FLA Concours d'Admission common mistakes
FLA Concours d'Admission · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Producing a French dissertation or commentaire composé with no explicit problématique and no announced plan, then listing ideas in the order they come to mind.
Candidates trained on short-answer work treat the essay as a knowledge dump; under time pressure they start writing the introduction before deciding what question the text actually poses, so the développements have no spine and the conclusion merely repeats the introduction.
What to do instead
Before writing, spend five minutes on a rough draft grid: reformulate the subject into one interrogative sentence (problématique), choose two or three axes that each answer part of it, and assign two sub-arguments plus one precise textual quotation or example per axis. Write the introduction last-but-one, verifying that it announces exactly the axes developed, and make the conclusion answer the problématique explicitly rather than summarise.
Analysing a literary text by paraphrasing its content or retelling the story instead of naming devices and quoting the exact words that produce effects.
Candidates confuse comprehension with commentary; they fear misidentifying a figure de style, so they retreat to safe summary. They also lack a memorised toolkit (champ lexical, énonciation, rythme, registre) and therefore cannot move from observation to interpretation.
What to do instead
Build a one-page revision sheet of devices with a canonical example each, and train the formula 'citation + identification of the device + effect produced + link to the axis'. In every paragraph, enforce a rule that no sentence may describe what happens without quoting at least three words of the text and stating what that wording does to the reader.
Losing most of the marks in the mathematics paper on routine questions: sign errors when expanding, forgetting to check the domain of validity of an equation or the endpoints of an interval, and giving a decimal approximation where an exact value is required.
Under concours timing, candidates rush the first questions to reach the impressive final problem, and French secondary training often rewards the final result more than rigour, so verification reflexes were never automatised. Exact values (surds, fractions, π) feel slower to write than decimals.
What to do instead
Adopt a mandatory closing routine per question: re-read the question, check the domain or the hypotheses, verify one endpoint or a special value, and confirm the requested form (exact versus approximate, units). Drill ten short exercises per week where the mark is awarded for justification, not the answer, and write solutions in the expected style: 'pour tout x appartenant à…', 'or', 'donc'.
In history-geography, writing a composition that narrates events chronologically without a thesis, or producing a croquis (sketch map) with no title, no key and illegible or ungraded symbols.
The narrative reflex comes from collège-level récits; candidates also treat the map as decoration rather than an argument. Cartographic conventions (titre, légende organisée, figurés hiérarchisés, échelle, orientation) are rarely rehearsed under time constraints, so they are improvised on the day.
What to do instead
For compositions, impose a thesis sentence in the introduction and organise paragraphs by theme or scale rather than by date, using dates as evidence. For croquis, rehearse a fixed checklist - title framing the spatial issue, organised key with three levels of symbols, north arrow and scale, neat lettering - and practise producing one complete sketch in twenty minutes from a blank outline, then self-mark against the checklist.
Answering civic and moral education questions with vague moralising ('il faut être tolérant', 'le respect est important') instead of mobilising precise legal and institutional references and a structured argument.
Candidates mistake EMC for an opinion subject and do not realise marks come from accurate concepts (laïcité, État de droit, séparation des pouvoirs, libertés fondamentales) and from analysing a real situation. Their revision notes are slogans rather than definitions with examples.
What to do instead
Memorise a compact glossary of twenty institutions and principles with one dated example or legal text each (loi de 1905, Déclaration de 1789, Convention internationale des droits de l'enfant). Practise the 'notion - definition - example - limit' pattern on past scenarios such as a dispute over religious symbols in a public service, so the answer argues with references rather than asserting values.
In sciences, describing what happens in an experiment instead of explaining it: giving observations without a model, omitting units and significant figures, and confusing the roles of a hypothesis, a protocol and a conclusion.
Candidates reproduce the laboratory narrative they memorised rather than reasoning from evidence to model, and they underestimate how heavily concours marking rewards correct units, orders of magnitude and explicit causal chains. Mixed physics-chemistry-biology revision leaves gaps where terminology is only half known.
What to do instead
Rewrite each experiment as a three-line structure: observation with numbers and units, interpretation invoking the model or law, conclusion answering the question asked. Maintain an errors log of unit slips (mA versus A, mol versus mmol) and practise converting values aloud. For biology, rehearse diagrams with labelled scales and state the causal mechanism, not just the sequence of stages.
In the English paper, translating word for word from French, producing grammatically French-influenced sentences, and answering the comprehension questions by copying long passages rather than reformulating.
Candidates read for gist and answer from memory of the paragraph instead of locating the exact sentence, and their grammatical automatisms (tense choice, articles, prepositions, false friends like 'actually', 'eventually') are not consolidated. Copying feels safer than risking an error in their own words.
What to do instead
For comprehension, underline the key words of the question, locate the relevant lines, and write a short answer in your own words with the line reference, then check that the tense and subject-verb agreement are correct. Keep a personal list of thirty false friends and ten tense contrasts, and do a five-minute rewrite exercise weekly where a French sentence must be rendered twice and compared.
Treating general knowledge and current affairs as unpredictable and therefore not revising it, then answering with approximate dates, confused institutions or invented names.
Candidates believe culture générale is innate, and the volume of news feels unmanageable. When they do answer, they overstate uncertain memories rather than qualifying them, which costs more than admitting a gap.
What to do instead
Build a structured two-page framework: French institutions and recent reforms, European Union institutions, major international organisations, five recurring global issues (climate, migration, digital regulation, public health, security), each with two dated facts. Review one quality newspaper's international section weekly and record facts in that grid, and in the exam write 'à ma connaissance' or omit rather than assert a doubtful date.
In logical reasoning, answering the first plausible option in multiple-choice items without eliminating alternatives, and in problem solving, modelling the situation with the wrong quantity (for example, treating a rate as an absolute value or ignoring a constraint).
Multiple-choice format rewards speed and recognition over proof, so candidates pattern-match to familiar-looking answers. Word problems are read once, and the unknown is chosen before the relationships between quantities are clarified, so the equation encodes the wrong situation.
What to do instead
Apply a fixed protocol: read the stem twice, underline the constraints and the question, then eliminate options explicitly with a reason for each rejection before selecting. For problems, define the unknown in words, write the relationships as equations before substituting numbers, and test the result against the constraints and the order of magnitude. Practise ten timed items daily, logging whether each error was a reading, modelling or calculation error.
Mismanaging time across papers of different lengths: spending too long on one long essay or difficult exercise, leaving whole sections blank, and failing to re-read the instructions so that only one of two required parts is answered.
Candidates allocate effort by emotional difficulty rather than by marks per minute, and concours papers often contain a choice or a two-part instruction that is missed in the opening rush. Without a rehearsed timing plan, the final section is always the casualty.
What to do instead
In the first three minutes, count the questions and marks, write a minute budget beside each section, and reserve ten minutes for checking. Answer in order of marks per minute, never exceeding the budget by more than a few minutes, and use a highlighter on instruction verbs (analyser, justifier, comparer, traiter au choix) at the start. Rehearse the full timing under exam conditions at least twice before the concours.