One hour. Forty-five marks, split 5 / 12 / 28 across the three tasks, and they get longer as you go. Every word you write has to be in French — there are no marks anywhere on this paper for English.
| Task | What you write | Length | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Form filling — short factual details on a form or list | a word or two per line | 5 |
| 2 | Directed writing — a short message covering set bullet points | about 80–90 words | 12 |
| 3 | Email / letter or article / blog — you choose one of two | about 130–140 words | 28 |
Marks in Tasks 2 and 3 split into communication (did the reader get every piece of information asked for) and quality of language (range of structures, range of vocabulary, accuracy). The exact sub-totals are printed on the front cover of the paper — read them in the first minute, they tell you where the marks are hiding.
You produce far less French than you understand. That is the whole problem this paper exposes, and it is also the easiest one to fix, because written production is the one skill you can rehearse alone, slowly, with a pen.
| Minutes | Doing what |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | Read all three tasks. Choose your Task 3 option now, not later. |
| 5–10 | Task 1. It is five marks of pure vocabulary recall — do not linger. |
| 10–24 | Task 2. Two minutes planning the bullets, eleven writing, one checking. |
| 24–55 | Task 3. Five minutes planning, twenty-six writing. |
| 55–60 | The accuracy sweep — agreements, accents, auxiliaries, tense range. |
The commonest way to lose marks on this paper is not bad French. It is running out of time on Task 3, which is worth more than the other two put together.
The format. You are given a situation in French — joining a club, registering for a trip, filling in a hotel card — and a form with headings. You complete five of the lines. Each correct, relevant, comprehensible answer is one mark. Spelling has to be close enough to be recognisable, but a slip that still reads as the right word will not usually cost you.
The trap. Two traps, and they are both about obedience rather than French. The first is answering in English — Tuesday instead of mardi scores nothing at all, even though the examiner knows exactly what you mean. The second is writing a sentence where a word was wanted: the heading says Sport préféré and you write Mon sport préféré est le badminton parce que j’aime beaucoup ce sport. That is not wrong, it is just three minutes you have donated to a five-mark question.
English gloss. Surname: Sharma. First name: Tara. Nationality: Indian. Favourite sport: badminton. Free day: Wednesday.
Two details worth a mark each. Nationalities written as adjectives take no capital letter in French and do agree — indienne, not Indien. And days of the week with le in front mean “every” — le mercredi is “on Wednesdays”, mercredi alone is “this Wednesday”. On a form asking for your regular free day, le mercredi is the better answer.
| Weak version | Strong version |
|---|---|
| Nom de famille : Tara Prénom : Sharma Nationalité : Indian Sport préféré : J’aime jouer au badminton avec mes amies le week-end. Jour libre : — |
Nom de famille : Sharma Prénom : Tara Nationalité : indienne Sport préféré : le badminton Jour libre : le mercredi |
The format. A short scenario — a message, a note, a postcard, an entry for a competition — followed by bullet points, usually five, each naming one thing you must mention. The bullets are the mark scheme. They are not suggestions and they are not a starting point; they are a list of the things the examiner is holding a tick next to.
Communication marks are awarded bullet by bullet. If a bullet is not covered, the mark for it is gone — and no amount of beautiful French elsewhere can recover it, because there is nowhere for that mark to be re-awarded. A candidate writing flawless, ambitious French about four of the five bullets scores less than a candidate writing plain, slightly wobbly French about all five.
So the first thing you do, before writing a single word, is number the bullets 1 to 5 in the margin, and the last thing you do is tick them off in your answer. Some students write the bullet number in tiny pencil beside the sentence that covers it. It looks unsophisticated. It also works.
The task. Vous avez passé le week-end chez votre correspondante en France. Écrivez un message à votre professeur de français.
| Bullet | What it is really asking |
|---|---|
| où vous êtes allée | a place — and a past tense with être |
| ce que vous avez fait samedi | at least one activity, in the perfect tense |
| ce que vous avez mangé | food — be specific, de la nourriture is not an answer |
| votre opinion sur le week-end | an opinion with a reason; the reason is where the language marks are |
| vos projets pour le week-end prochain | a future tense — this bullet exists to make you change tense |
English gloss. Good morning Madam. Last weekend I went to Lyon to stay with my exchange partner Camille. On Saturday morning we visited the old quarter, and in the afternoon we went to the cinema. In the evening we ate raclette with her family: it was delicious, but a bit heavy for me. I loved this weekend because I spoke French the whole time and I made some new friends. Next weekend I am going to stay at home and I will revise for my exams. See you Monday, Tara.
