GCSE EXAMINERS' REPORTS
SPANISH
SUMMER 2016
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Unit
Page
Unit 1: Listening
1
Unit 2: Speaking
6
Unit 3: Reading
8
Unit 4: Writing
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12
SPANISH
General Certificate of Secondary Education
Summer 2016
UNIT 1: LISTENING
General Comments
The main problem with the Listening Examinations, at both levels, remains the increasing
lack of knowledge of vocabulary by candidates. The evidence suggests that candidates are
not learning enough vocabulary let alone any simple everyday words and expressions and,
therefore, find it increasingly difficult to get full or even higher marks in these papers.
At Foundation level, the percentage of candidates who don’t know the simplest of words
(days of the week, items of clothing, places around town, food items, everyday adjectives,
prepositions, etc.) has increased. Many candidates just guess at words without even taking
into consideration the gender of the person involved in the task. (i.e. What does he want to
buy? Candidate’s answer: a dress / a blouse / a skirt, etc.).
Another major issue this year, at both levels, but particularly at Foundation, was spelling. It
is a major problem especially if the spelling mistakes cause the answer to be unintelligible or
misleading because it will lose candidates marks. Many marks were lost at Foundation and
Higher Tier due to the lack of attention paid to either the question or the answer, with quite a
number of candidates who upon hearing a word they knew, seemed to immediately assume
what the answer might be and disregarded any other adjacent words (adjectives, pronouns,
articles, etc.), that would alter or qualify that word and be a part of the answer.
Finally, many a candidate lost at least one mark by adding extra information which was often
wrong or contradicted the correct answer.
In general, weaker candidates tend to translate into English using a Hispanic word order and
not pausing to think what it means in their own language; thus, ‘ dolor de garganta’ became
‘a hurt in the throat’, or ‘dolor de muelas’, ‘a pain in the molars’, etc. Word order also caused
confusion with many candidates not understanding that in English: ‘I hurt my legs/my throat’
is different to ‘my legs/my throat hurt(s)’.
Candidates also disregard number and gender when answering a question. For example:
‘me duelen mucho las piernas’ was often translated as: my leg is painful or I have a hurt in
my leg.
Foundation Tier
Q.1
Excellent response.
Q.2
Good response.
Q.3
Mostly well answered however, some candidates confused ham and bacon.
Q.4
Good response.
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Q.5
(a)
Good response, however, there was the inevitable confusion ‘7:15’.
(b)
Part 1: Mostly well answered. However, there was some confusion with
Chemistry.
Part 2: Pollution – poorly answered. It appeared infrequently. Most common
incorrect answers: contamination / contaminated / environment /
global warming / problem solving. Many candidates also further
lost marks by adding information e.g. To solve the problems of
pollution. Mislead perhaps by sobre / solve?
(c)
Part 1: Good response for chemistry
Part 2: A lot of pupils failed to answer correctly mistaking ‘sacar buenas
notas’ for something relating to making good notes / good lessons / no
need to take notes etc.
(d)
Q.6
Q.7
Q.8
A lot of guesswork here with some simply stating - favourite day
when they were at the lab or more surprisingly, ‘in school’.
Fair response.
(a)
Poor at Foundation level but Higher Tier fared much better. Carnicería
produced many initial 'c' guesswork such as: centre of town, cathedral,
carnival, circus.
The spelling of butchers was also very disheartening, often rendering the
word unrecognisable or lacking communication.
(b)
Excellent response. Few errors – mostly: 21 minutes or 1 hour and 20
minutes. Some confusion also between veinte and ocho. However, once
again the poor spelling of minutes lost marks for many candidates as it failed
to communicate. Some candidates confused the number 8 bus and wrote 8
minutes as their response, whilst others wrote too much information and
included ‘8 minutes by bus or 20 minutes walking’, therefore cancelling out
the correct response.
(c)
A poorer response than anticipated. Many answering with the Spanish word
plaza.
Candidates who correctly translated, often went on to lose the mark by adding
incorrect prepositions e.g. by, near, across, opposite, in the middle of.
