My school just added the AP course for next year and I decided to sign up after finishing Honors French 4.
Does anyone have any advice on taking the exam? Never took an AP language course before. Also, did anyone else get summer homework? lol
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I’ve done other languages but not French. A key part is listening and knowing vocab. I would recommend watching french dramas etc. Songs radio. Grammar and stuff are not usually a big concern. Try to memorize some lines from movies, you can use derivatives of it when writing so you can write more properly and faster
And I did not get summer hw for ap languages but I guess it can’t hurt. Start early or else you’ll be stressed. The listening is fairly fast. You need at least 1 month to cram for a 4. 3 month’s for a 5 (assuming you know like nothing ng). Good luck, it should be manageable if you’re diligent
*Oh and movies are great for culture. Relax abd learn. Try to watch without subtitles after a while, or rewatch without subtitles
Hi! Just took the AP French Exam this year after taking the course with 3 years of learning French (4 including the year I took AP French). I don’t know if this is just something specific to the way my school taught the course, but I didn’t learn much vocabulary or grammar throughout the course (as compared to the prior three years), so if you’re taking it, I would recommend getting a set of French flashcards or going through the quizlets for the six themes. Here’s a link: https://quizlet.com/subject/ap-french/
One thing to keep in mind while taking the course is that the course is divided into six themes, and the subjects of the reading comprehensions, listening activities and essays, will fall into one of the six themes. Thus, having a strong understanding of the vocabulary and how to use it for each theme will definitely help when reading and writing. Finally, I would memorize the structures for the courriel (email) and the speaking tasks, as there is a pretty specific format you have to follow, and if you don’t include certain details (like remembering to ask a question in the email) then you will get docked a lot of points. Overall though, the course and exam shouldn’t be too bad if you’ve taken at least three years of french.
I’ll be the first student to ever taken an AP foreign language exam at my school next year as a Senior. I’ll be taking an online AP French class, which worries me. I visited France this summer for several weeks, and I realized that although I can read and write fairly well, I CANNOT understand spoken French. Although I can throw out some words to “speak”, I can’t understand native speakers. Does anyone have good ways to improve this? I think I can get at least a 4 if I can improve my listening.
I took AP French this year and was honestly beyond shocked when I got 5. I took the class, and for almost the whole year, the main thing we did was watch French news reports and answer questions about them. At the time, I didn’t think that that was very helpful, but now in retrospect, I think it helped to develop my listening skills. We did a bit of essay and email writing practice, but no more than like 4 writing assignments a semester. As for speaking practice, we basically didn’t do any. I’m really not sure if my ramblings are any help :P, but my point is that you don’t need excessive training in all aspects of the test in order to do well :).
I do have a summer assignment (split into sections), based on the 6 themes that someone above mentioned. 1) We have to write a persuasive 5-paragraph essay (synthesizing 3 sources - audio, graphic, article). 2) We have to record ourselves speaking about a topic for 2 minutes (incorporating a cultural comparison based on the topic). 3) We have to respond to an e-mail or something of the sort. And 4), we have to find 6 news audios based on those 6 themes and fill out a form for each (i.e. topic, vocab, relevance to theme, compare to personal culture, etc.) Fortunately, we normally did all of this in Honors French 4 so it shouldn’t be too rough for me (hopefully).
^^Kinda sounds like the AP exam tbh. So if you guys were wondering how to start practicing, there you go!
Maybe I’ll type up some of the themes from my packet here, for reference if you guys want
The following are the 6 major themes of AP French with EQs (so I’d recommend, if you need practice in listening or reading, try to listen to audios/read articles related to these themes. At our school we primarily use rfi.fr or rtl.fr for audios, and France 24 is a decent resource for articles). If you guys really want a head start on summer work, PM me. Most of the people who take AP French at my school get 4s or 5s (we’re an over-achieving school lol), so I’m going to trust my teacher’s summer assignment (had her last year too).
Hey everyone! I’m taking AP French this year too… do any past test-takers have any advice on which verb tenses are most important (should I try to fully master subjunctive, passé simple, etc.)? Thanks!
The AP French exam no longer specifically tests grammar, although for the writing and speaking parts you would want to use the correct tenses. IMO it’s important to nail down the present, passé composé, imperfect, conditional, future, and to a much lesser extent, subjunctive and pluperfect.
Yes for subjunctive, no for passé simple although “fully master” might be strong; you could probably get by without the subjunctive if you avoid phrases which require it.
@supermaaya Np! If you need any supplemental stuff for french next year, just PM me! They’ve sort of been teaching the AP curriculum for french for about two years here pretty much (we do the same stuff in french 4 as in ap), so I know it well enough.
Is anyone’s AP: French Lang teacher making you guys do ridiculous amounts of projects? In my class she assigned me a 15 minute oral presentation on Delacroix and the painting romanticism movement. I feel like my teacher is focusing more on projects then preparing us for the listening section which is the hardest for non native speakers. ANYONE having the same problem?
@PsychicPanda2 My teacher is the complete opposite. We’ve been listening to the listening prompts and answering prompt questions. My class is really quiet so we have issues presenting in front of the class
