BAC 2023. This Thursday, June 15, first year students take the written French test at the baccalaureate. Discover the topics and the answers.
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For students in the vocational stream, the subject invited them to analyze the following texts: Ivanhoné by Walter Scott, Brûlant secret by Stefan Zweig and Téléréalité by Aurélien Bellanger. The subject has four questions to assess reading skills and then one question to assess the candidates’ writing level. Find the subjects in their entirety below, thanks to Studyrama, which gives each year subjects and corrections.
If the test has been redefined by the reform of the baccalaureate, the expectations remain the same according to the specialized site Les cours du Parnasse: “master the French language, be able to express oneself clearly, analyze texts and build a personal reflection. ” When writing, each student has two topics to choose from: an essay or text commentary.
High school students must above all master the registers and literary movements of the program to pass this exam. The figures of speech and the authors analyzed during the year must also be well in mind. The basics of French are also not to be neglected: the spelling, grammar and conjugation of the copies must be irreproachable or risk losing points.
According to Hélène Bastard, a French teacher interviewed by Le Parisien, several points are essential. The first is to manage your time well. For her, 30 to 40 minutes are necessary for the analysis of the subject, just as half an hour must be kept for the proofreading at the end of the test, the substance being “as important as the form”. The professor also advises to avoid too long sentences, approximate quotations and to take care of the presentation of its copy, namely to avoid an overuse of white, to write in a legible way, not to opt for a pale ink, to avoid erasures, make line breaks, underline the titles of works cited or make indents at the beginning of paragraphs.
For group 1 of the foreign centers, the high school students of the general series had the choice between a commentary on Les Deux Consolés by Voltaire about the literature of ideas from the 16th century to the 18th century and a dissertation on the theater from the 17th century to the 21st century. For the second option, the candidates had to deal with the work studied during the year from among the three proposed: here, Le Malade imaginaire by Molière, Les Fausses Confidences by Marivaux or Just the end of the world by Jean-Luc Lagarce.
The students of the technological series had to work on a choice of a text commentary on A door must be open or closed by Alfred de Musset, a work present in the object of study the theater from the 17th century to the 21st century, or on a contraction of text on the literature of ideas from the 16th century to the 18th century. As in the general series, for the text contraction the candidates had to deal with the work studied during the year among the three proposed: an extract from a text by René Blanchet in connection with Gargantua by Rabelais, a text by Martial Guédron compared to La Bruyère and her Les Caractères or an excerpt from Lucie Azéma’s text for the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens of Olympes de Gouges.
Topics in North America have been revealed for the general series. The play Bérénice by Jean Racine was to be commented on, a work present in the object of study the theater from the 17th to the 21st century. The dissertation focused on the novel and the narrative from the Middle Ages to the 21st century with the choice: Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost, La Peau de chagrin by Honoré de Balzac or Sido followed by Les Vrilles de la vigne by Colette.
In the general series, the written test lasts four hours. It is marked out of 20 for a coefficient of five. Anne Laurens, French teacher at François Truffaut high school (Challans), gives her advice for the written exam: “You have to master the methodology. You have to avoid the famous: ‘I’m going to talent’, but rather make cards on each work with the key words to remember.”
High school students must choose between a text commentary and an essay. As for the test of the technological baccalaureate, it includes a commentary with the axes of reading or a contraction of the text followed by an essay on a work studied during the year. Also lasting 4 hours, the test is scored out of 20 points, or 10 points 10 points depending on the choice of subject.
For the oral, each candidate is summoned to another high school to pass in front of an unknown teacher. The oral lasts 50 minutes: 30 min of preparation and 20 min of passage. This passage is composed of a reading on two lines, an explanation of linear text, an interview on a work chosen by the student with a short presentation then five minutes of discussion. The coefficient is also five.
For the oral, she advises: “Read and reread the texts, appropriate them. You must have in mind the structure of the text and the problem to attach them to a clear spine. The student can then stagger his remarks facing to his examiner.” In the general series, the students have 20 texts to know while in the technological series, this figure drops to 12 because these high school students have fewer hours of French lessons.
It is obviously impossible to predict the subjects of the various French tests, but the best way to train there is still to take a look at those from last year in order to be ready on D-Day. On June 8, the subjects of several French high schools abroad will be unveiled and will make it possible to offer new training exercises. During revisions to the French baccalaureate, no concept should be overlooked because many of them can be used regardless of the subjects that will fall during the exam on Thursday, June 15:
