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Reading Strategies
📖 Reading Strategies
AQA Paper 3 (Reading) is not a test of vocabulary alone — it is a test of how efficiently you extract meaning from a text. Students who read the passage first and then hunt for answers waste time; students who work systematically from questions to text pick up marks quickly. This topic gives you a repeatable process for every question type on the paper.
AQA Paper 3 Question Types
Elle a une personnalité exceptionnelle et un talent remarquable pour la musique.
Earn the mark scheme marks
💡 Exam Tips & Common Errors
- Do not answer AQA reading questions from what "makes sense in English" — always find the French source.
- For grid/table tasks: read the column headers carefully before scanning — they tell you exactly what detail to hunt for.
- If a multiple-choice option uses an exact word from the text, it may be a distractor — AQA often includes a word from the text in the wrong answer to catch students who scan rather than read.
- For short answers in English: you do not need a full sentence — a precise phrase is enough. Do not pad.
- Unfamiliar verbs: try removing the ending and looking for a noun or adjective root you know (grandir → grand → to grow; rougir → rouge → to go red / blush).
❌ Common error: Reading Il a raison and translating it as "He has reason."
✓ Correct: Avoir raison is an idiomatic expression — it does not translate literally. The correct English is "He is right." This is one of the avoir expressions that must be learned as a fixed phrase.
Why it costs marks: On a short-answer or translation question, "He has reason" is not acceptable English and shows the examiner that the idiomatic meaning was not understood. The AO2 mark is lost.