Why this scores well. One sentence per bullet, in bullet order, so the examiner never has to hunt. Four tenses appear without being forced: perfect (nous avons visité), imperfect (c’était), immediate future (je vais rester) and future (je réviserai). The opinion bullet carries two reasons joined by et. Nothing here is beyond your level — it is simply complete.
| Weak version | Strong version |
|---|---|
| Bonjour, Je vais à Lyon chez mon amie. C’est très bien. Nous allons au cinéma et nous mangeons du fromage. J’aime beaucoup Lyon. La ville est belle et les gens sont sympa. Ma correspondante est gentille et elle parle bien anglais. Nous regardons un film et nous écoutons de la musique. Tara |
The model above — five sentences, one per bullet, four tenses, one justified opinion. |
The format. Two options are offered and you answer one. Each comes with a short scenario and about four prompts. This is more than half the paper’s marks in one piece of writing, and unlike Task 2 you are also being judged on how the piece is built — paragraphs, linking, a shape with a beginning and an end.
Choosing. Pick the option whose vocabulary you already own, not the one that sounds more interesting. Read both sets of prompts and ask a single question of each: can I write two sentences about every prompt right now, in my head, without a dictionary. Whichever gets four yeses, take it. Then commit — switching after ten minutes is how people run out of time.
Register is decided by one thing: who is receiving this. A French friend gets tu the whole way through. A hotel, a company, a head teacher, a stranger gets vous. An article or blog for a general readership uses vous if it addresses the reader at all, and mostly it does not — it addresses on and nous.
| Informal — a friend, a cousin, someone your age | Formal — an adult you do not know, an organisation | |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | Salut Léa, · Coucou Léa, · Cher Léo, / Chère Léa, | Madame, Monsieur, · Cher Monsieur, · Madame la Directrice, |
| Pronoun | tu, ton / ta / tes, toi | vous, votre / vos |
| Opening line | Merci pour ton message. · Ça va ? Désolée de ne pas avoir écrit plus tôt. | Je vous écris au sujet de… · Suite à votre annonce, je souhaiterais… |
| Closing line | Écris-moi vite. · J’attends ta réponse avec impatience. | Dans l’attente de votre réponse… · Je vous remercie par avance. |
| Sign-off | À bientôt, · Bises, · Amitiés, · Grosses bises, | Cordialement, · Veuillez agréer, Madame, Monsieur, mes salutations distinguées. |
Mixing the two is the visible error: Salut Madame, or a letter that starts with vous and slides into tu by the third paragraph. Decide in the first ten seconds and then never think about it again. If you choose the article or blog option instead, you need no salutation at all — you need a title, and an opening line that tells the reader what the piece is about.
Vous venez de changer de collège. Écrivez un email à votre ami(e) français(e). Décrivez votre nouveau collège ; racontez votre première semaine ; dites ce que vous aimez et ce que vous n’aimez pas, et pourquoi ; expliquez vos projets pour l’année prochaine.
English gloss. Hi Léa, thanks for your message. I wanted to tell you about my new school, because it is really different from the old one. My school is twenty minutes from my house and it is quite big: there are nearly a thousand pupils, a modern library and two sports pitches. During my first week I was a bit nervous, but the teachers were kind. On Monday I visited all the buildings, and on Thursday I signed up for the drama club. What I like most is science lessons, because the teacher explains clearly and we do lots of experiments. On the other hand, I hate the canteen: the food is cold and you have to wait half an hour. Next year I am going to choose Spanish and I would like to take part in the exchange. If I get good marks, my parents will let me go. Write soon, Tara.
