Written Production - Language Accuracy (Grammar, Spelling, Syntax, Punctuation)
What this domain tests
This domain evaluates the correctness of your written French: verb conjugation and agreement, noun-adjective and subject-verb agreement, pronoun use, sentence construction, spelling, and punctuation. In Secondary 2, the high-frequency error zones are past-participle agreement, homophones, and sentence boundaries.
Core rules and concepts
- Past participle with avoir: agrees only with a direct object placed before the verb (les lettres qu'elle a écrites); no agreement otherwise (elle a écrit les lettres).
- Past participle with être: agrees with the subject in most verbs (elle est partie), including pronominal verbs when the reflexive pronoun is direct (elle s'est lavée) but not when it is indirect (elle s'est lavé les mains).
- Homophones: a/à (verb vs. preposition), ou/où (choice vs. place), ce/se, ces/ses, leur/leurs (determiner agrees; pronoun leur does not).
- Subject-verb agreement: beware inverted subjects and collective subjects; la plupart des élèves takes a plural verb.
- Sentence syntax: avoid que-clause pileups and dangling participles; each sentence needs a subject and a conjugated verb.
- Punctuation: the comma does not join two independent clauses in French; use a period, semicolon, or connector. Direct speech uses « » with a comma before the incise.
Worked example
Sentence: « Les histoires que ma grand-mère nous a raconté hier soir étaient passionnantes. »
Reasoning: the auxiliary is a (avoir). Ask: is there a direct object before the verb? Yes - que, standing for les histoires, feminine plural. Therefore the participle agrees: racontées. Corrected: Les histoires que ma grand-mère nous a racontées hier soir étaient passionnantes. Note that nous is indirect (she told stories to us) and does not trigger agreement.
Traps that cost marks
- Agreeing with the subject after avoir (elle a partie is wrong).
- Forgetting agreement with que as preceding direct object.
- Writing à for the verb a (il à raison).
- Using leur as a pronoun with an -s (je leur ai dit, never leurs).
- Joining two clauses with only a comma (comma splice).
- Omitting the comma before a direct-speech incise.