This year, the number of texts to be presented orally will be reduced to 16 in the general track and to 9 in the technological track. First year students will take the written French tests on June 16, 2022.
What is the date of the written exams for the French baccalaureate in 2022?
The advance written French tests will take place Thursday, June 16, 2022, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The written French exams for the general baccalaureate relate to a text commentary or an essay. The test lasts 4 hours and is marked out of 20 points. The tests for the technological baccalaureate relate to a commentary or a contraction of a text followed by a test. The test lasts 4 hours and is marked out of 20 points, or 10 points + 10 points.
The oral French test is the same for the general baccalaureate and the technological baccalaureate. The examiner chooses an excerpt from a work selected from among those studied during the year by the student in class who must read it aloud and place it in the author’s story and career (2 points). The student must then explain the excerpt in a linear fashion (8 points) and answer a grammar question (2 points). During the second part of the test, the student must present a work that he has chosen from among those studied and is scored out of 8 points.
The choice of the text before the preparation. Before the start of the test, the examiners choose two texts from among the texts studied during the year. The pupil can himself choose between these two texts the one on which he is questioned. “For the second part of the test, candidates will be able to consult and use the work studied in cursive reading, in order to circulate in the work, refer to a specific passage, and thus demonstrate their mastery of the work read” , says the ministry.
How many oral French texts?
In order to take into account the effects of the health situation on the schooling of pupils, the number of texts to be presented orally will be reduced to 16 in the general track and to 9 in the technological track.
Among the texts studied this year are: “Gargantua”, “The Red and Black”, but also “The Imaginary Invalid”. The students will work on “the literature of ideas from the 16th century to the 18th century”, “Poetry from the 19th century to the 21st century”, “The novel and the narrative from the Middle Ages to the 21st century” and “The theater from the 17th century to the 21st century”. In 2021, due to the Covid, the number of texts had been reduced to 14 texts instead of 20 texts in the general track, and 7 texts instead of 12 in the technological track. The oral test of the French baccalaureate had also been adapted: the points of the program which had not been addressed in class due to the health crisis had been mentioned on the description of each candidate.
French baccalaureate: what coefficient?
The advance French tests at the end of first year have a coefficient of 5 in writing, and 5 in speaking.
What were the subjects of the French baccalaureate in 2021?
A few days before the oral, the students of Première Générale and Technologie worked on their written French. The general series was able to choose between four different topics: a text commentary and three dissertations, all multiplied by two depending on the courses studied during the year. Students could comment on an excerpt from the novel Things by George Pérec for the theme “The novel and the narrative from the Middle Ages to the 21st century”. They could also write about “Poetry from the 19th century to the 21st century” with three different topics:
- “In the preface to Contemplation, Victor Hugo describes his collection as a mirror held up to readers. How does this image reflect your reading of the first four books in the collection?
- “Baudelaire has been criticized for “painting everything, laying bare everything” in his collection The evil flowers. What do you think ?”
- “Does the poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire invent itself by rejecting the past?”
The second text commentary concerned the poem “The old station of Cahors” by Valéry Larbaud. There were also three dissertation proposals between the theater from the 17th century to the 21st century:
- “The comedy The imaginary patientis it a spectacle of pure fantasy?”
- “In False Confidences of Marivaux, is the theatrical stratagem only a comic spring?”
- “Would you say that Jean-Luc Lagarce’s play Just the end of the world is an intimate drama?
As for First Technological students, they had the choice between 4 subjects: a commentary on an excerpt from the novel The promise of dawn by Romain Gary or a contraction of text and an essay around these three subjects:
- For the course “Our world has just found another”: contraction of the text “The discovery of America” by Tzvetan Todorov and essay on “How to overcome the obstacles that prevent different cultures from meeting?
- For the course “Imagination and thought in the 17th century”: contraction of the text “Books have power” by Eloïse Lhérété and essay on “Does the imagination distance us from the world or does it allow us to better understand it ?”
- For the course “Voltaire, spirit of the Lights: contraction of the text “Lights. Can we educate the people?” by Antoine Lilti and essay on “Do we only learn to think by reading books?”