<p>The AP Exam is coming up pretty soon so I thought it best to create an AP French discussion thread. All thoughts and comments are open (especially insights from those that took the AP French exam last year).</p>
<p>Bon chance!</p>
<p>Bonjour 
I’m a junior taking the French AP Exam. I’ve been taking french from first grade and I feel as though this is a culmination of the entirety of my french career, so I’m kind of nerve-wracked. I’d like to know how you’re studying. </p>
<p>Hey there! I’mm a senior and I’ve only been studying the language for 4 years. My teacher (bless his heart) is a Swiss native speaker but DOESN’T teach. He’s helpful if you ask for instruction but most of the time he’s rambling on about the Winter Olympics.</p>
<p>I’m self studying for the most part: reading articles, listening to french new broadcasts, the works. We practice from Richard Ladd’s AP French workbook (GREAT resource). I also ordered Barron’s AP prepbook. </p>
<p>I am NOT ready for this. I feel like my knowledge of slang and idioms won’t be helpful.</p>
<p>I’m pretty nervous about the cultural comparison and the persuasive essay. I feel like I’ll run out of ideas and flounder, even though we’ve studied culture and transitions all year…eesh.</p>
<p>My teacher is really good and I feel well prepared for the exam, she drills a lot at us and there’s a lot of work, the only problem is when I get to the writing sometimes my vocab is weak. Any tips? Also what are you guys expecting to get on the exam?</p>
<p>We haven’t studied culture, lol. Most of our in class work has been practice exams. @jdancer here’s this link for encouragement about a non-native who miraculously got a 5 on the AP Spanish exam <a href=“How a non-native scored a 5 on AP Span Lang by self-study - AP World Languages - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/world-languages/1185594-how-a-non-native-scored-a-5-on-ap-span-lang-by-self-study.html</a></p>
<p>Is it just me, or is Barron’s problems super hard and the ones on college board super easy???
Which one should I trust???</p>
<p>hey y’all! I’m Aliyah and I’m also taking the AP Exam this year for french. Honestly, I wouldn’t worry too much about the cultural comparison part. They aren’t going to be expecting us to know the little intricate details about french culture. I’m not a native speaker <em>tear</em> BUT I’ve been told by natives that I have an advanced level in speaking so I’m not too concerned about that portion.(if you are, no sweat, it’s literally like 15 minutes of the three hour exam)</p>
<p>You mainly need to be able to read pretty well (essay’s articles that you have to cite in your essay) and understand oral French pretty well.</p>
<p>Anyway, I really hope to get at least a 4. NO ONE that has taken at my high school has ever gotten more than a 3 so my fingers are thrice crossed!</p>
<p>Hey everyone! I took the AP French exam last year and got a 4 with only 3 years of French, nor am I a native speaker. The exam isn’t as bad as many of you think. 1st: Grammar does not count for much. All you have to be able to use is the present tense and the passe compose. (I don’t have a French keyboard so please excuse the lack of accent marks). As long as you are able to understand other tenses in the passage then you’ll be find. As for vocabulary, be sure to be able to talk about random things. I know that sounds vague, but practical conversation topics that may come up if you talk to a stranger for 10-15 minutes. That type of vocabulary will be useful. Try to learn 10 or so words from each type of item like household items, be sure to know stuff like chair or soap.
For the cultural comparison, as long as you know what the topic is asking, you should be able to do it well. You have 4 minutes to plan, so I advise writing some ideas (in English and if possible in French). Don’t write the entire sentence that you will say, but write out the structure. Usually, if you can write fairly quickly, you should be able to get the entire 2 minutes worth of dialogue in or at least most of it. Don’t talk too fast, that will be your enemy. (It happened to me). The AP graders deduct more points for empty time than they do slow speaking (Actually, as long as its not obviously dragged, you shouldn’t lose any points). Take practice MC for the exam. Some passages are harder than others, but as long as you can get the main ideas, you should be able to get at least half of the multiple choice correct. Understand a little more than the main ideas? then you can easily get 70+% of the MC correct.
Biggest piece of advice for non-native speakers: Practice the conversation portion because it is the hardest one usually. You have to speak for 20 seconds to a random conversation 5 times in a continuous back and forth conversation. You get no time to think, as soon as they are done speaking, it will be your turn. If you have to stall, my advice is to say C’est bon before the actual reply because it will most likely not be wrong and give you an extra second to think about your response.
I hope this helps! Good Luck everyone! Bonne Chance! Merde! </p>
<p>From what I heard from people who have previously taken the exam, it’s really generously curved (especially for non-natives), so people who thought they failed ended up with a 5. Does anyone know the new curve for this exam though?</p>
<p>I’m a junior taking the test this week after studying French since 8th grade. I have a serious problem with listening… I’ve never had a French teacher that was a native speaker, so my main exposure has been listening to slow French with an American accent… The fact that the speakers on the audios could have accents from different regions of France, from Quebec, or from Africa is kind of scary… Does anyone have any good sites for some listening practice? I listen to a lot of French music but I was wanting to listen to some podcasts or something. By the way, if you go to YouTube and type in “Disney songs in French” they have whole playlists of Disney songs in French that are actually really fun to listen to if you love the language.
Also, the cultural comparison aspect of the oral presentation is intimidating. But, I took a mock AP exam and I got confused about the topic of the oral pres but I knew it was something about education, so I gave a pres comparing American and French profs, and even though the actual topic was comparing American and French mindsets on higher education, my teacher said the AP graders would still grade it considering I did talk about education, and if my pres was good, I could still make a 3 on that portion. I don’t know if that makes anyone feel better, but it certainly makes me feel better. I mean if you get to the test and can’t understand what the topic wants you to talk about, you can probably understand at least one word. So just give a stellar pres about that and you can still pass that section.</p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE:</p>
<p>The Terms of Service state that “All posts will be in English.” I had to delete quite a few posts in French. Don’t repost them.</p>
I’d like to echo pigscanfly… are the MC on Collegeboard deliberately too easy or are they accurate reflections of the exam?
I’m not really worried about the other parts.
in my opinion, the mc on college board is about the level on the official AP test. Barron’s was way too hard compared to the real thing. However, it serves as a good preparation~
Whew… I was worried there for a second. Hey pigscanfly (or anyone)- how was the cultural comparison last year?