Notes · FrenchUK · A-Levels

The changing nature of family

La famille en voie de changement is the opening sub-theme of AQA's first theme, Aspects of French-speaking society: current trends. It examines shifting family structures across the French-speaking world - relations across the generations, single-parent, same-sex and blended families, and new trends in couple relationships. The notes teach the social substance in English and the French you need to discuss it: the lexical field of la famille, the legal vocabulary of le PACS, le mariage pour tous and la garde alternée, and the tenses and connectors that let you contrast how families used to be with how they are now.

5 sections~27 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 4 · Advanced 1

T·0111 / 15

Exam profile

AO1 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to spoken French on family lifeAO2 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to written French on family changeAO3 · Manipulate the language accurately, using a range of lexis and structureAO4 · Show knowledge of, and respond critically to, family life in French-speaking society

Operators:traduirerésumerdécrirecomparerjustifierdiscuter

basic level

AS French (7651) includes this sub-theme within Aspects of French-speaking society: current trends, and assesses it through listening, reading, translation and a stimulus-card discussion. At AS the expectation is accurate description of family types and straightforward opinion.

higher level

The full A-Level expects the same sub-theme to be handled analytically and comparatively: causes and consequences of family change, the French legal framework, and comparison across the francophone world - all sustained in French with the subjunctive, the passive and complex subordination.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

The changing nature of family

Generations: grands-parents, parents et enfants#

StandardAQA 7652 3.1.1 - La famille en voie de changement : grands-parents, parents et enfants - soucis et problèmesDfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

The first strand of this sub-theme is relations between the generations, and the single most important fact behind it is le vieillissement de la population. People in France and across the francophone world live longer, have children later and have fewer of them, so a family now typically contains three or even four living generations rather than two. That changes what grandparents are for. Where les grands-parents were once distant figures visited at Christmas, they are now often an economic and practical pillar of the household: ils gardent les petits-enfants, ils aident financièrement, ils dépannent. The French phrase for the middle generation squeezed between ageing parents and dependent children is la génération pivot - the pivot generation - and the pressure on it is a standard exam theme.

The classic exam angle is le conflit de générations. Be careful with it: examiners reward students who complicate the cliché rather than repeat it. The useful French for this is le fossé des générations (the generation gap), les valeurs (values), l'autorité parentale (parental authority), la crise d'adolescence, and l'incompréhension mutuelle. The genuinely contemporary version of the conflict is technological and cultural rather than moral: la fracture numérique entre les générations, les réseaux sociaux, le temps d'écran. Equally, research and everyday experience point the other way too - la solidarité intergénérationnelle is strong, and les jeunes adultes stay at home longer for economic reasons, a phenomenon the French press labels with the borrowed and slightly mocking phrase la génération Tanguy, after a well-known French comedy about a son who will not leave home.

At the other end of the chain sits the question of ageing parents. The vocabulary is precise and worth learning exactly: la dépendance (loss of autonomy), la perte d'autonomie, le maintien à domicile (keeping an elderly person in their own home), l'aide à domicile (home help), la maison de retraite, and l'EHPAD - établissement d'hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes - which is the standard French term for a residential care home for dependent older people. The moral debate that examiners like is whether placing a parent in an EHPAD is un abandon or une nécessité, and whether the state or the family should carry the burden: est-ce à l'État ou à la famille de prendre en charge nos aînés ?

To write about generational change you need the tense contrast that carries it. Use l'imparfait for how things were - autrefois, les familles vivaient sous le même toit, on respectait l'autorité du père - and le présent for how they are now: aujourd'hui, les générations vivent séparément mais restent en contact permanent. Mark the change explicitly with alors que, tandis que, désormais, de nos jours and depuis quelques décennies. A sentence such as Alors qu'autrefois trois générations partageaient le même logement, la famille contemporaine est éclatée géographiquement mais soudée affectivement does three things at once: it contrasts two tenses, it uses a subordinating conjunction, and it makes a nuanced claim rather than a flat one. That is exactly what AO3 and AO4 reward.