The reference to centre of the town also misled candidates who simply
referred to that or confused both, producing: central square. There was also
plenty of guesswork with references to shopping centres and malls. A
significant number of candidates disregarded the clue in the question
regarding the ‘exact location’ and thought the answer ‘in the centre’ would
suffice.
Well answered.
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Q.9
(a)
Part 1: Well answered – almost all correct.
Part 2: Poor – few correct at Foundation, with the majority answering: very
warm / very hot. The element of comparison eluded many. Others lost marks
by referring to it being sunny. There were also numerous references to
holidays at the beach or simply nice beaches.
Q.10
(b)
Good response.
(a)
Poor marks achieved at Foundation Tier. ‘Abrigo’ eluded many. Most
frequent incorrect answers were female clothing items such as ‘dress / skirt /
jewellery / jacket’, etc.
(b)
Challenging. Many references to it being too small but at least many
candidates seemed to pick up on the ‘demasiado’ element e.g. too many
feathers, too dark, too heavy, too big, too large, very small … all from
corto!
(c)
The question itself led most people to provide an educated guess in the
context of shopping. Unfortunately most were incorrect: not refundable,
broken, no receipt, out of stock, limited edition. Candidates had difficulty
understanding the reference to ‘último’.
(d)
Poorly done at Foundation with a lot of guesswork: suit, tie, hoodie,
tuxedo… sofa,oven! Much better at Higher.
(e)
Well answered at Higher. Spelling of medium when recognized at
Foundation often failed to communicate e.g. meduim, median, midiam. At
higher, some wrote medium and crossed it out, replacing it with large,
bigger.
(f)
Mostly well answered at both levels.
Higher Tier
Q.1
Overlap with Foundation Tier Q.7: Same comments apply.
Q.2
Overlap with Foundation Tier Q.8: Same comments apply.
Q.3
Overlap with Foundation Tier Q.9: Same comments apply.
9c - excellent response at HT.
Q.4
Overlap with Foundation Tier Q.10: Same comments apply.
Q.5
(a)
A lot of guesswork included in this question with soap eluding some and
towels being confused with pillows. Rather surprising as the clue is surely in
the word ‘toallas’.
There were numerous references also to bed sheets, toilet rolls and double
beds.
Food also featured wildly as commonly associated with room service.
Consequently, ‘jabón y toallas’ often became gammon and tortilla!
(b)
Excellent response.
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Q.6
(c)
Fairly well answered although a lot of students were penalised for adding in
erroneous extra information such as ‘red / white / glass of wine’.
Newspaper was well recognised but there was some confusion with
magazine. The reference to 'de hoy' lead some to guess at meal of the day
or even, beer of the day.
(d)
Excellent.
(a)
Good response.
(b)
Just over half recognized the word.
(c)
Excellent response.
(d)
Excellent response.
(e)
Very well answered. Very few incorrect responses, mainly every other
weekend.
Q.7
A mixed response but lots of full marks for more able candidates. Answers for A &
were the most consistently correct with fewer spelling mistakes Person A: Legs +
hurt were relatively well recognized although often in the singular as leg. Some
guessed at injury or problem but duelen was accessible to most. Person B and C
were often mixed up due to both answers involving cold. Lots of answers referred to
breathing problems/difficulty in breathing. Those who were able to recognize
‘resfriado’, sometimes added a fever for good measure, thus negating their answer.
Welsh medium candidates need to be able to differentiate between throat and neck
and this was true of some English responses too. Person D: A good response by
most, helped by the reference to ‘caramelos’. Although this did lead candidates to
include rotten or bad teeth which isn’t the same as toothache.
Q.8
(a)
Fairly well answered with the most frequent incorrect answer being ‘works
for international company’ but not mentioning her job. Once again some
interesting incorrect spellings: ‘air hostest’, ‘studece.’ There were plenty of
imaginative guesses as well.
