<p>I know that I may die, but I'm taking AP French anyways. I'm not a native speaker.</p>
<p>Who has taken this?</p>
<p>Which books/resources did you use?</p>
<p>What score did you get?</p>
<p>Anything else?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>If it's any comfort, according to the College Board annual report, most people who take the test aren't native speakers. Compared to, say, Spanish or (especially!)Chinese, it's much nicer for non-natives :) thank god. I'm taking AP French this year too! So I'm bumping this post!</p>
<p>ah!!!</p>
<p>I am also taking AP French this year...it's honestly the only AP exam I'm worried about...</p>
<p>I'd also greatly appreciate any tips/anecdotes that experienced AP "Frenchers" can offer.</p>
<p>Same. What my friend and I are going to do is read one or two books in French a month until the test date to become more fluent in the written language and thus be able to understand the test to a much more fluent degree.</p>
<p>^hmm....very good idea. But I probably won't have time to read 2 books every month with all the other reading I'll be doing, but I think I'll try 1 for starters.</p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
<p>This past school year, my french class read Le Petit Prince....it was a pretty good book (and short )</p>
<p>Ahh... We were going to start with Le Petit Prince and <em>attempt</em> to work our way up to stuff like Les Mis (haha, not likely) and along the way ask our teacher for suggestions.</p>
<p>Thanks for responding. It's good to know that I'm not alone :)</p>
<p>I'm going to read Le Petit Prince, too, and I also have this book of French stories that are English on one side of the book and French on the other (it's called French Stories / Contes Fran</p>
<p>I'm taking French Lang. AP this coming school year too. Not too worried about writing/grammar/reading comprehension and as in past classes, I've been taught advanced syntax and have read numerous novels, plays, poems, etc. However, I have an inkling that I am going to be owned by the speaking section of the exam.</p>
<p>Gah. I hate speaking with my teacher, etc, but I love speaking with natives. It's so easy to speak with natives, and so hard to speak for a grade.</p>
<p>I finished taking AP French this past year. For me as well, this was the exam of which I was most afraid. The others were Stat, Calc BC, and Comp Sci AB - all quantitative exams where I could very easily predict my score and have an idea of where I would loose points.</p>
<p>However, obviously French is very different - you can't prepare for the speaking section really and the listening sections can greatly vary in difficulty. </p>
<p>For me the exam was quite deceptive. We took plenty of practice exams in class and I consistently scored 4's and sometimes even coming close to a 5. I was in a class full of seniors (I was a junior), so basically not many people cared very much, but I put a great deal of effort. Everyone including my teacher thought I would very easily get a 4. And so did I. </p>
<p>Turns out I got a 3. Yeah, I wasn't happy (but turns out that the Pres. of FHS got a 2..)</p>
<p>I think the section that is the most difficult is the speaking. It's easy to lose points if you don't think your answer through. The reading sections were by far the easiest for me. Once you get into the swing of things, reading French is not that hard - even if you don't know all the words. Most of the exam is interpretation, so the answers are not given directly in the text anyway. But nonetheless it is important to have a good vocabulary and a good understanding of French idioms and the such. </p>
<p>All in all though, not an easy exam for me at least.</p>
<p>AP French was definitely a challenge for me, particularly because I was a junior in a class full of seniors who were "checked out" by that point. In addition, it was my second exam of the day (English Language in the morning), so doing that speaking section at like 5pm that afternoon was the last thing I wanted to be doing...</p>
<p>I slightly disagree that you can't practice the speaking. I think that by going through different series of pictures to "make up" scenarios and such is good practice. I know it's hard when no one's grading you, per se, but the more that you practice that, the more comfortable that you will become with the whole section.</p>
<p>Good luck guys!</p>
<p>My teacher is preparing us for the speaking portion by giving us a picture with a prompt and having us call her answering machine and we have to describe it until we get cut off.</p>