Worked example

Translation into English: a passage on grandparents

Translate into English: « Autrefois, les grands-parents habitaient souvent tout près de leurs petits-enfants. Aujourd'hui, la famille est éclatée : les enfants partent travailler dans une autre région, et les aînés restent seuls au village. Pourtant, le rôle des grands-parents n'a jamais été aussi important, car ce sont eux qui gardent les petits pendant les vacances. »

Read for the tense architecture first
Two imperfects (habitaient, restent is present - check) frame a past-versus-present contrast: habitaient is imperfect (used to live), est éclatée and restent are present, n'a jamais été is perfect. English must mirror that: used to live / is / have never been. Getting this wrong loses more marks than any single word.
Decide the idioms, not the words
tout près = close by, not all near. la famille est éclatée = the family is scattered or split up, not the family is exploded. les aînés = the older generation or the elders. garder les petits = to look after the little ones, not to keep them.
Handle the emphatic ce sont eux qui
ce sont eux qui gardent is a cleft for emphasis. Natural English is they are the ones who look after, not it is them who guard. Reproducing the emphasis is what marks out a fluent translation.
Check register and connectors
Pourtant = and yet / yet, car = because or since. Do not downgrade Pourtant to but: the mark scheme credits accurate rendering of discourse markers.

Result: In the past, grandparents often lived close by their grandchildren. Today the family is scattered: the children go off to work in another region and the older generation are left alone in the village. And yet the role of grandparents has never been so important, because they are the ones who look after the little ones during the holidays.

Typical mistakes

Translating grandparents live with the family as les grands-parents vivent avec la famille and stopping there, when the marked French is la cohabitation intergénérationnelle or vivre sous le même toit.
Repeating the generation-gap cliché without evidence, when the mark scheme credits a critical and analytical response - the strongest answers argue that solidarity and conflict coexist.

Active revision

En 90 à 100 mots, résumez en français les avantages et les inconvénients de la cohabitation entre trois générations sous le même toit.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - subject content (AQA) · GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

New family shapes: monoparentalité, homoparentalité, familles recomposées#

StandardAQA 7652 3.1.1 - La famille en voie de changement : monoparentalité, homoparentalité, familles recomposéesDfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

Les structures familiales

Fig. 1The French vocabulary of family structures, split between the traditional forms and les nouvelles formes de famille. Every branch label is an adjective agreeing with the feminine noun famille.

French has a precise, well-established vocabulary for family structures, and using it correctly is the quickest way to sound like an A-level candidate rather than a GCSE one. La famille nucléaire is the two-parents-plus-children unit. La famille monoparentale is a single-parent family, headed most often by une mère célibataire but increasingly by fathers too. La famille recomposée is a blended or step-family formed when two adults bring children from previous relationships. La famille homoparentale is a family with two parents of the same sex. La famille élargie is the extended family. Note the grammatical trap: these are all adjectives agreeing with famille, so they are feminine - une famille monoparentale, des familles recomposées - and the noun for the phenomenon takes a different form: la monoparentalité, l'homoparentalité, la recomposition familiale.

The blended family brings its own kinship terms, and English speakers regularly get them wrong. Le beau-père and la belle-mère mean both step-parent and parent-in-law, so context does the disambiguating; le beau-fils and la belle-fille likewise cover stepson/son-in-law and stepdaughter/daughter-in-law. Le demi-frère and la demi-soeur are half-siblings, sharing one biological parent. Children who are unrelated but live in the same recomposed household are often called les quasi-frères et quasi-soeurs in French sociological writing. The lived issues to discuss are la place de chacun, la jalousie, l'autorité du beau-parent (who has no automatic legal authority), la garde alternée (shared residence, week on week off) and le droit de visite.