(b)
Travel was well answered although not always in conjunction with exotic
places, which often appeared as exotic sights/cities/sites as guesswork for
sitios. A bit of a mixed response for learn which was omitted by many
candidates who simply referred to speak a foreign language.
Answers for (b) and (c) were often confused.
(c)
Quite challenging. ‘Alturas’ often mistaken for flying and references to being
air sick due to turbulence and of course, being tall! Yet again, the spelling
of heights proved difficult and often appeared as hights / hites, etc. The
most common incorrect answer was ‘not afraid of flying’ or surprisingly,
’being afraid of flying’.
(d)
Another mixed bag as candidates confused earn / save, or simply made a
bad guess.
The most frequent answers were: ‘to earn /get / have money’.
Q.9
About 50% of candidates got full marks.
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Spelling Concerns
The spelling in general was very weak even of the simplest words such as:
bottle = botel / bottel / botell
heights = hights / hites
hostess = hostest / hostes
attendant = attendand / atentant / atendent
ache = ake / ace
throat = throught / throwt
butcher = bucher / butches
minutes = minites / minuits / minuets / miniuts
too = to
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SPANISH
General Certificate of Secondary Education
Summer 2016
UNIT 2: CONTROLLED ASSESSMENT SPEAKING
Administrative Issues
As in previous years, many centres continue to have difficulty in adhering to the 5th of May
deadline, with many samples being posted after the bank holiday. Added to this is the half
term holiday which has an impact on the request of further samples from centres. This year it
was particularly difficult to get second sample requests from centres even after the schools
had resumed business after half term. Consequently it was difficult to conclude the
moderation process in its entirety before the deadline of the 17th of June.
On the whole centres now send an equal mix of tasks to be moderated and recordings were
mostly clear. It is extremely helpful to moderators and the board if centres, when using
media files to submit recordings use more common formats such as .mp3, Windows media
etc. More obscure media file formats sometimes do not show up or are difficult to open and
this can often be time consuming for moderators. It would be helpful if all assessments for a
centre were recorded in the same manner with simple audio files. Many centres are still not
labelling the tracks with the name and/or number of the candidate. This makes the task of
searching for a particular candidate unnecessarily difficult for the moderator.
There are still a few centres that make clerical errors when downloading the information into
the WJEC system, with marks on mark sheets differing from those on IAMIS. At times the
discrepancies were substantial and this could potentially disadvantage the candidates and
the centre.
General Comments
The content of the assessments was interesting and varied and the topics covered were
appropriate and met WJEC guidelines. Sometimes, however a centre inhibited the
opportunities for the candidates to use a range of tenses by giving them a rather restrictive
topic for example: “My future plans “or “My ideal…” and limiting the questions to that time
frame.
Overall, the main issue for a large number of centres was the lack of unpredictable elements
and/or interaction in both tasks. This affected the Content & Communication of the
Structured Conversations and the Discussion part of the Presentation. Occasionally, it was
evident that the Conversations were overly rehearsed with questions and responses for all
candidates in the sample being almost identical. There were a number of mini presentation
style responses where the candidate spoke for over 1 minute. This meant that they did not
answer many questions at all. There was the occasional slip here where the pupil gave the
response to the following question too early, asked what number question they were
supposed to be answering, or even said ‘I didn’t write the questions down.’ (i.e.only prepared
the responses). This was not acknowledged by many centres who went on to give full marks
to candidates who recited their answers in great detail and with a wide range of tenses and
vocabulary yet were incapable of answering a simple question such as: ¿Tienes hermanos?
¿Dónde vives? Centres are reminded that Conversations that lack unpredictable elements or
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that show that candidates are not able to deal with unpredictable elements should be
marked down according to the mark scheme criteria. Similarly, in the Response to
Questions after the Presentation, a lack of interaction where a candidate merely recites long
answers should also be reflected in the mark given for this section. Interaction for a number
of centres meant the pupil simply adding “y tú? at the end of their answer.
At times, this resulted in the teacher using up valuable assessment time by providing a
lengthy response. Many teachers also failed to ask suitable questions after the presentation.