| Where the marks come from in that model |
|---|
| Paragraph shape. One paragraph per prompt, plus a one-line opening. The reader can see the four prompts covered without reading a word. |
| Tense range, unforced. Present (se trouve), imperfect (j’étais, étaient), perfect (j’ai visité, je me suis inscrite), immediate future (je vais choisir), conditional (j’aimerais), future (laisseront). |
| Structures from the syllabus list. Relative ce que… ce sont; the reflexive perfect with agreement; il faut + infinitive; si + present + future; an object pronoun before the verb (me laisseront). |
| Both sides of the opinion prompt. Ce que j’aime le plus… En revanche, je déteste… — and each side has its reason. |
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Salut, Mon collège est grand. Il y a beaucoup d’élèves. Les professeurs sont gentils. J’aime les sciences. Je n’aime pas la cantine. La nourriture est mauvaise. Mon ami s’appelle Sam. Il est drôle. Nous jouons au foot. Le collège commence à huit heures. C’est fatigant. Au revoir. |
…Pendant ma première semaine, j’étais un peu nerveuse, mais les professeurs étaient gentils… Ce que j’aime le plus, ce sont les cours de sciences, car le prof explique clairement… L’année prochaine, je vais choisir l’espagnol et j’aimerais participer à l’échange scolaire. |
An opinion on its own is one clause. An opinion with a reason is two clauses joined by a conjunction, which is a structure from the syllabus list. That is why every mark scheme rewards “justifies and explains”.
| French | English |
|---|---|
| À mon avis, … parce que … | In my opinion, … because … |
| Je trouve que … car … | I find that … since … |
| Selon moi, … | According to me, … |
| Ce que j’aime le plus, c’est … | What I like most is … |
| Ce qui m’énerve, c’est … | What annoys me is … |
| Je préfère … parce que c’est plus … que … | I prefer … because it is more … than … |
| D’un côté …, mais d’un autre côté … | On one hand …, but on the other … |
| Je suis d’accord, cependant il faut dire que … | I agree, however it must be said that … |
| Ça dépend : si …, alors … | It depends: if …, then … |
Every one of these replaces a full stop. They cost you nothing to learn and they turn a list into a piece of writing.
| Sequencing | d’abord · ensuite · puis · après ça · enfin · finalement |
|---|---|
| Adding | de plus · en plus · également · non seulement … mais aussi |
| Contrasting | mais · cependant · pourtant · en revanche · par contre · malgré + noun |
| Causing | parce que · car · puisque · grâce à · à cause de |
| Concluding | donc · alors · c’est pourquoi · par conséquent · en conclusion |
| Time | quand · pendant que · dès que · avant de + infinitive · après avoir + past participle |
Grâce à is for good causes and à cause de for bad ones: grâce à mon prof, à cause de la pluie. And car can never start a sentence — it joins two halves of one.
The language marks reward a wide range of the structures listed in the syllabus. A piece written entirely in the present tense has demonstrated one tense out of seven. It can be spotless and still sit in the middle band, because there is nothing there to reward at the top. The fix is not ambition, it is planning: decide before you write which paragraph will carry which tense.
| Tense | A frame you can drop in anywhere | English |
|---|---|---|
| Present | D’habitude, je … tous les jours. | Usually I … every day. |
| Perfect | L’année dernière, j’ai … / je suis allée à … | Last year I … / I went to … |
| Imperfect | Quand j’étais petite, je … souvent. · Il faisait beau et tout le monde était content. | When I was small I often … · The weather was fine and everyone was happy. |
| Pluperfect | Je n’avais jamais … avant ce jour-là. | I had never … before that day. |
| Immediate future | Ce week-end, je vais … | This weekend I am going to … |
| Future | Quand j’aurai dix-huit ans, je …-ai. | When I am eighteen I will … |
| Conditional | J’aimerais … · Ce serait génial de … · Si j’avais le temps, je …-ais. | I would like to … · It would be great to … · If I had time I would … |
| depuis + present | J’apprends le français depuis deux ans. | I have been learning French for two years. |
| venir de | Je viens de commencer … | I have just started … |
| Perfect infinitive | Après avoir mangé, nous sommes sortis. · Après être rentrée, j’ai fait mes devoirs. | After eating we went out. · After getting home I did my homework. |
| Present participle | En arrivant à la gare, j’ai vu mes amies. | On arriving at the station I saw my friends. |
| si sentences | Si j’ai de bonnes notes, mes parents seront contents. | If I get good marks my parents will be pleased. |
Six of these in one piece of writing is more than enough. Do not try to use all twelve — a paragraph stuffed with tenses reads as strangely as a paragraph with only one.
