Compréhension écrite (Reading comprehension): text, questions and justification
The reading paper gives you one or more short French texts - a letter, a fait divers, a small advert, a notice, a school article - followed by questions in French. Typical items are vrai/faux with justification obligatoire, synonym or antonym searches, « Que signifie … dans le texte ? », pronoun references (« À quoi renvoie le dans la troisième ligne ? ») and the main idea of a paragraph.
How to work the text
- Read the questions first, then the text; you then read for a purpose instead of decoding every word.
- Answer in French, in a full sentence, reusing the text's own vocabulary without copying whole paragraphs.
- A justification must be a short quotation placed in guillemets, limited to the clause that proves your point.
- If a word is unknown, use morphology and context: désormais (from now on), mécontenter (mé- + content = to displease), reboiser (re- + bois).
Language points that decide true/false items
- Negation and restriction: ne… personne, ne… guère, sans, ne… que, sauf - each one flips an item.
- Reference words: le/la/les (direct object), lui/leur (indirect), y (à + thing or place), en (de + quantity), relatives qui/que/dont/où.
- False friends: actuellement = currently (not « actually »); éventuellement = possibly; demander = to ask; ignorer = not to know; attendre = to wait; la librairie = bookshop.
- Tense shifts: a text in the passé composé describes completed events; the imparfait describes background or habit. An item about a habit cannot be proved by a one-off event.
Worked example
Text: « Bien que le marché de Mokolo soit le plus animé de la ville, il ferme désormais à dix-sept heures, ce qui mécontente les commerçants. » Item: Les commerçants sont satisfaits de la nouvelle heure de fermeture. Reasoning: Bien que signals concession, désormais means « from now on », and mécontente is the opposite of satisfaits. Answer: Faux - justification: « ce qui mécontente les commerçants ».
Traps that cost marks
Answering vrai/faux without the required quotation; quoting a whole sentence when only one clause proves the point; translating the answer into English; importing outside knowledge the text never states; confusing who a pronoun refers to.