The legal framework is French-specific and highly examinable, so learn the landmarks precisely. Le PACS - le pacte civil de solidarité - was created in 1999 as a contractual partnership open to couples of any sex, and it has become a mainstream alternative to marriage rather than a minority option. Le mariage pour tous, the law of 17 May 2013, opened marriage and adoption to same-sex couples in France after a bitterly polarised public debate; the opposition movement was called la Manif pour tous. The bioethics law of 2 August 2021 opened la PMA - la procréation médicalement assistée - to female couples and to single women. Divorce was liberalised in 1975 and, since 2017, le divorce par consentement mutuel can be completed before a notaire without a judge.

The analytical move that earns AO4 is to explain why the shapes changed rather than merely list them. The standard French explanatory vocabulary is: la libéralisation du divorce, l'émancipation des femmes, le travail féminin, la sécularisation de la société, l'allongement de l'espérance de vie, and l'évolution des mentalités. A useful nuance is that the law usually follows social practice in France rather than leading it - le PACS and le mariage pour tous both ratified realities that already existed. Say it in French like this: la loi n'a fait qu'entériner une évolution sociale déjà accomplie. Note the elegant restrictive ne... que and the perfect tense: this is exactly the sort of structure that lifts an AO3 mark.

Worked example

Translation into French: a passage on blended families

Translate into French: Blended families have become commonplace. When two parents who already have children decide to live together, each child has to find their place. The stepfather has no legal authority over his partner's children, which can create tension. Nevertheless, most of these families work well, provided that everyone talks to each other.

Choose the structural nouns first
Blended families = les familles recomposées (feminine plural agreement). Stepfather = le beau-père. Legal authority = l'autorité légale or, more idiomatically here, l'autorité parentale. Have become commonplace = sont devenues monnaie courante, or more simply se sont banalisées - both idiomatic and both requiring feminine plural agreement on the past participle with être.
Fix the tense of each clause
Have become = passé composé with être (devenues). Decide, has to find, has, can create, work = present. The English present perfect maps to the French passé composé; do not use the imperfect for a completed change of state.
Handle which can create tension
The English which refers to the whole preceding clause, so French needs ce qui, not qui: ce qui peut créer des tensions. This is a standard translation discriminator - qui would wrongly attach to les enfants.
Handle provided that
à condition que triggers the subjunctive: à condition que tout le monde se parle. Alternatively pourvu que + subjunctive. If you are unsure of the subjunctive form, the infinitive escape hatch à condition de se parler is safe - but the subjunctive earns more.
Choose the concessive
Nevertheless = Néanmoins or Toutefois in written register; Pourtant is also correct. Most of these families = la plupart de ces familles, and la plupart takes a plural verb: la plupart... fonctionnent.

Result: Les familles recomposées se sont banalisées. Lorsque deux parents qui ont déjà des enfants décident de vivre ensemble, chaque enfant doit trouver sa place. Le beau-père n'a aucune autorité légale sur les enfants de sa compagne, ce qui peut créer des tensions. Néanmoins, la plupart de ces familles fonctionnent bien, à condition que tout le monde se parle.

Typical mistakes

Saying une famille mono-parent or une famille recomposé - the adjective must agree with the feminine noun famille.
Assuming le beau-père always means stepfather; it equally means father-in-law, and only context decides.

Active revision

Préparez une réponse orale d'une minute à la question : « Les familles recomposées posent-elles plus de problèmes qu'elles n'en résolvent ? » Utilisez au moins trois termes précis de structure familiale.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - subject content (AQA)

Couples today: la vie de couple et ses nouvelles tendances#

StandardAQA 7652 3.1.1 - La famille en voie de changement : la vie de couple - nouvelles tendancesDfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

France offers couples three legal statuses, and knowing all three is the baseline for this strand. Le mariage remains the most protective legally and the most symbolically weighted. Le PACS, created in 1999, is a registered partnership that is quicker to enter and to dissolve, carries tax advantages and has become an ordinary first step for young couples rather than a fallback. L'union libre, also called le concubinage, is simply cohabitation without any legal act; the couple are les concubins, and their rights are minimal. The examinable point is that the three statuses now form a menu rather than a hierarchy, and that many couples pass through several of them - a trajectory the French describe as un parcours conjugal.

