GCSE French: Reading and Vocabulary

Ten short French passages, two from each of the themes every board's reading paper is built on: family and friends, where you live and where you went, school and its rules, a part-time job and what comes after, and the wider world. Each passage is printed in full and followed by four English readings of it.

Only one is right, and the wrong ones are wrong for reasons that exist in the French rather than being obviously absurd. A negative that is easy to skate over — "il n'y a rien à faire". A tense that puts something in the past when the option puts it in the future. A word that is described as clean when the option calls the room dirty. An opinion held by the friend rather than by the writer, which is the trap in the question about the mobile phone rule. Each explanation quotes the two or three French words the answer turns on and translates them.

The twelve flashcards are all false friends, because those cost more marks in a reading paper than any amount of grammar: actuellement is currently and not actually, sensible is sensitive and not sensible, librairie is a bookshop and not a library, rester is to stay and not to rest, assister à is to attend and not to assist, passer un examen is to sit one rather than to pass it, and journée is a whole day rather than a journey.

Every person, place and situation here was invented for this set. Exam board specifications, past papers and mark schemes are copyright material and nothing is taken from them.

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• Read a short French passage and choose the English statement that matches it
• Notice a negative, and read it as changing the meaning rather than skipping over it
• Tell a past narrative apart from a future plan by its tense and its time expressions
• Separate the writer's opinion from an opinion they are reporting from someone else
• Recognise the false friends that most often mislead in a reading paper, including actuellement, sensible, librairie, rester, assister à and journée

Nous avons passé une semaine dans un petit hôtel près de la plage. La chambre était propre et le petit déjeuner était excellent, mais il y avait beaucoup de bruit la nuit à cause de la route. J'ai écrit un e-mail au directeur pour me plaindre, et il ne m'a toujours pas répondu. — one of ten passages written for this set.