HSC Italian Continuers common mistakes
HSC Italian Continuers · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing a diary entry or email about an Italian exchange trip with English syntax carried straight across, e.g. 'Ho andato' instead of 'Sono andato', or 'Mi piace molto andare al cinema con i miei amici' used identically in every paragraph regardless of tense demanded.
Candidates compose in English first and translate word by word, so auxiliary choice with essere/avere, agreement of the past participle, and verb-tense sequencing follow English logic rather than Italian rules; they also rely on memorised chunks that do not fit the task.
What to do instead
Before writing, list the required tenses and underline each verb in the draft, checking auxiliaries and participle agreement against a short personal checklist (movement/reflexive verbs take essere; participle agrees with the subject). Rehearse the same message content in three tenses (passato prossimo, imperfetto, futuro) so the structures are automatic rather than translated.
Producing a short, underdeveloped written response that answers the prompt in two or three sentences, omitting the required text type conventions (no greeting or closing in a letter, no headline or byline in an article, no register shift between tu and Lei).
Under time pressure candidates write the first ideas that come and stop, and they have not internalised the conventional structure of each text type; register is often ignored because the prompt's relationship is skimmed rather than analysed.
What to do instead
Practise a five-minute planning step: identify text type, audience, register and the number of content points required, then allocate one paragraph per point with a fixed opening and closing formula. Build a one-page reference of conventions for letter, email, article, diary, speech and note, and apply it to every practice task.
In listening tasks, answering from a single word heard in the extract (for example hearing 'treno' and writing that the trip was by train) without checking whether the speaker accepted, rejected or changed the plan later in the passage.
Candidates listen for isolated vocabulary rather than discourse meaning, panic when a word is missed, and stop processing the rest of the extract; Italian distractors often place the correct information after a negation or a correction.
What to do instead
Train with note-taking by symbol: mark agreement, disagreement, change of plan and numbers as they occur, and delay writing the full answer until the second playing. Before listening, predict the kind of information needed from the question, and practise recognising negation and contrast markers (ma, invece, purtroppo, non... affatto).
Losing marks on listening items that require inference or the speaker's attitude, giving only a literal transcription such as 'parla del lavoro' when the question asks why the speaker is worried or how she feels about the situation.
The skill of reading tone from intonation, adjectives and qualifiers is rarely practised; candidates treat listening as dictation and are uncomfortable committing to an interpretation, so they hedge or restate the topic.
What to do instead
Work through transcripts after each listening, highlighting the words that carry attitude (purtroppo, speriamo, peccato, sono stufo, mi preoccupa) and matching them to an emotion or intention. Practise answering 'come si sente / perché' questions in a full sentence that states the feeling plus the evidence from the text.
In reading tasks, copying whole sentences from the article as the answer, or lifting a phrase that contains the key word but does not actually answer the question asked (for example quoting a statistic when asked for the reason behind it).
Copying feels safe and saves time, and candidates match surface vocabulary between question and text instead of identifying the function of each sentence; they also misread question stems that ask for cause, purpose or opinion rather than fact.
What to do instead
Underline the question's operative word (perché, come, che cosa pensa, quale vantaggio) before reading, then locate the relevant sentence and rewrite the answer in your own words in the required language. Check each answer against the question by asking whether it would still make sense if the question were reversed.
Misreading cognates and false friends in written texts, translating 'attualmente' as 'actually', 'eventualmente' as 'eventually', 'parenti' as 'parents', or 'salire' as 'to sell', and building an answer on the wrong meaning.
English and Italian share Latin roots, so the brain auto-completes the familiar-looking word; these items are seldom drilled systematically, and in exam conditions the first plausible meaning is accepted without checking the surrounding context.
What to do instead
Keep a running false-friends list organised by theme (family, time, travel, work) and test yourself weekly in both directions. In the exam, when a cognate seems too easy, substitute the Italian meaning into the sentence and check that the surrounding words (e.g. 'sale sul treno', 'i miei parenti a Roma') confirm it.
Describing the personal world with generic, recycled content - the same school day, the same weekend at the beach, the same 'my family is important to me' - that does not address the specific prompt or show any individual detail.
Candidates prepare a small set of memorised paragraphs and force them onto whatever topic appears, because they lack vocabulary for the particular situation and fear making errors with new words.
What to do instead
Build a personal vocabulary bank of concrete details (names, places, routines, opinions with reasons) for recurring topics: family, friends, school, free time, future plans, health, technology. For each practice prompt, write two sentences that could only belong to that prompt, then expand around them.
Discussing Italian-speaking communities only through stereotypes or generalities ('in Italia si mangia bene', 'gli italiani sono simpatici') without naming a region, city, tradition, product or social issue, and without comparing to the candidate's own experience.
Candidates have thin background knowledge and rely on tourist clichés; they also do not realise that this domain rewards specific cultural reference and reflection rather than adjectives.
What to do instead
Prepare four or five concrete case studies with facts you can state confidently - a regional festival, a food product with protected origin, a city's migrant community, youth emigration from the south, dialect use - and for each write a short paragraph linking the fact to a personal observation. Verify each fact before the exam and drop anything uncertain.
Ignoring the word limit and the mark allocation: writing far over the limit in one writing task, or spending equal time on a two-mark and a six-mark question, so later high-value items are rushed or left blank.
Candidates draft without counting, believe more text always earns more marks, and do not check the paper's structure before starting; anxiety about the first question consumes time that the longer responses need.
What to do instead
Before starting, annotate the paper with marks per question and set a time budget proportional to marks. In writing tasks, count words at the planning stage and trim content points rather than sentences; in reading and listening, answer the high-mark questions first if time is short, and leave two minutes to check length and completeness.
Making errors that block communication in speaking and writing - wrong gender and number agreement across articles, adjectives and nouns, wrong prepositions with common verbs ('pensare di' versus 'pensare a', 'andare in' versus 'andare a'), and inconsistent use of formal versus informal address.
These forms are learned piecemeal and rarely revised as a system, and under pressure the mind reverts to the most familiar pattern; prepositions in particular are memorised as single examples rather than as verb-plus-preposition units.
What to do instead
Keep a verb-plus-preposition list (pensare a, dipendere da, interessarsi di, contare su) and a noun-adjective agreement drill, revised in short daily sessions. In drafting, read each noun phrase aloud to check article, noun and adjective together, and decide the register at the planning stage so tu and Lei never mix.