In many a task the teacher went on to ask questions that limited the candidate to repeating
what he or she had just said or asked completely unrelated questions that were not at all
helpful to the candidate. In some cases, for both tasks, teachers seemed determined to just
get through a list of prepared questions no matter what and did not appear to listen to the
responses given and follow up appropriately.
It was also evident in some centres that teachers didn’t take into consideration the ability of
many of their candidates by allowing them to speak about topics which were above their
linguistic ability. This was particularly noticeable at the lower end of the scale. This meant
an even lower mark for those candidates.
Timings remain an issue for many centres. There were a number of long Presentations,
which were followed by very brief discussions. On the whole the Structured Conversations
adhered to the specified timings. There were a few short Presentations and in these
situations the teacher either asked a question resulting in the start of the Discussion or did
nothing and failed to give the candidate any support. Some centres are not taking on board
that a prompt may be provided to help the candidate. Therefore in many cases, weaker
candidates are losing marks unnecessarily. At least 2 marks are lost for the Delivery, as
they receive 1 mark instead of the possible 3.
Finally, many centres continue to be too generous when awarding marks in general but
particularly for Accuracy and/or Range. The marks for many schools with large contingents
and with several teachers were often inconsistent and showed a lack of internal moderation.
Centres are reminded that just using a few sentences in a different tense is not enough to
warrant a 4 for Range.
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SPANISH
General Certificate of Secondary Education
Summer 2016
UNIT 3: READING
General Comments
The paper was accessible to most candidates and catered well for the spread of ability
across both tiers. There was a general feeling that candidates had been entered for the right
tier. There were many common problems this year which cost candidates valuable marks.
They were as follows:







Poor English spelling / handwriting
Evidence of a lack of very basic vocabulary
Candidates producing too much information and self-penalising as a result
Poor recognition of key words
Candidates not looking at the language in the texts closely enough
Poor grammatical understanding
Poor recognition of numbers and time
Foundation Tier
Q.1
Well answered with most candidates scoring the full six marks. A little confusion with
mixto being interpreted by candidates as mixed race (C) rather than mixed gender
(B). Some candidates inevitably mistook coche as coach (C).
Q.2
There were rubric issues again this year with the instruction to tick 6 boxes. This
instruction eluded many and lots of marks were lost for candidates who only provided
three answers. There was the odd example of more than six ticks but these were
exceptions. B was the most frequent error.
Q.3
A challenging 3rd question with hardly anyone achieving more than 4 marks. The last
two answers provided the best response; profesores and piscina accessible to all.
Friends was also well recognised but it often came accompanied with inaccurate
information or a misunderstanding about the reference to grupo e.g. working in
groups with friends.
Estupendo was generally well interpreted but did produce some predictable replies
involving the adjective stupid. Horario and pistas eluded most and very few marks
were earned here.
Lots of close guesses about school hours and sports on playgrounds but rarely
accurately answered.
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Q.4
Even fewer marks achieved here. This proved a challenging question for most
candidates and indeed the most difficult question on the paper Correct answers
required a translation of both verb and noun, which confounded many. The subject
choice did however produce a lot of sensible guesswork, sometimes hitting the mark
but mainly a product of their own knowledge of the benefits of exercise (which was
quite impressive!); Increases pulse, relieves stress and maintains fitness were the
most consistent correct answers.
The least accessible was promueve el bienestar mental although there were plenty of
references to mental state and wellbeing.
The various translations of Te mantiene en buena forma often appeared in more than
two answers. Forma – led to maintain good form / body without reference to fit or
healthy. Alivia el estrés was often wrongly translated as release stress or reduce
stress. Alivia also became human and produced the answer Alivia is healthy!
Q.5 (F)/Q1 (H)
An excellent response by all candidates on both papers. Higher Tier students
generally securing the full 8 marks and the Foundation Tier consistently achieving
between 5 – 8 marks. The best answered parts were (iv), (v) and (vi) with deportes
extremos, playa y sol and monumentos históricos proving accessible to most
candidates.
