GCE Advanced Level - StudyGuide.PK

It has been remarked in previous reports on this paper that Mauritian candidates have a tendency to omit thene in negative constructions and in ne... que. This situation remains unchanged. It is clear that speechpatterns are being transferred to the written language. Particular attention needs be drawn to this problemduring the course of teaching and preparation for the examination.A number of constructions were considered to be particularly difficult. These were each worth two marks.Suggested translations are as follows, although these were not the only ones which were acceptable.• ‘although they often watched football’: bien qu’ils aient/eussent souvent regardé le football• ‘and were happy about that’: ce qui leur fit plaisir• ‘and was hoping that she would turn round’: et j’espérais qu’elle se retournerait• ‘I really wanted us to be friends’: Je voulais vraiment qu’on soit des copains/copines• (‘I was afraid) that she wouldn’t understand’: (J’avais peur) qu’elle ne puisse pas comprendre.Paper 9112/03Reading ComprehensionGeneral commentsAlthough there was a wide spectrum of performance, there were fewer very weak papers than in recentyears. Last year the comment was made that overall standards of written French had improved, and there isa further improvement this year. On the Language scale of 0–5 for the set of answers on each passage, fewcandidates dropped below 3. However, there are still consistent quite minor mistakes which reoccur. Theseare no doubt very well known to French Teachers in Mauritius, for example:ce ne pas for ce n’est pasce for c’estla conclusion ce que instead of la conclusion c’est quese for ceet for est and vice versases for ces.In general, candidates found the first text more accessible than the second. It was encouraging to see howmany candidates found their response to the first passage a chance to express their own pride in theachievements of Mauritius.As regards the content of answers, candidates often found it difficult to judge how to select the appropriateinformation required by the answer. They could write very long answers with little relevance. Or they couldgive partial answers which omitted essential information. Length of answer is no indication of the number ofmarks that may be gained. Some candidates managed to convey, quite concisely, all the necessary detailfor a full answer. Candidates should be encouraged not to quote whole sequences verbatim from the text.The rubric does state sans recopier mot à mot des phrases entières, and the Examiner cannot award theavailable marks unless there is evidence of understanding. There were clear indications in this year’s papersthat Teachers have acted on comments made in previous reports. Many candidates did rework linguisticmaterial from the texts, sometimes with great ingenuity, finding an appropriate synonym or rephrasing thematerial of the text. This year’s mark scheme has a two-page addendum explaining this approach tomarking, from which the following is a relevant quotation:‘…the candidate must show:either: some ability to manipulate the linguistic material of the text. Even quite small changes will usuallyshow that the candidate can handle the ideas as well as the language;or: some explanation, by adding to or extending the quoted material.’Examples will be given in the following section on answers to individual questions. The following points inparticular should be noted:• The mark allocation for each question should be taken as a guide to the amount of informationrequired;• reproduction of words from the text is permitted, but not extended quotations or the lifting of chunksof text with no obvious understanding;23