The other structural trend is instability and its vocabulary. Le divorce was liberalised by the law of 11 July 1975, which introduced le divorce par consentement mutuel; since 2017 that mutual-consent route can be settled before a notaire without going in front of a judge. The consequences generate the language you need: la séparation, la rupture, la garde des enfants, la pension alimentaire (maintenance), la garde alternée. The counterpart trends are la baisse du nombre de mariages, l'âge au premier mariage qui recule, and la progression du célibat - being single, whether chosen or endured, which the French distinguish as le célibat choisi and le célibat subi.

New couple forms are the part of the sub-theme where candidates most often sound dated, so use current French. Le couple non cohabitant (or the borrowed phrase les couples LAT, living apart together) describes partners who deliberately keep separate homes. Les rencontres en ligne and les applications de rencontre are now a mainstream way of meeting - the neutral French is se rencontrer sur une application, not the calque rencontrer sur internet. La famille sans enfant par choix is an increasingly visible option. And the balance of domestic labour, la répartition des tâches ménagères, together with la charge mentale - the mental load of running a household, a term that entered ordinary French usage in the late 2010s - is now central to how the French discuss couple life.

For AO4 credit, remember that AQA's listening and reading material refers to at least two French-speaking countries other than France, so a candidate who only knows France is exposed. Marriage and family law differ markedly across the francophone world: Belgium and Canada both opened marriage to same-sex couples before France, Quebec has an unusually high rate of unmarried cohabitation, and in several French-speaking African countries family structures and the weight of la famille élargie differ sharply from the European pattern. You do not need statistics you cannot verify. A safe, high-value formulation is: le modèle familial n'est pas uniforme dans le monde francophone ; il varie selon les traditions, la législation et le poids de la religion.

Worked example

The 90-100 word summary in French (le résumé)

A Paper 1 reading text argues that young French couples increasingly choose le PACS over marriage, for reasons of simplicity, tax and a wariness of divorce, while their parents' generation sees this as a weakening of commitment. Write the summary answer.

Know the rule before you write
The summary is marked twice and independently: once for content (AO1 for listening, AO2 for reading) and once for language (AO3). Marking of a long answer stops at the first natural break between 90 and 100 words, so anything after that is wasted. Lifted language earns nothing for AO3, so you must reformulate.
Extract the content points, then reword each one
Point 1: young couples prefer the PACS. Reworded: les jeunes couples privilégient le PACS. Point 2: reasons - simplicity, tax, fear of divorce. Reworded: en raison de sa simplicité, de ses avantages fiscaux et de la crainte du divorce. Point 3: the older generation disapproves. Reworded: leurs aînés y voient un engagement affaibli.
Build full sentences, not a list
The instruction requires full sentences. Link the points with cause and contrast connectors: parce que, en raison de, en revanche, tandis que. This is where the AO3 marks live.
Count and cut
Aim for 95 words. Delete any sentence that adds your own opinion: the summary rewards what the text says, not what you think.

Result: De plus en plus de jeunes couples français privilégient le PACS au détriment du mariage. Ils y voient d'abord une solution simple, que l'on peut conclure et rompre sans procédure lourde, ainsi qu'un statut qui offre des avantages fiscaux non négligeables. S'y ajoute la crainte du divorce, dont beaucoup ont été témoins dans leur propre famille. En revanche, la génération de leurs parents interprète ce choix tout autrement : elle y voit un engagement au rabais, une manière d'éviter la responsabilité durable que représentait autrefois le mariage. Le débat oppose donc deux conceptions de l'engagement conjugal. (96 mots)

Typical mistakes

Treating le PACS as a French civil partnership for same-sex couples only - it has always been open to couples of any sex, and most PACS are signed by mixed-sex couples.
Writing la pension alimentaire to mean a pension - it means maintenance paid for a child or ex-spouse; a retirement pension is la retraite.