There was some confusion between (vii) and (viii) with the reference to montañas
misleading candidates to link it with the countryside. Similarly, a link was established
for some between campo and the idea of hiking in the countryside.
The other confusion involved (i) and (ii) and the reference to todos los años which
appeared in Enrique’s statement but was represented as cada año in Pedro’s
statement. Cada año proving less accessible to candidates.
Q.6
This was poorly answered at Foundation Tier with low marks scored. Higher
candidates also struggled to secure full marks in this question. Succinct answers are
needed as additional / irrelevant information inevitably leads to contradiction and
valuable loss of marks.
(a)
Mostly good although some confusion of what was required with many opting
simply to answer Town centre. The reference to laborables led many to
answer working in a laboratory or lab in centre of city. Where candidates got
item (1) wrong, this almost always led to a poor completion of the remainder
of the question.
(b)
Repetitivo unsurprisingly produced a good response although a challenge to
spell in English with many attempts failing to communicate. Cansado,
however, was poorly recognised which was quite surprising. The most
frequent interpretation was - fun/enjoyable. I’m unsure of how something
could be described as both repetitive and fun?!
(c)
Generally well answered with most candidates securing the mark for extra
hours (horas extras!). Working until 7 was also a popular reply but yet again
some candidates persist in confusing seis/siete.
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(a)
A mixed response. Most errors derived from the incorrect translation of clientes or its
omission. Lots of references to chatting with friends, girls, boys, staff, colleagues.
Champú which should be easily identified, produced all types of references to
champagne rather than shampoo bottles. In addition, many answers alluded to
making tea and coffee.
(b)
A far better response from Higher Tier candidates although many floundered at the
spelling of lawyer e.g. layer. Incorrect answers were the result of sheer guesswork
and produced an array of career paths including pet keeper, weather reader and
firefighter.
(c)
Well understood but un trabajo los sábados doesn’t mean working every Saturday or
working on Saturday. Valuable marks lost due to careless translation or lack of
attention to detail.
Higher Tier
Q.1 and Q.2
The answers to these questions were much better on the Higher Tier than the same
question on the foundation tier.
Q.3
A good response, but a large number of candidates mistakenly opting for (E). The
reference to árabe and then clases en la Universidad in the following sentences
proved a stumbling block for many.
Statement (I) was also incorrectly selected due to the reference to profesores in the
text and the preceding no quería being ignored.
(A), (G) and (H) were the most consistently correct answers.
Q.4
A valuable and effective exercise in differentiating between those candidates who
have a true understanding of the language and those who have not.
Best responses were (B) (ciudad) and (J) (reducir). The lack of understanding of the
appropriate use of infinitives and conjugation of verbs in context was highlighted
here.
(E) produced the poorest response, with frequent confusion between hace and
deben.
Q.5
A very good response to the final question on the Higher Tier paper with most
candidates scoring in excess of 7 points. Questions 1 - 5 were consistently well
answered.
(1)
Very few problems here with actriz proving accessible but sometimes a little
challenging to spell. Hombre de negocios also widely understood but also produced
plenty of incorrect answers referring to negotiator or man who negotiates. Estate
agent and salesman were also common errors.
(2)
Excellent response.
(3)
Another good response although some confusion with grandfather and grandparents.
(4)
Very well answered. Some confusion with 7 but most of the incorrect answers
referred to 6 years ago.
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Questions (5) and (6) were the poorest.
(5)
Rugby was the most popular error due to the reference to Bardem playing rugby for
the national team. The question specifically asks in what he is interested and
candidates should take care to heed the wording of the question.
Painting was seldom selected and many marks were consequently lost here despite
pintura being a familiar word to most.
(6)
Conducir should have produced more correct answers but many were unsure of its
meaning. Common errors included: conducting, directing, translating, speaking,
spelling or reading English.
(7)
The winning of the prize caused more problems than dating Penélope Cruz due to
candidates mistaking premio for first or prime and the award becoming embroiled in
academics! There were lots of irrelevant details included referring to the film or
newspapers (papel) which often contradicted the original answer thus negating the
mark. Dating or going out with Penélope Cruz was more straightforward but there
was a lot of guesswork which usually involved the two being married or separated.
