QCAA French study guide
QCAA French · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
French General is a Queensland senior syllabus published by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority for students completing their course in 2026 or beyond. The current syllabus is French 2025 v1.3, accompanied by a Language elements document. The assessment program combines school-based instruments and an external assessment. Published sample instruments show Unit 3 IA1 as an Examination - short response, Unit 3 IA2 as an Examination - extended response, and Unit 4 IA3 as a Multimodal presentation and interview. Topics on this exam: Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, and Unit 4. The QCAA French study guide has 4 sections and about 1,153 words.
01Unit 1 - The personal world: identity, family and routine
Unit 1 builds the personal language you will reuse all year: introducing yourself, describing family and friends, school routine, hobbies and daily life. The grammar spine is the present tense. You must control regular -er, -ir and -re verbs, the four key irregulars aller, avoir, être and faire, and reflexive verbs such as se lever, se coucher and s'habiller. Reflexive verbs appear in almost every routine question, so learn the pronoun order: je me, tu te, il/elle/on se, nous nous, vous vous, ils/elles se.
303 words, about 2 min02Unit 2 - School, community and narrating the past
Unit 2 moves from self to school life, relationships and community. You need vocabulary for subjects, timetables, rules, opinions and comparisons, and the grammar to narrate what happened. The central contrast is passé composé versus imparfait. Passé composé marks a completed event (j'ai fini, je suis allé).
308 words, about 2 min03Unit 3 - The francophone world, travel and hypotheticals
Unit 3 widens the lens to travel, cultural diversity and the French-speaking world. Expect authentic texts about destinations, festivals, customs and global issues, plus questions asking you to identify purpose, audience and tone. The grammar shifts to future and conditional: future for plans (je partirai), conditional for hypotheticals and politeness (je voudrais). The subjunctive appears after il faut que, bien que, avant que and pour que.
270 words, about 1 min04Unit 4 - Future plans, work and global citizenship
Unit 4 asks you to discuss plans, work, study and global issues with increasing precision. You need the future and future perfect (j'aurai fini), the conditional, the subjunctive and the passive (les déchets sont recyclés). Formal register matters: letters, emails and articles require vous, formulas such as Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées, and structured paragraphs. Subjunctive triggers are a common exam trap: il faut que, bien que, avant que, pour que and je veux que.
272 words, about 1 min