Languages and scientific communication: Arabic, French and English
This section tests whether you can read and produce precise scientific text in Arabic, French and English. Expect vocabulary in context, sentence rewriting, unit and symbol conventions, and recognition of register errors rather than literary analysis.
Core rules
- Precision: replace vague quantifiers ('a lot', 'beaucoup', 'كثير') with numbers, units and conditions. Define abbreviations at first use.
- Register: scientific writing favors clear actors and measured claims. Passive voice is useful when the method matters more than the agent, but overuse hides responsibility. Hedging verbs (suggest, indicate, suggestent, تشير) match evidence strength.
- Structure: an abstract normally states context, objective, method, principal result and conclusion; a results paragraph reports findings without interpretation.
- Terminology: SI units are written with a space between number and unit (25 mL), symbols are case-sensitive (mg versus Mg), and decimal commas are standard in French and Arabic scientific text.
- False friends: French 'éventuellement' means possibly, not eventually; 'expérience' can mean experiment; English 'actually' is not French 'actuellement' (currently).
Worked example
Rewrite: 'We did tests on a lot of samples and got good results.' Model answer: 'Triplicate assays were performed on 24 soil samples; recovery ranged from 92% to 97%.' Reasoning: the revision names the method (triplicate assays), the sample size (24), and a quantitative outcome (92–97% recovery). It removes 'a lot' and 'good', which cannot be verified, and keeps past tense for completed work.
Traps that cost marks
- Translating idioms word for word across Arabic, French and English.
- Mixing decimal points and decimal commas within one text.
- Omitting the space or using the wrong case in unit symbols.
- Writing conclusions in the results section.
- Using an emotional adjective where a measured value is required.