(8)
A good response here with most achieving the mark. The simplest and most direct
answers were the most effective as too much detail usually produced an inaccurate
translation.
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SPANISH
General Certificate of Secondary Education
Summer 2016
UNIT 4: CONTROLLED ASSESSMENT WRITING
Administration
This year it was pleasing to receive attendance registers and candidates’ folders in exam
number order. However, the late arrival of scripts from a significant number of centres was
an inconvenience. Too many centres are not placing individual candidates’ work in individual
folders.
Content and tasks
As always, the most popular tasks were on school, holidays and work experience. The
majority of centres gave broad titles that allowed candidates to communicate freely on the
topic. Indeed, teachers must take care to ensure that candidates are prepared appropriately
to respond to the question set. In a few cases, a title had been set and the candidates’ work
bore no resemblance to the title or candidates just wrote a token paragraph in amongst
irrelevant information. As in previous years, there was a notable overlap between some
tasks despite being from different context areas. As is always the case, tasks on holidays
allowed for a wide variety of tenses and language skills and many able candidates included
some excellent phrases on the impact of tourism. When writing about school, many
candidates relied on lists of subjects, facilities, teachers and uniform, although there were
some strong examples of adventurous and wide-ranging language. Tasks on local area,
house and home, free time and healthy living were successful in the main, although some
candidates took the opportunity to give long lists with limited opinions. The topic of the
environment was not as popular this year. Correct punctuation and use of paragraphs
appear to be less important for many candidates and far too many candidates continue to
lose valuable marks as a result of the examiner not being able to understand what they had
written – commas in the wrong place, for example, completely change the meaning of a
sentence. In all cases, candidates would benefit from checking their work to ensure they
understand what they have written – sometimes, correct sentences were strung together
illogically and it made for difficult reading.
Most candidates responded in approximately 200-300 words, which allowed for the most
comprehensive response. It was disappointing to still see able candidates writing less than
200 words, or just hitting the 200 word mark.
Too many centres are submitting work where candidates have produced almost identical
pieces of work. This is not in keeping with the spirit of the assessment; work submitted
should be the candidate's individual response.
Communication
The use of dictionaries destroyed communication in some cases. Not all candidates are
making best use of their 40 words of notes. Communication was invariably affected where
candidates went off topic and strayed from the title set.
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Accuracy
Accurate verb and adjective agreements were as always the hallmark of strong candidates.
First and third person preterite confusion was often a challenge.
Many long-established friendships were renewed this year. These included: ‘quarto, quatro’;
‘muchos de…’ and the abuse in every possible way of expressions using ‘gustar’
(particularly ‘me gusto…’).
Numbers in general were not well done by weaker candidates. As well as the ubiquitous
‘viente’, ‘treinte’ and ‘sies’, essays on schools in particular threw up some striking class sizes
and teacher-pupil ratios (‘quincientos’ and ‘sietente’ are further examples).
Expressions about the weather emerged as a general weakness, confusion between
expressions needing ‘hay’ and ‘hace’, ‘era sol’, hacia llovia, nieva/nieve/nueva confusion
being examples.
In the context of the weather, and to some extent more generally, the use of the imperfect
tense seems to be withering on the vine.
Range
Splendid imperfect subjunctive plus conditional tense constructions continue to surface from
among the murky depths of some inappropriate Spanish.
Many candidates introduced original expressions requiring the subjunctive, e.g. ‘Espero que
tenga…’Me gusta que vaya…’
‘Soler’ was well used but there was a relative neglect of other expressions associated with
higher marks for range. These include notably ‘al’+ infinitive, ‘despues de…’and ‘antes de…’.
The use of these forms is an effective way of introducing variety in the work. They count as
‘complex’ and can have a direct bearing on marks awarded and the overall impression
formed in the examiner’s mind.
GCSE Spanish Examiners Report Summer 2016/GH
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