We analysed all of the CEFR French proficiency tests taken this summer to see what interesting statistics it threw up and we were in for a surprise. We found out the most common mistakes made in 2013 on our French test, the easiest questions that almost everyone got right, but we also discovered the question that people found the most frightening … and it wasn’t one we’d have predicted!
Most common mistakes in French
59% of students cannot correctly say they have no milk left
The most common wrong answers in our test were not in fact at the hardest level, but rather two of the CEFR level A2 (lower intermediate) questions, both of which concern prepositions, and one of which is one of the most commonly used negative French expressions. An amazing 59% of students could not correctly say they had no milk left in French, and in close second place, 58% of students could not correctly say they had lived somewhere for four years!
The easiest question
Almost nobody got our easiest question wrong
The most correctly answered question was, thankfully, a simple A0 level (absolute beginner) question about when to use le, la, and l’, which – to our relief – was correctly answered by a healthy 94% of students, although 14% skipped the question.
The most frightening question
47% of people were too afraid to answer
The most frightening question – the one the most people did not answer at all – was, remarkably, an A1 level question (beginner) about the weather! An incredible 47% of people taking the test didn’t feel confident enough to answer this simple question.
Fortunately for our students, french-test.com builds personalised study plans with links to multimedia lessons to help correct basic mistakes and identify knowledge gaps like this to guide their study.
How do you think you would fare compared to this average? Find out by taking our French Grammar Test.
If you’re a French teacher or school and would like to know how our in depth-analytics can you help you and your students with the learning process, please get in touch.
Author info
[Follow on Twitter: @gruffdavies] Despite the very Welsh name, Gruff is actually half French. Nowadays, he's a tech entrepreneur (and some-time novelist) but he used to be a physicist at Imperial College before getting hooked on inventing things. He has a special interest in language learning, speaks five languages to varying degrees of fluency and he often blogs about language learning, science, and technology. As well as co-founding Kwiziq, he is the author the Amazon best-selling SF thriller, The Looking Glass Club and the inventor of the Exertris gaming exercise-bike and Pidgin, a free online tool that makes drawing flow charts and relationship diagrams as quick and easy as describing them in pidgin English.