Active revision

Rédigez un paragraphe de 100 mots en français comparant le mariage, le PACS et l'union libre, en justifiant lequel vous conseilleriez à un jeune couple.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - scheme of assessment (AQA)

Le lexique et les tournures: the language of family change#

StandardAQA 7652 3.1.1 - La famille en voie de changementAQA 7652 3.3 Grammar

Build the lexical field in blocks rather than as an alphabetical list, because that is how it is retrieved under exam pressure. Les structures: la famille nucléaire, monoparentale, recomposée, homoparentale, élargie; le foyer (household); le ménage (household, in statistics). Les personnes: le conjoint / la conjointe, le compagnon / la compagne, les concubins, le beau-père, la belle-mère, le demi-frère, la demi-soeur, les aînés, les petits-enfants, un enfant unique, un fils / une fille aîné(e), le cadet / la cadette, le benjamin / la benjamine. Les actes: se marier avec, se pacser, se mettre en ménage, emménager ensemble, se séparer, divorcer, se remarier, élever un enfant, subvenir aux besoins de.

Then the abstract nouns, which are what actually let you argue rather than describe: l'évolution des mentalités, la sécularisation, l'émancipation des femmes, l'individualisme, la solidarité intergénérationnelle, la dépendance, la précarité, l'épanouissement personnel (personal fulfilment), le lien familial, l'éclatement de la famille, la cellule familiale (the family unit). Notice that French argues in nouns where English argues in verbs: English says families have broken up, French prefers on assiste à un éclatement de la cellule familiale. Adopting that nominal style immediately raises your register, and it is one of the most transferable habits in the whole A-level.

Next the ready-made argumentative frames, which you should learn as fixed strings. To introduce: il convient de souligner que, force est de constater que, on ne peut nier que. To concede then counter: certes... néanmoins, il est vrai que... il n'en reste pas moins que, bien que + subjonctif. To attribute: selon une idée reçue, contrairement aux idées reçues, aux yeux de certains. To conclude: en définitive, tout compte fait, il ressort de ce qui précède que. Note that bien que, quoique, à condition que, pour que and avant que all take the subjunctive - bien que les familles aient changé, elles restent le refuge principal des Français.

Finally, register. The speaking test is a discussion with an examiner, so the default is le registre courant, with soutenu touches: use vous, avoid slang, but do not write your speech in literary French. Familiar forms you will hear in authentic listening material but should recognise rather than produce include les gosses, les mômes, mes vieux, se mettre en couple. Conversely, some soutenu markers cost nothing and gain credit: nos aînés instead of les vieux, un enfant issu d'une première union instead of un enfant d'avant, and the use of l'on after et, si and où - et l'on constate que. Precision of register is explicitly part of what AO3 measures.

Worked example

Upgrading a sentence in three passes

Take the GCSE-level sentence Beaucoup de familles sont différentes maintenant et c'est bien and raise it to A-level register in three deliberate passes.

Pass 1 - replace vague lexis with the exact term
différentes says nothing. The precise idea is structural diversity: On observe aujourd'hui une grande diversité de structures familiales. Already the vague adjective has become an abstract noun, which is the French argumentative default.
Pass 2 - add the causal explanation
c'est bien is an unsupported value judgement. Give it a cause and a consequence: ... diversité qui résulte de l'évolution des mentalités et de l'émancipation des femmes. Note the relative pronoun qui carrying the explanation without starting a new sentence.
Pass 3 - concede, then assert, with a subjunctive
Add nuance so AO4 has something to credit: Certes, certains y voient un affaiblissement de la cellule familiale ; néanmoins, bien que les formes aient changé, la fonction protectrice de la famille demeure. bien que + aient changé is the perfect subjunctive - one of the A-level-only grammar items in AQA 3.3.2.
Check what you have gained
Three abstract nouns, one relative pronoun, one concessive pair, one perfect subjunctive, and a defensible claim. The same three-pass routine works on every sub-theme in the specification.