<p>Not that my score was really great (I got a 3), but hey, I had crappy teachers for 4 years and I had a good teacher my last year. I'm pretty happy with my score, considering that last year I didn't even think I was going to pass.</p>
<p>Anyways, here what I did</p>
<p>I got the REA AP French, I haven't looked at the Barrons one. There seems to be only two AP French review books, so buy both if you want. REA has a lot of grammar exercises which may be helpful, although I would say it wasn't that oriented towards the test. My friend got the Barrons one and it seemed that it was more oriented with the test.</p>
<p>As for listening practice, I listened everyday from Feb. the Francais facile broadcast on RFI</a> - Radio France Internationale, actualité Afrique, Monde en français et en 19 langues</p>
<p>This seemed to help me with the listening, some of the speakers speak very fast. At first I only understand some parts of it, but by the end, I understood almost all of it.</p>
<p>Just for fun, maybe get some French music, my French teacher suggested Alizee and some other artists, but see what you like.</p>
<p>For the speaking I just printed off the speaking from 1999-2007 (B forms included) and recorded myself doing them. At first I would give myself time to prepare, but then at around the 2005 test, I tried to see if I could do them cold. This seemed to help a lot.</p>
<p>BTW, watch a couple French movies. I really like Les Choristes , Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob, and Jean de Florette 1 and 2.</p>
<p>Good luck! It is a really hard test, so start early (but probably a little later than now).</p>
<p>Don't stress too much over this one test. I wouldn't spend my whole year trying study up for this AP Exam... just enjoy the class and work hard to improve. Chances are, when you're lying on your death bed, you won't be looking back and saying "oh if only I had scored higher on that AP French Exam..." And if you do, well... what kind of life is that? Seriously.</p>
<p>But anyways, just follow whatever curriculum your teacher provides. My teacher didn't really have us doing anything for the exam until December. We built up our vocabulary throughout the winter, and then began practice tests a few weeks before the actual exam. We alternated among essays, multiple choice, listening, and speaking each week. </p>
<p>I really thought I did poorly on the test, but I ended up with a 5. The speaking part is the hardest, although I don't exactly think the graders are entirely ruthless. I remember choking up and being unable to get the words out... but hey I guess I did well enough.</p>
<p>Good luck this year... I'm sure you'll do fine. Work hard, but most importantly, just enjoy the class.</p>
<p>Hey guys,
I'll be taking French AP next year, so I sympathize.
Some really great books are: Le Petit Prince (duh!), Petit Nicholas (very cute, funny): Amazon.com:</a> Le Petit Nicolas: Sempe-Goscinny: Books All of the Nicholas books are awesome.<br>
These are good and slightly more advanced: [url=<a href="http://www.amazon.com/French-Stories-Contes-Fran">http://www.amazon.com/French-Stories-Contes-Fran</a></p>
<p>If you really want to improve your reading comprehension skills, I would try anything from the French Lit reading list, such as Maupassant, Voltaire, La Fontaine, Moliere, etc. Despite the initial difficulties, that's been a great help to me.</p>
<p>I'm also taking this class this year (it's my first AP class!), and I wasn't at all worried about the exam until I read this thread, so thanks for bursting my bubble (not sarcastic. Seriously, thanks for making me take this seriously.).</p>
<p>Don't take everything you read on this forum too seriously; nearly every person is an overachiever (including, mostly probably, thine ownself :)</p>
<p>mstrlndcwys, c'est vrai. I read everything on CC with a grain of salt, but I figure that it's better to be overprepared than underprepared.</p>
<p>My sister is a high school French teacher and also says the exam is ridiculously hard. There was a petition going around among French teachers asking the college board to change it to something more reasonable. D's teacher was not really preparing them for the test, so we bought a book with CD for her to prepare on her own, but she didn't do much, and got a 2 on the exam. She tested into her college's 5th semester French class, which has me concerned it might be too much for her. She wants to study in France junior year.</p>