The WACE French Second Language Written Examination: Text Types, Register and Accuracy
What the written paper asks of you
The written examination tests your ability to understand and produce French across a range of text types: personal and formal letters, emails, diary entries, short articles, notices and messages. You must master text-type conventions (salutations, formulaic openings and closings, paragraphing), register (tu/vous, spoken versus written norms), tense and mood control (présent, passé composé, imparfait, futur, conditionnel, subjonctif after expressions of necessity and emotion), and cohesive devices (connecteurs such as cependant, par conséquent, d'ailleurs).
Traps that cost marks
(1) Register slips: opening a formal letter with Salut or closing with Bisous. (2) Tense mixing: using the imparfait for a single completed event (Hier je mangeais instead of j'ai mangé). (3) Anglicisms and false friends: actuellement means 'currently', not 'actually'; assister à means 'to attend'. (4) Agreement errors with être-verbs and preceding direct objects (les lettres que j'ai écrites). (5) Answering in the wrong person or tense: if the prompt says Racontez ce que vous avez fait, writing in the present loses accuracy marks. (6) Ignoring the word limit or padding with memorised chunks that do not fit the task.
Rule of thumb
Before writing, underline the task words (who, what, when, how many points) and the text type. Draft a three-part skeleton: opening formula, two or three developed ideas each with a connector and a specific detail, closing formula. Check every verb for tense and agreement on a final read-through - this single pass typically recovers several accuracy marks.
Worked example: Prompt: Écrivez un courriel à votre professeur pour expliquer pourquoi vous étiez absent. Correct opening: Monsieur/Madame, je vous écris pour vous expliquer mon absence... Closing: Je vous prie de m'excuser et vous remercie de votre compréhension. Cordialement. Note the vous-form, the passé composé for the completed absence (j'ai été absent), and the imparfait for background (j'étais malade).