Welcome to this deck on exam skills for your AQA GCSE French. We'll focus on the Reading and Listening papers, which together make up fifty percent of your final grade. We will cover key strategies to help you succeed, including how to spot keywords, avoid common traps called distractors, and handle different types of questions.

A core skill for both the Reading and Listening exams is identifying keywords in the question. Before you even read or listen to the French text, look at the question and underline or highlight the most important words. This tells you exactly what information you are looking for, so you can focus your attention.

Examiners often use 'distractors' to test your understanding. A distractor is a piece of information or an answer option that is designed to seem correct but isn't. In the listening exam, it might be a word that sounds similar to the correct one. In the reading exam, it could be an option that is mentioned in the text but doesn't actually answer the question.

Let's focus on the Listening exam. You will hear each recording twice. It's a good strategy to use the first listening to get the 'gist', which means the general idea of what is being said. Don't panic if you miss a word. Just try to get a broad understanding of the situation.