Use of French language: grammar, vocabulary and syntax in context
What this domain tests
This part uses the text as a springboard for controlled grammar and vocabulary. Expect gap-fills with the correct form of a verb, sentence transformations (active to passive, direct to reported speech, two sentences joined with a relative pronoun), and vocabulary tasks such as finding a synonym or antonym in the text or forming a word from a root. The items test whether you can apply a rule inside a meaningful sentence, not whether you can recite it.
Core rules
- Choose tenses from context: present for habits and general truths, passé composé for completed actions, imparfait for background and description, plus-que-parfait for an action before another past action, futur simple for predictions.
- Si clauses: si + présent → futur simple; si + imparfait → conditionnel présent; si + plus-que-parfait → conditionnel passé. Never put the conditional immediately after si.
- Passive: être + past participle, with the participle agreeing with the subject; the agent takes par.
- Relative pronouns: qui is subject, que is direct object, dont replaces de + noun, où replaces a place or time.
- Pronouns: y replaces à + thing/place; en replaces de + noun or a quantity.
- Vocabulary items usually ask you to copy a word from the text: copy it exactly, with its ending and accent.
Worked example
Item: Si nous ___ (avoir) plus de temps, nous visiterions le musée. Answer: avions. Reasoning: the main clause visiterions is conditionnel présent, so the si clause takes imparfait. Avions is the imparfait of avoir. A common wrong answer is aurions, which would produce si nous aurions, impossible in standard French.
Traps that cost marks
- Using depuis with a past tense: depuis normally goes with the present (Je travaille ici depuis 2020).
- Forgetting past-participle agreement with a preceding direct object: les lettres que j'ai écrites.
- Confusing demander à (to ask someone) and demander de (to ask to do something).
- Translating Spanish realizar as réaliser: réaliser means to achieve or realise, not to carry out.
- Using que where dont is required: le livre dont je parle.
- Forgetting agreement in the passive: les copies ont été corrigées.