IM French - Grammar Accuracy and Independent Communication
The MATSEC Intermediate French paper tests whether you can operate independently in French across listening, speaking, reading and writing, not whether you can recite memorised phrases. Grammar and vocabulary are examined directly, but they are also the criteria used to grade your composition, your reading answers and your oral, so one accurate structure earns marks several times over. This section covers the structures that separate a secure IM candidate from a borderline one.
Grammar that carries the most marks
- Tense choice: passé composé for a single completed event, imparfait for description, background and habit; depuis + present for something still going on (J'apprends le français depuis trois ans).
- Subjunctive present after il faut que, bien que, avant que, pour que; indicative after parce que and après que.
- Pronouns: y replaces à + thing or place, en replaces de + noun or a quantity. Order is me/te/nous/vous, then le/la/les, then lui/leur, then y, then en.
- Past participle agreement: always with être and pronominal verbs; with avoir only when the direct object stands before the auxiliary.
- Connectives that lift a composition: d'une part… d'autre part, cependant, par conséquent, en revanche.
Worked example
Task: rewrite J'ai pris les photos hier replacing les photos with a pronoun. Answer: Je les ai prises hier. Reasoning: les is a plural feminine direct object. It comes before the auxiliary ai, so the participle agrees and takes -es. In J'ai pris les photos, the object follows the verb and there is no agreement - the position of the object, not its meaning, decides the ending.
Traps that cost marks
- False friends: actuellement means currently, éventuellement means possibly (not eventually), assister à means to attend.
- Adding agreement after avoir when the object follows: Elle a mangé les pommes is correct, no -es.
- Using the future after si: Si j'aurai le temps must be Si j'ai le temps.
- Dropping the formal register in letters and in the oral: keep vous throughout and close with a complete formula such as Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées.
- In the oral, answer follow-up questions in the same tense frame you used in your exposé rather than switching to the infinitive.