| 1 | Age with être ✗ Je suis quinze ans. ✓ J’ai quinze ans. French does age with avoir, and the same goes for the whole family of physical states: j’ai faim, j’ai soif, j’ai froid, j’ai chaud, j’ai peur, j’ai sommeil. Je suis chaud means something else entirely. |
| 2 | Wrong auxiliary in the perfect ✗ J’ai allé au cinéma. ✓ Je suis allée au cinéma. A small closed group of verbs of movement and change takes être: aller, venir, arriver, partir, entrer, sortir, monter, descendre, rester, tomber, naître, mourir, retourner, revenir, devenir, rentrer, plus every reflexive verb. Everything else takes avoir. Learn the list once and this error disappears for good. |
| 3 | Missing agreement after être ✗ Je suis allé à Paris. Nous sommes resté. ✓ Je suis allée à Paris. Nous sommes restées. With être the past participle agrees with the subject. You are writing as yourself, so almost every one of these needs an -e: je suis rentrée, je me suis levée, je suis née. It is a single silent letter and it is one of the fastest marks on the paper. |
| 4 | des surviving a negative ✗ Je n’ai pas des frères. Il n’y a pas du lait. ✓ Je n’ai pas de frères. Il n’y a pas de lait. After a negative, du, de la, des and un/une all collapse to de (or d’ before a vowel). The one exception is after être: ce n’est pas un problème keeps its article. |
| 5 | Half a negative ✗ Je mange pas de viande. Je ne mange pas jamais de viande. ✓ Je ne mange pas de viande. Je ne mange jamais de viande. In writing the ne is not optional, however often you hear it dropped in speech. And the second half is a single item: ne…pas, ne…jamais, ne…plus, ne…rien, ne…personne. You never stack two of them. |
| 6 | depuis with a past tense ✗ J’ai habité ici depuis trois ans. ✓ J’habite ici depuis trois ans. English says “I have lived here for three years” because for English it is finished-ish. French sees it as still going on, so it uses the present: j’habite… depuis. In the past it works the same way with the imperfect: j’habitais là depuis deux ans quand… |
| 7 | A continuous tense that does not exist ✗ Je suis mangeant. Je suis allant à l’école. ✓ Je mange. / Je suis en train de manger. Je vais à l’école. French has no “am doing” form. The plain present covers both I eat and I am eating. If you genuinely need to stress that it is happening right now, être en train de + infinitive does it — but you rarely need to. |
| 8 | Adjectives that do not agree, or sit in the wrong place ✗ une voiture bleu · un intéressant livre · mes parents sont gentil ✓ une voiture bleue · un livre intéressant · mes parents sont gentils Adjectives agree with the noun in gender and number, and most of them follow it. The short common ones that go in front are worth memorising as a set: beau, bon, grand, petit, gros, jeune, vieux, joli, nouveau, mauvais, long. |
| 9 | Contractions left uncontracted ✗ Je vais à le cinéma. C’est la maison de le professeur. Je vais à école. ✓ Je vais au cinéma. C’est la maison du professeur. Je vais à l’école. à + le = au, à + les = aux, de + le = du, de + les = des. And before a vowel or silent h, le and la become l’. These are never optional. |
| 10 | Object pronouns in English order ✗ Je vois le. Je donne lui le livre. Je ai vu la. ✓ Je le vois. Je lui donne le livre. Je l’ai vue. French object pronouns go before the verb, and before the auxiliary in the perfect. When a direct object pronoun comes first, the participle agrees with it — je l’ai vue if la is a girl. This is on the syllabus list under position, order and agreement, so it is explicitly rewarded. |
| 11 | visiter used for people ✗ J’ai visité ma grand-mère. ✓ J’ai rendu visite à ma grand-mère. Visiter is for places — museums, towns, castles. For people it is rendre visite à, or in ordinary conversation aller voir: je suis allée voir ma grand-mère. |
| 12 | Capital letters imported from English ✗ Je parle Français. Je suis Indienne. J’y vais en Janvier, le Lundi. ✓ Je parle français. Je suis indienne. J’y vais en janvier, le lundi. Languages, nationalities used as adjectives, months and days are all lower case in French. Capitals survive only on the noun for a person: une Indienne, les Français. |
Do not reread for meaning — you know what you meant. Read four times, hunting one thing each time. It is faster and it catches far more.
Pass 1 — auxiliaries. Every perfect tense: is it avoir or être, and if être,
does the participle agree.
Pass 2 — agreements. Every adjective: does it match its noun.
Pass 3 — small words. au/du/à l’, the ne in every negative, accents on é
and à.
Pass 4 — the bullets. Count them against the question. This is the pass that saves the most marks.
Reading the models is not producing French. Cover the model, write the task cold with a timer, then compare. The gap between what you recognise and what you can produce only closes by writing — and it closes surprisingly fast, because the vocabulary is already there.