Anglais
At Bac A8, English is tested through a short reading passage followed by comprehension tasks, a grammar and vocabulary section, and a guided composition. The paper checks whether you can understand written English and produce correct, connected prose of about 120 to 180 words. Marks are spread fairly evenly, so a lost grammar section cannot be saved by a good essay.
Reading comprehension
- Skim the questions first, then read the passage twice.
- True/False items must be justified with a short quotation or paraphrase from the text; the justification carries the mark.
- For reference questions (what does it refer to?), answer with the noun phrase, not the whole sentence.
- Inference items: choose what the text supports, not what you personally believe.
Grammar to revise
- Present perfect vs simple past: has lived here since 2019 / lived here in 2010.
- Passive voice: the road was built by the contractors.
- Conditionals: if it rains, the harvest will fail (type 1); if I had known, I would have come (type 3).
- Reported speech: backshift the tense, change pronouns and time markers.
- Relative clauses: who, which, whose, where.
Worked example
By the time the rains came, the farmers ___ (repair) the channel. Answer: had repaired. The repair was completed before another past event, so the past perfect is required. Have repaired fails because the reference point is past; repaired loses the sequence of events.
Composition frame
Topic sentence, two developed arguments each with an example, then a concluding sentence. Link with moreover, however, therefore, as a result.
Traps
- Copying whole sentences from the passage into the composition.
- Since plus a point in time, for plus a duration.
- Third-person -s and irregular past forms (write, wrote, written).
- Ignoring the word limit or the required format (letter, article).