62 Ask your teacher to test you on previous aurals from years back as far as the early 1990s if

possible. Listen to your own CDs and downloads.

63Log on to Google.fr for French, Google.de for German or Google.es for Spanish and
search YouTube for clips in your chosen language. Even if you don’t understand every word,
your ear will become accustomed to it.

64 For French, log onto tf1.fr and listen to Le Journal de 13h or 20h , a popular news channel
on French TV. You can also listen to French news on rfi.fr and radiofrance.fr.

General language advice

65Do not learn off big long essays on every topic. You will get bogged down and become
disheartened. Write three points on each topic and learn about 20 words of vocabulary. Make
sure you have decent sentences to begin and end a written piece.

66 Don’t use Google translate as it translates literally and does not take context into
consideration. Wordreference.com is an excellent translation site. It will only translate one
word at a time, so it can be frustrating but there are interesting help forums on the site.

67Familiarise yourself with the way questions are asked at the end of each reading
comprehension.

68 Don’t be tempted to learn off opinion pieces by heart. It is unlikely that the piece that you
will have learned will answer the question given in the paper. You will be heavily penalised
if you don’t address the question, even if the language that you have used is correct. Instead,
build up your vocabulary for the different topics on the syllabus and practice with past or
mock examination papers.

69Check out @PetitTweetCork for tweets in French to help LC students in prep for French
exam. @NatashaLynchEF

Biology

70 It is best to spend 30 minutes at one time studying biology. Take a short, five-minute
break after 30 minutes and then move on to the next subject.

71Try to spend about four 30 minute sessions per week devoted to answering past papers.
These could range over the short questions in section A, the experimental questions in section
B and the long questions in section C.

72About 25 per cent of the marks are gained from knowing your definitions. These should be
learned off by heart.
73 Between 15 and 30 per cent of the marks are gained from the experiments. As there are
only 22 experiments, it is possible to cover one experiment per day over the course of a
month. When learning the experiments you have to know the steps taken and the reason for
taking each step.