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Photo Card — Paper 2 Task 3 (Foundation)
📸 Photo Card — Paper 2 Task 3 (Foundation)
Foundation Paper 2 Task 3 is the photo card — worth 10 marks. The examiner shows you a photo and asks five questions about it. The first question is always the same: "Qu'est-ce qu'il y a sur la photo?" The remaining four questions relate to the topic of the photo and allow you to use your prepared vocabulary freely. The students who score highest answer every question with at least three sentences and include opinions, reasons, and speculation.
The Five-Question Structure
Always open Q1 with the standard formula, then develop it into 3–4 sentences:
Earn the mark scheme marks
💡 Exam Tips & Common Errors
- During preparation time, write down 5–6 vocabulary items related to the photo's topic — these will be your building blocks for Q2–Q5
- Do not just narrate the photo literally — speculation (peut-être que, on dirait que) is what separates Band 2 from Band 3
- If the examiner moves on before you have finished an answer, do not interrupt — you can weave undeveloped ideas into the next answer
- Vary your opinion verbs across the five answers: je pense, je trouve, à mon avis, il me semble, j'estime, j'ai l'impression que
- Connect answers to personal experience: ça me rappelle, dans ma propre expérience, pour moi personnellement — this signals genuine communicative engagement
- If you forget a noun, circumlocute: cannot remember la piscine? Say l'endroit où on nage — description is a valid strategy
❌ Common error: Describing the photo as containing "des person qui jouent au foot" — treating person as a direct English borrowing.
✓ Correct: des personnes qui jouent au football — the plural of une personne is des personnes. Alternatively: des gens (people — always used in the plural in French).
Why it costs marks: Accuracy is assessed across all five answers. Using des person or des gens without agreement, or failing to pluralise nouns, signals a gap in basic noun morphology that directly affects your language mark. Memorise both: une personne → des personnes and des gens (plural only, no singular form).