Paper 2 - Reading: skim/scan, dealing with unknown vocabulary

Cambridge IGCSE French 0520 Paper 2 (Reading) is the paper where you read French and show you have understood it. Here is what you are dealing with:

Feature	Detail
Marks	45 marks
Weighting	25% of the qualification
Time	About 1 hour
What you read	Short, authentic-style French texts: signs, adverts, emails, messages, blogs, articles, interviews
How you answer	A mix of: answer in English, answer in French, multiple choice, tick the box, true/false, and matching
Topic areas	The five 0520 themes: everyday life; personal & social life; the world around us; the world of work; the international world

The exercises move from easier to harder through the paper. Early questions are often short texts with tick-box or multiple-choice answers; later questions are longer texts needing answers written in French.

Read the rubric (the instructions). It tells you the language to answer in and the type of answer expected. A common, avoidable error is answering in French when the question wanted English, or writing full sentences when a single word was enough.

Worked mini-example — reading the signposts. If a question says "Answer in English" and is worth 1 mark, the examiner wants one piece of information — a word or short phrase. You do not need a full sentence, and you will not lose marks for imperfect English. Match the size of your answer to the mark.

These two reading skills sound similar but they are used at different moments, and good candidates switch between them deliberately.

Skimming — reading for the gist. Skimming is fast, light reading to find out what a text is about overall. You let your eyes glide over it without stopping on hard words. You look at:

• the title and any pictures,
• the layout (is it an email, an advert, a timetable, a blog?),
• the first and last lines, and any bold or repeated words.

After 20-30 seconds you should be able to say: "This is an email from a girl describing her holiday in the mountains." That gist alone helps you guess the meaning of unknown words later.

Scanning — reading for a specific detail. Scanning is targeted hunting. You already know (from the question) exactly what you are looking for — a name, a number, a time, a place or a reason — so you sweep the text for that one thing and ignore everything else.

For example, if the question asks "At what time does the train leave?", you scan only for a time (digits, or words like heures — o'clock, matin — morning) and stop the moment you find it.

Worked mini-example. Suppose a short text is headed « Camping Les Pins — ouvert d'avril à septembre » (Camping Les Pins — open from April to September). Skim: it's an advert for a campsite. Scan for the question "When is the campsite open?": you hunt for months and find d'avril à septembre → April to September. You never needed to read the rest of the advert.

Under exam pressure you want a routine you can trust. Use the same five steps on every question.

Step	What you do	Why
1	Read the question first (before the text section it refers to)	Tells you what to look for
2	Underline the keyword(s) in the question	Gives you a target to scan for
3	Scan the text for that keyword (or a synonym of it)	Finds the right line fast
4	Read carefully around the line you found	Negatives and small words change the meaning
5	Answer to the marks in the required language	1 mark = 1 detail; don't over-write

Watch for synonyms. The text rarely repeats the question's exact word — it uses a synonym or related idea. If the question asks about le travail (work), the text might say mon emploi (my job) or mon métier (my profession). Scan for the idea, not only the exact word.

Step 4 is where marks are won and lost. Once you've found the right sentence, slow right down. Look for:

• Negatives: ne… pas (not), ne… jamais (never), ne… plus (no longer). Je n'aime pas le sport means the opposite of J'aime le sport.
• Time markers: hier (yesterday), aujourd'hui (today), demain (tomorrow), l'année dernière (last year). A question about the future needs a future detail.
• Connectives: mais (but), parce que (because), donc (so/therefore), cependant (however). These often introduce the exact reason a question asks for.

Worked mini-example. Text: « Normalement je vais à l'école en bus, mais aujourd'hui j'y vais à pied parce qu'il fait beau. » (Normally I go to school by bus, but today I'm walking because the weather is nice.) Question: "How is the writer travelling to school today, and why?" Step 4 matters: the word mais (but) signals the change, aujourd'hui (today) confirms the time, and parce que (because) gives the reason. Answer: on foot / walking, because the weather is nice.

You will never know every word in the text — and you don't need to. Use these four tools, roughly in this order.

Tool 1 — Cognates (words that look like English). French and English share thousands of words. Many are obvious: la musique (music), la télévision (television), important (important), le restaurant (restaurant). Some need a small decode:

• words in -tion are usually the same: la situation, la nation, la décision.
• words in -ique often = English -ic / -ical: fantastique (fantastic), politique (political).
• the circumflex often marks a lost 's': hôpital → hospital, forêt → forest, île → isle/island, château → castle.

