A student interested in testing into the second level of Spanish must make arrangements to take the placement exam in the Spring of their eighth grade year. The test is offered every May and covers the major grammatical and vocabulary points taught in our level one course. Below you will find a list of these principal points so that you can prepare for the French exam.

Vocabulary

• greetings such as Bonjour, au revoir, bonsoir, bon appétit, etc.; asking someone’s name and telling yours
• expressions il y a, voilà , voici
• expressions of time such as mois, semaine, an , année, jour, jounée, demain, hier, aujourd’hui, le soir, l’après-midi, etc. The days of the week/the months of the year/the seasons
• How to tell time
• How to tell someone’s age
• Names of countries bordering France; adjectives of nationality; names of languages
• cardinal numbers up to 100; adjectives premier and dernier
• adverbs of time (souvent, toujours, quelquefois, maintenant)
• question formation and information question words
• common prepositions
• prepositions of place
• classroom furniture
• most common clothing
• most common colors
• basic foods
• family members
• common first names in French
• cognate-based professions
• buildings and places in a town
• commong avoir expressions
• polite expressions:_ je voudrais; tu voudrais_
• vocabulary to read a simple menu
• rooms in a house; basic pieces of furniture
• faire expressions
• difference between jouer de and _jouer à _
• parts of the body

Grammer

• verb tenses: Imperative, present indicative of all common regular ER, IR, and RE verbs, as well as following irregular verbs: être, avoir, aller, faire, vouloir, pouvoir
• introduction to passé composé; covered extensively in French II
• use of above tenses in affirmative, negative, and interrogative constructions
• near future construction: aller + infinitif
• elision
• definite, indefinite, and partitive articles and contractions
• plural of nouns
• agreement and position of adjectives
• possessive adjectives: mon, ma , mes, etc.
• demonstrative adjectives: ce, cet, cette, ces
• possession with “de”
• subject pronouns
• Disjunctive pronouns: moi, toi, etc.
• negation
• interrogative adjective_ quel_ and its other forms
• expressions of quantity

Culture and Civilization

• phrases in greetings, introductions, farewells
• most important French holidays and explanation of how they’re celebrated
• countries and bodies of water bordering France
• main mountains and rivers in France

Sound Discrimination

• sound of all the letters of the alphabet
• sound changes that occur due to accents
• statement versus question intonation
• liaison
• difference between the sounds of all the nasals: -on, -in, -an, -en
• recognition of the sounds of all combinations of letters

A student passing into CP French Two must pass both parts of the exam with a minimum combined score of 70%. A student passing into Honors French Two must pass both parts of the exam with a combined score of no lower than 88%.