Grammar and vocabulary (grammaire et vocabulaire)
Grammar and vocabulary (grammaire et vocabulaire) is the accuracy domain of PSEB Matric French. It is tested through fill-in-the-blank exercises, verb conjugation, article choice, transformation (affirmative to negative, singular to plural), matching, and short translation of set phrases. The syllabus-level core is articles, present tenses, the passé composé, agreement, negation, question forms, and basic pronouns.
Core rules
- Articles: definite le/la/les, indefinite un/une/des, partitive du/de la/de l'/des for food and drink. After a negative, partitive and indefinite usually become de: Je ne bois pas de lait; Je n'ai pas de frère.
- Present endings: -er verbs take -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent; regular -ir verbs such as finir take -is, -is, -it, -issons, -issez, -issent. Learn être, avoir, aller, faire, prendre, and venir as irregulars.
- Passé composé: avoir or être + past participle. Être is used with aller, venir, arriver, partir, entrer, sortir, naître, mourir, rester, tomber, monter, descendre, retourner; the participle agrees with the subject.
- Negation wraps the auxiliary, not the participle: Je n'ai pas mangé.
- Adjectives agree with the noun; learn irregular forms beau/belle, vieux/vieille, nouveau/nouvelle.
Worked example
Complete: Hier, Marie (aller) ______ au cinéma avec ses amies.
Answer: est allée.
Reasoning: hier places the action in the past, so use the passé composé. Aller takes être as its auxiliary. Marie is feminine singular, so the participle allé adds -e. The result is elle est allée. Writing a allé is wrong on two counts: wrong auxiliary and missing agreement.
Traps that cost marks
- Saying j'ai 15 ans, not je suis 15 ans, for age.
- Confusing savoir (to know a fact or how to do something) with connaître (to know a person or place).
- Keeping du/des after a negative instead of changing to de.
- Forgetting agreement with être verbs, especially with a female subject.
- Mixing up il y a (there is/are) and c'est (it is).
- False friends: actuellement means currently, not actually; demander means to ask, not to demand.