Tool 2 — Context (the words around it). Even if a word is a mystery, the words next to it usually pin down the meaning. In « un panier de fruits » (a basket of fruit), even if you don't know panier (basket), you know it's a thing that holds fruits — and the answer often only needs "fruit".

Tool 3 — Word family & part of speech. Ask: is it a noun, verb or adjective? Articles (le, la, un, une) signal nouns; endings like -er, -ir, -re signal verbs. Then look for a relative you do know: if you know travailler (to work), you can guess le travail (work) and un travailleur (a worker). If you know manger (to eat), you can guess un repas relates to eating (a meal).

Tool 4 — Skip it. If the unknown word is not needed for the answer, leave it and move on. Spending two minutes decoding a word that the question never asks about is wasted time. Mark it and come back only if you have time.

Worked mini-example. You read « Mon frère est devenu pompier l'année dernière. » and don't know pompier. Cognate? No obvious English twin. Context: mon frère (my brother) est devenu (became) something l'année dernière (last year) — so pompier is clearly a job. Word family: it looks like a noun (after devenu = became). If the question is "What is the brother's job?" you might still need the exact word — but if the question only asks "What changed last year?", "he started a new job / became a [firefighter]" is enough. (Pompier = firefighter.)

Cognates are your best friend in Reading — except when they lie. Faux amis (false friends) are French words that look like an English word but mean something different. Examiners love them because a careless guess gives a confidently wrong answer.

Here are the high-frequency false friends for 0520:

French word	Looks like	Actually means
la librairie	library	bookshop (library = la bibliothèque)
la journée	journey	day (journey = le voyage)
sensible	sensible	sensitive (sensible = raisonnable)
actuellement	actually	currently / at the moment (actually = en fait)
assister à	to assist	to attend (to help = aider)
rester	to rest	to stay / remain (to rest = se reposer)
la monnaie	money	change / coins (money = l'argent)
les coins	coins	corners (coins = les pièces)
passer un examen	to pass an exam	to sit / take an exam (to pass = réussir)
grand	grand	big / tall

How to defend yourself. When a cognate guess seems too easy and it doesn't quite fit the context, pause. Re-read the sentence with your guessed meaning: if it sounds odd, you may have hit a false friend. For example, « J'ai passé une bonne journée » — "I passed a good journey" makes no sense, so journée must mean day: "I had a good day."

Worked mini-example. Text: « Le weekend, je travaille dans une librairie. » A beginner reads librairie as "library" and pictures a quiet study hall. But the question "Where does the writer work at the weekend?" needs the right place: librairie = bookshop. The false friend would have cost the mark.

Finding the information is only half the job — you have to record the answer in a way the examiner can credit.

1. Answer in the required language. Check the rubric. If it says "Answer in English", write English. If a question is in French and asks for a French answer, keep it short and accurate — a correct three-word phrase beats a long sentence riddled with errors.

2. Match the answer to the marks.

• 1 mark → one piece of information (a word or short phrase).
• 2 marks → usually two separate details. If a question is worth 2 marks, make sure you give two distinct points, not one point said twice.

3. Don't copy long French chunks blindly into an English answer. If the question is in English, give the information in English. Copying a whole French sentence shows you may not have understood it, and an irrelevant part can contradict the right part. Lift only the precise detail.

4. For French (tick / multiple-choice / matching) answers, make your choice unambiguous. Put one clear tick or letter. If you change your mind, cross out neatly so only one answer stands — two ticks for a 1-mark question usually scores zero.

5. Use the text's own words for spelling. If you must write a French answer, copy any tricky word (with its accents) exactly from the text. The correct spelling is right there in front of you — there's no excuse for café without its accent if the text shows it.

Worked mini-example. Question (2 marks, answer in English): "Give two reasons the writer likes her town." Text: « J'aime ma ville parce qu'il y a beaucoup de magasins et les gens sont très sympas. » (I like my town because there are lots of shops and the people are very friendly.) Answer: (1) lots of shops; (2) the people are friendly. Two marks because two distinct reasons — don't merge them into one.