Reading comprehension (unseen prose and non-fiction passages)
Reading comprehension in the HSC French paper asks you to work with an unseen prose or non-fiction passage - often a short narrative, a portrait, a letter or a press-style article of 120–180 words - and to answer in French. The question types recur: vrai/faux with justification, short factual answers, trouvez dans le texte le contraire/synonyme de…, sentence completion, and a question on the main idea or a suitable title.
Work from the questions into the text
Read the questions before the passage, then scan for the keywords the question repeats. Answers must be short and in French; lift the key phrase from the text and match the interrogative word: Qui ? expects a person, Pourquoi ? expects parce que / car / à cause de, Comment ? expects a manner phrase.
Handle unknown vocabulary calmly
Use word families (la peur → apeuré), cognates (une usine, un village) and the sentence's connectors (mais, donc, cependant) to infer meaning. Do not stall on one unknown word; the surrounding clause usually carries the sense.
Worked example
Text: « Depuis son enfance, Meera rêve de visiter Paris ; l'an dernier, elle a enfin réalisé ce rêve. » Question: Depuis quand Meera rêve-t-elle de visiter Paris ? Answer: Depuis son enfance. Reasoning: depuis plus the present marks a state that began in the past and continues; l'an dernier with the passé composé marks the finished trip, so it answers "when did she go", not "since when has she dreamed".
Traps that cost marks
Answering l'an dernier above. Writing a full sentence when a phrase is asked, or a phrase when the instruction demands une phrase complète. Reading actuellement as "actually" (it means "currently"), éventuellement as "eventually" (it means "possibly"), assister à as "to assist" (it means "to attend"). Copying a whole paragraph as "justification" instead of the one clause that proves the answer.