AS Tips

Reading

Welche Beschreibung passt zu welchem Absatz ? - match the paragraphs

Welche ... Aussagungen abstimmen - richtig oder falsch !

Welche Wörter entsprechen den folgenden Wörtern ? - match the words

NB Absatz = paragraph

Writing

Comprehension - to get into the adequate band, you have to 'include a reasonable number of points from the passage'.

To reach good, you have to 'include a good number of points from the passage'.

To reach very good, you have to 'provide a comprehensive summary of the original passage'.

You don't have to be a wannabe law student to see this is not very precise.

Most of the time at 'A' Level, the mark scheme seems to suggest there are 10-12 points to extract from the passage. Perhaps you should try and find these possible points first with a highlighter before you start writing. Things that you might think are trivial are often in this mark scheme, so try to make sure you include hard facts, statistics and details in your answer.

Remember though you cannot lift directly from the passage (or the cloze test) more than 5 words at a time, but you can rewrite with weil / dass clauses, he said + subj clauses etc.

Quality of Language
To get into the adequate category, the examiner is looking for a fair understanding of use and an attempt to produce more complex language and structures appropriate tot the last. Attempt more complicated structures because you can still get some reward for them even if they are wrong./

The good category means that your tenses and agreements are sound. (Check those adjectives !!) as well as you are being ambitious in a variety of complex sentence patterns. Boring subject verb object sentences are not rewarded with a high mark.

Opinion
You need two or three personal opinions to get into the poor category.

Adequate is a 'number of personal views, but little flair or imagination'.

Good is 'a range of personal views with a certain originality and imagination'.

Think how you can get opinion over - Ich glaube, ich meine, meinER Meinung nach, use of adjectives, e.g. wahnsinnig viel - and modal verbs etc. etc.

Cloze Test

15 marks - possibly 2 grades !! Learn those endings, prepositions, conjunctions, time words etc from your file or off the net. You know it makes sense. A good mark here and you are well on the way to a top grade on this paper. You cannot afford to drop too many marks here and have got to aim for 10 + out of 15.