for the mandatory question, and about 150 each for the other two.

Not necessarily a good thing

But usually is.

Breezer

grasshopa wrote:

Don't know about the oral. There were very few statistics in the Q1 comprehension, it was specifically about ONE GUY until they gave an irrelevant statistic about electricity prices and then at the end gave the retirement age statistic. Kid in the warzone, I took from one of the questions about "what distractions were there...", I just said it gave him a bried distraction from a harsh life

Yeah but the one guy was fictitious - he represented an average French person. The thing opened discussing numbers of kids in schools, then went on to figures for salaries, the electircity prices were relevant because it showed French people complained about things when they still had it better than in other countries, then it talked about how many times more likely you were to be burgled in England than in France, then retirement ages and stuff - there were numbers EVERYWHERE

Oakbark

For the english question on Q1 I just said that the comparisons between france and other countries were generalies more so than concrete statistics, such as petrol (that is what l'essence was right?) was only cheaper in luxembourg and spain, but the actual prices in euros or whatever wasn't shown - just a general observation that the price was lower. Also for the electricity i said that they told us italian leky was 2/3 dearer but never mentioned concrete evidence in monetary terms. God i wish i had phrased it this well on the paper, i know its probably wrong but hey?

griffdaddy

i wrote that it was very much a combination of both in question 1 written english. i said the significant detail lay within the way the guy was referred to as an average french in the title and that he bemoaned the fact that his electricity was expensive, i then went on to say how the author highlighted this point with comparative statistics.
i did a formal letter when writing to my principal, and although it may be wrong, i don't think i can lose marks for it because surely the registrar used when writing to a principal is formal, especially seeing as he was referred to as La Directeur with capitals. i know if when i wrote to my principal in really life i very much used the formal registrar.

Breezer

There's no marks going for format except in letters. Since it didn't specifically state it was a letter I doubt it was required but you won't lose marks for having it since the format doesn't matter otherwise

And if it was a letter you have it - you can't go wrong

Shyster

hmmm dont want to bring anyone down but i HEARD (so might not be cast in stone) that after you've written 120 words, which is plenty btw, they mark only your mistakes and dont take into account the nice phrases... could be all a load of crap too though..

anyway, does anybody know for sure what the bottles were?half my class got water and the other half got oil...they both make sense and sound alike...?!

bounty_hunter

I said bottled water.

And I think I completely misinterpreted that second comprehension...

love_the_chocol

Thought all the reaction pieces were really nice
Did the one on role of women and went on about how compared to the past women are more equal but equalities happening too slowly, that men still think that they're more important and make more money.
I did the one on heroes too. Said somethin like heroes dont exist anymore, i compared the heroes of the past like collins and connolly with the corrupt politicians and sportpepole of today
The last one i did was on the nice villages which had become nicer. I disagreed with that. Had bit of trouble with this one but i went on about how young people prevented our towns from being nice with the alcomahol and drug abuse and driving too fast. said something like prevention is needed from these problems to save our towns and our young
Overall really nice paper

bounty_hunter

bounty_hunter wrote:

And I think I completely misinterpreted that second comprehension...

As did I. When I got to the last question and it said something about television, I was like wtf? I thought this was about war?

But I think I fluked my way through most of the questions.

bounty_hunter

Deleted User wrote:

As did I. When I got to the last question and it said something about television, I was like wtf? I thought this was about war?

But I think I fluked my way through most of the questions.

Aye, I did something similar for the first comprehension. Then got to the last question and just went "oh..."

I'd done it in pencil though luckily, so I was able to fix it up. Think the rest of my timing suffered a bit cos of it though.