PAU French II (Extremadura) common mistakes
PAU French II (Extremadura) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering comprehension questions by matching a word or phrase that appears in the text to an option, without checking that the option actually restates the idea in its own context.
Under time pressure candidates scan for lexical overlap ('le chômage', 'les jeunes') and treat surface repetition as proof, ignoring negation, conditionals and scope words around it, so a distractor that reuses the text's vocabulary but reverses or narrows the claim looks correct.
What to do instead
Before choosing, locate the exact sentence(s) supporting the option and rewrite the idea in your own words in the margin; reject any option you cannot rephrase from the text. Train on texts where the correct answer is a paraphrase ('les moins de 25 ans peinent à trouver un emploi') and the distractor is a verbatim lift. Check polarity words (ne...que, ne...guère, sans, faute de) and quantifiers (la plupart, certains, rarement) in the source sentence.
Confusing the question type and answering with the wrong register: giving a personal opinion on a 'vrai/faux + justifiez' item, or copying a full sentence when asked to justify with a short quotation.
The instructions in PAU-style papers mix task verbs (justifiez, relevez, expliquez, résumez, traduisez) and candidates read only the content words, not the task verb, so they produce the right information in the wrong format and lose justification marks even when the idea is correct.
What to do instead
Underline the task verb in every item before reading the text. Learn the operational difference: 'relevez' = copy the exact words from the text; 'justifiez' = quote a short fragment (a few words) that proves it; 'expliquez' = reformulate in your own words; 'vrai/faux' needs a verdict plus evidence. Practise with a checklist of task verbs and self-mark against it.
Writing the composition with Spanish-influenced syntax: calques such as 'je suis d'accord avec que', 'il faut que nous faisons', 'je pense que c'est très important de...' and overusing the personal subject with no inversion or pronoun.
Candidates translate mentally from Spanish, where 'estar de acuerdo con que', indicative after 'hay que' and heavier subject pronouns are grammatical; they have not automatised French structures, so the L1 pattern surfaces under exam pressure when they focus on ideas rather than form.
What to do instead
Build a personal list of the ten structures you actually use in essays (opinion, obligation, cause, consequence, hypothesis) and drill each in French only: 'je partage l'avis selon lequel...', 'il faut + infinitive', 'il est important de + infinitive', 'je pense que + indicative' vs 'je ne pense pas que + subjunctive'. Re-read your draft once solely hunting for 'que' after a preposition and for a conjugated verb where an infinitive is required.
Mishandling verb morphology in production: wrong auxiliary (j'ai parti), missing agreement of the past participle (elle est allé), inconsistent tense sequencing between narrative and commentary, and unstable subjunctive forms.
The passé composé with être verbs, participle agreement and the subjunctive are learned as lists rather than as systems, and candidates write at speed without a revision pass, so high-frequency errors that carry real marks survive into the final copy.
What to do instead
Memorise the DR MRS VANDERTRAMP-type être verbs as a closed set and apply agreement only with a preceding direct object for avoir verbs. In the exam, reserve three minutes to run a targeted sweep: circle every past participle, every auxiliary, every verb after 'il faut que / bien que / pour que'. Keep a personal error log from practice essays and count recurrences; fix the top three only.
Producing a composition with no visible plan: paragraphs that repeat the same idea, no thesis, and a conclusion that merely restates the introduction or stops abruptly.
Candidates start writing the first sentence immediately to save time, so ideas arrive in the order they occur; without an outline there is nothing to structure, and the word limit is met by padding rather than developing arguments.
What to do instead
Spend five minutes on a skeleton before writing: a one-line position, two or three arguments each with an example, and a closing line that opens or concludes. Use a fixed frame for the exam (introduction with the topic reformulated + plan; two body paragraphs, each with a connector and an example; conclusion with position + opening). Write the skeleton in the margin and tick each point as you cover it.
Using connectors as decoration: stringing 'de plus', 'en effet', 'cependant' at the start of every sentence regardless of the logical relation, or confusing cause and consequence markers ('grâce à' for a negative cause, 'par conséquent' where an objection is needed).
Connectors are memorised as a list of 'advanced words' to raise the register, without the logical value being attached, so candidates insert them mechanically and the argument reads as contradictory even when the ideas are sound.
What to do instead
Learn connectors in functional pairs and use them only where the relation is real: cause (parce que, en raison de, faute de), consequence (donc, par conséquent, d'où), opposition (or, en revanche, bien que + subj.), addition (de plus, par ailleurs), illustration (par exemple, ainsi). In revision, check each connector by asking what question it answers (why? so what? on the other hand?). Delete any connector whose relation you cannot name.
Losing cohesion through referential gaps: repeating the same noun in every sentence instead of using pronouns (celui-ci, en, y, le leur), or switching subject and tense mid-paragraph so the reader cannot tell who does what.
Pronoun placement and the choice between le/la/les, lui/leur, en and y are the least automatised part of French grammar for Spanish speakers, so candidates avoid pronouns altogether; avoidance produces repetitive, choppy prose that loses cohesion marks.
What to do instead
Practise rewriting short paragraphs by replacing repeated nouns with the correct pronoun, including 'en' for quantities ('j'en ai trois') and 'y' for places and 'à + thing'. In your own draft, count how many times the key noun appears; if more than twice, replace one occurrence with a pronoun. Keep one tense for the narrative and one for commentary, and mark the switch explicitly.
Treating the French-speaking world as France only: locating all cultural references in France, missing Belgian, Swiss, Quebec and African francophone examples, and answering culture items with stereotypes rather than facts.
Textbooks and media input skew heavily towards France, so candidates have thin knowledge of other francophone realities and fill gaps with clichés (all francophones speak the same French, 'la province' as a synonym for countryside) that the item is designed to test against.
What to do instead
Build a one-page fact sheet per area with verifiable items: Belgium and Switzerland as federal states with several official languages, Quebec's Charter of the French Language and its linguistic debate, Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire's French as an official second language alongside national languages, the OIF as an organisation of dozens of states. For any text set outside France, note the country and check that your answer uses that context rather than a French default.
Ignoring register in the written task: writing 'tu' forms, slang or contractions in a formal letter or opinion piece, or writing stiff, bookish prose in an informal message to a friend.
Candidates focus on grammatical accuracy and content and treat register as decoration; they also transfer the Spanish tendency to address the reader informally, and have not internalised the formulaic openings and closings that signal register in French writing.
What to do instead
Decide the register before writing and fix three signals: pronoun (vous/tu), opening formula ('Madame, Monsieur,' / 'Salut,'), closing formula ('Je vous prie d'agréer...' / 'À bientôt'). Ban contractions and slang in formal tasks and avoid the passé simple in informal ones. Keep a short bank of formal formulas (demande, réclamation, remerciement) and informal ones, and check your draft against the register you chose.
Misreading the vocabulary item by choosing a synonym from Spanish intuition or from the word's shape: assuming 'actuellement' means 'actually', 'éventuellement' means 'eventually', 'assister à' means 'to assist', or translating false friends in context questions.
Spanish and French share Latin roots, so candidates trust resemblance; the classic faux amis are precisely the high-frequency words that lexical items target, and the wrong option is built on that resemblance.
What to do instead
Keep a running faux-amis list with the correct French equivalent: actuellement = currently (Sp. actualmente = en fait/actuellement vs 'actually' = en fait), éventuellement = possibly, assister à = to attend, attendre = to wait, réaliser = to achieve/carry out, sensible = sensitive. Test each candidate synonym by substituting it into the original sentence and checking that the sentence still means the same thing.