Advanced Placement French: Preparing the Language Examination Student Book

I am an AP French teacher, and wouldn't think of teaching the class without this book. It offers a multitude of prompts that give students a full range of the types of questions they'll encounter in each section. After a while, students can start to see patterns. One can purchase the audio CDs for home practice, but not the answer keys. The best way to make use of this book is in the classroom or small groups, where discussion over *why* x is the correct answer can take place. The idiomatic expressions and vocabulary lists in the back are amazing. I wouldn't buy a used copy, because you're likely to get lots of the blanks filled in. This book is best used in tandem with a thorough grammar text like Une Fois Pour Toutes. Courage!

Clearly, this is a book to be used in a classroom setting. It's not a "Princeton Review" or "Barron's" book where there are explanations and answers and practice tests, etc. This is simply a book of questions. It's helpful if your teacher uses it in class, and you can check your answers with the teacher's guide. I noticed that on average, the questions in this book are more difficult than the actual AP test; I was feeling quite depressed about how I would do when I was preparing. My suggestions: use this book for the reading comprehension section and the listening, but practice the "fill-in-the-blank" grammar with College Board's free response questions on their website. After all, those are authentic. This book also contains a good selection of essay prompts to give you ideas about what to write, and the picture stories very nearly match those on the actual test. Overall, it's a good preparation for the test, but the difficulty of some passages relative to others and relative to the test should be taken with a grain of salt.

I used this book in my french class and I thought it was great practice and very helpful, but yeah, be warned -- this is just the student copy WITHOUT the tapes or the answers so pretty useless it's used in a classroom setting.

I use this book in my French class. It's the book mon prof uses to test us. I think the listening exercises provided in here are wonderful. The other exercises are good as well. The vocabulary provided in the back is also very good. It's an excellent prep tool for anyone in AP French language. Bon chance!