I took the old 'O' level exam - struggled with the oral but passed. Did the first leg of the OU French. My course work was much higher than my exam result. As an auto didact, I have been studying for 60 years.
Recently, a number of people have thanked us for our help in passing an official French exam, which makes us wonder – have you ever taken one? We’d love to hear from you!
1. What exam and level did you take?
2. How did you do?
3. Did Kwiziq help?
Please respond by posting a comment below, or by using our contact form. Any information you’re willing to share will help us in our continuing efforts to make Kwiziq as useful and user-friendly as possible.
Official French exams
Author info
Laura is a French expert and Kwiziq's Head of Quality Control. Online educator since '99, Laura is passionate about language, travel, and cooking. She's American by birth and a permanent ex-pat by choice - freelancing made it possible for her to travel extensively and live in several countries before settling permanently in Guadeloupe. Laura is the author of Lawless French, Lawless Spanish, and other websites and books on French, Spanish, Italian, English, and vegetarianism. She spends most of her spare time reading, playing with food, and enjoying water sports.
Comments: 15
In reply to your question "have I ever taken a french exam ?", the answer is No, I had no french lessons at school :(, and came to france about five years ago with only minimum language skills. I have 68 years now and have to admit I find the language hard but I do a little every day .... The problem is remembering it so I think your site is a good one for me.
Thank you for your help and Happy 2016 to you.
Hi Laura - I have taken a French exam, but my answer probably won't be much use to you. It was GCE (not GCSE) O-level and it was in 1957! I passed with a mark 75% (this was regarded as quite good). Occasional working visits to France and Belgium have helped me stay reasonably competent - I can get by quite well verbally and I read books in French for pleasure. My Spanish is better than my French, and I know some German and Russian. However, the Kwiziq tests make me realise how much of the finer points of French grammar I've forgotten!
Hi! To answer your question, so far I haven't took any official French exam. I am not a student anymore and I'm studying French on my own as my partner is French. I find Kwiziq to be really helpful, it's very thorough and the structure is great. Exams now seems to be less intimidating now since I'm using them so often. If the monthly fee was cheaper I would have definitely subscribed to it. Thank you for making Kwiziq so fabulous :)
I went to France when I was 23 to work for a French family so picked up low level speaking French. When I retired in 2005 I decided to work on the grammar as I finally had the time. I discovered Laura's site in 2010 and it was a god send as a weekly class of two hours was really not enough to get to a good French speaking level. Thank you Laura for all the help and above all confidence to speak French when I visit France.
Encore une ėtudiante ancienne. O level environ 1960. J'ai pris ma retraite recennement et j'irais à Paris en février et peut-être Brittany en avril au vélo. Je voudrais améner mon francais et parle avec les gens francais.
Je suis desolé en avance pour mes efforts !
Barbara
Have I taken an official French exam? The answer is 'No'. I'm just about to complete 6 months of 'Frantastique' which is also part of your offerings. I'm now retired in Australia and doing French only out of interest to learn it at a slow pace not to meet any exam. requirements, partly because I'm also studying Mandarin at the same time, besides other unrelated stuff. I'm happy with Kwizbot's free offering at the moment.
Thanks for responding, Kaiying! Please note that Frantastique has nothing to do with Kwiziq; it's another learning program I offer through my personal French site, https://www.lawlessfrench.com
Yes - I took my GCE French exam in 1963. I passed but we were not told the grade/ or /% which was not very helpful. I have been trying to improve on and off since about 1984!
1
I haven't taken any of the official French exams and probably never will, but I have, and will continue to use Kwiziq. Since signing up I worked my way up to C1 but found it very difficult. So I decided to go back to the beginning and test on each level until I reached the "end". Even tho I tested proficient for all topics in the level, I found there still is a lot of work to do. I am very impressed with the depth of each level. You can spend an hour a day testing in one level and repeat daily for a week or more. I was not expecting this, it makes me very glad to have decided to sign up.
I'm also impressed with the ability to build and maintain my own Notebook of topics I want to learn or review, this is a very valuable resource à mon avis.
There are a many resources on the internet to learn French but none like Progress with Lawless French (powered by Kwiziq). C'est vraiment formidable!
Yes, I took DELF B1 in December 2014. I was enrolled on courses for most of the year and I can't remember if I was using Kwiziq much. Since the exam, I have not been on any course but I read French books and listen to the radio. Kwiziq is good for helping to remember grammar. Thanks
When my wife and I knew we wanted to retire to France we started studying French at evening classes in Wales. neither of us having touched the language since schooldays. We didn't find it easy ( we're not natural linguists), but we finished up taking A-level GCSE about 5 years ago, and passing quite comfortably. We've only been using Kwisiq for the last couple of years, and although I find it very useful I still struggle badly with listening and conversation. My wife does much better in that respect. We both enjoy studying French for pure pleasure and for the practical purposes of living in France (3 years now), and integrating in the French community. You and Kwiziq are a terrific resource, many thanks.
Thank you very much for your activities. I'm trying to do 30 tests a day. I've already done about 1500 tests and I must say that my French is getting better. A lot of grammar things have become clearer to me. Vous êtes vraiment super!
J'ai passé et reussi DELF B1.
I went to evening classes, read BDs, and visited france - I stayed at chambres d'hote because one speaks more french than in a hotel and am still in contact with the hosts 7 years later.
My only tip for the exam is to sit near the front for the listening bit because the tape recorder / CD player was crap.
I like taking exams and enjoyed the experience; the worse bit was paying for a rail ticket bristol - London, because an easyjet to a french city would have been cheaper.
Kwiziq was not around then, but I used Laura's last site aboutfrench.com and it was really useful for some difficult topics.
I took a municipal government language test in Canada for my job. They don't test specifically on grammar - you have to have a conversation which is recorded and then write 200 words. After you're gone, the tester grades it using a secret rubric. I didn't do so well last time, and I'm hoping that focusing on grammar will help me raise my mark the next time I write it.