Result: On observe aujourd'hui une grande diversité de structures familiales, qui résulte de l'évolution des mentalités et de l'émancipation des femmes. Certes, certains y voient un affaiblissement de la cellule familiale ; néanmoins, bien que les formes aient changé, la fonction protectrice de la famille demeure.

Typical mistakes

Using les parents to mean relatives - in French les parents normally means the mother and father; relatives are les proches or la famille.
Saying je suis d'accord avec cette famille or similar calques; opinions attach to ideas, not people: je partage cette analyse, je souscris à cette idée.

Active revision

Réécrivez ces trois phrases simples en registre courant soutenu, en utilisant un nom abstrait et un subjonctif : (1) Les familles ont changé. (2) Les grands-parents aident beaucoup. (3) Beaucoup de couples ne se marient pas.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - grammar (AQA)

En épreuve: the sub-theme in Papers 1 and 3#

AdvancedAQA 7652 4.4 Paper 1 - Listening, reading and writingAQA 7652 4.6 Paper 3 - Speaking, part one

La méthode de traduction

Fig. 2The five-stage translation routine. It applies in both directions; only step three changes emphasis, from finding natural English to choosing accurate French structures.

Know exactly where this sub-theme can meet you. In Paper 1 it can supply a listening passage (30 marks across the section), a reading text (50 marks), the French-into-English translation (10 marks) or the English-into-French translation (10 marks), and either of the two summary questions. In Paper 3 part one it can be one of the two stimulus cards you are offered; you choose one card, prepare it for five minutes with notes, then discuss it for five to six minutes for 25 marks, split AO1 5, AO2 5, AO3 10 and AO4 5. It cannot appear in Paper 2, which is only about the works. There are no dictionaries in any paper.

The translation into English is the only place in the entire qualification where you write English, and it is capped by regulation: across AO1 and AO2 no more than 10% of the qualification's marks may come from responses in English. Treat the ten marks as ten separate decisions rather than one act of gist. Work clause by clause, identify each verb's tense and each pronoun's referent, then produce natural English - not word-for-word French. Two habits win marks: never leave a gap, because an approximate rendering can still score, and always re-read the English on its own to check it is a sentence an English speaker would write.

The translation into French is where grammar is tested most directly, and AQA supplies a supporting text in French that gives you some of the vocabulary and structures you will need - so mine it before you start. The routine that works is: (1) find the main verb of each English sentence and fix its tense; (2) decide the gender and number of each noun, then propagate agreement; (3) identify the traps - which/that clauses (qui, que, dont, ce qui), possessives, prepositions after verbs, and any subjunctive trigger; (4) write; (5) re-read once for agreement only and once for accents only. Accents are part of accuracy: a missing accent on a past participle such as créé changes the word.

For the stimulus card, the mechanics carry marks that candidates throw away. The card contains images, text and three questions which the examiner will ask. You must also ask the examiner two questions, and they only count if they seek information or an opinion, contain a conjugated verb, and are not simply a rephrasing of the printed questions or a request for repetition. Prepare two all-purpose question frames in advance and adapt them on the spot: Que pensez-vous de l'idée selon laquelle ... ? and Diriez-vous que la situation est comparable au Royaume-Uni ? Both contain a conjugated verb, both seek an opinion, and both fit any sub-theme.

Worked example

Answering a stimulus card on la famille

The card shows a photograph of three generations at a table and carries the printed question « Pourquoi la structure de la famille française a-t-elle changé ? » Plan and deliver a 45-second answer, then frame a question for the examiner.

Use the five minutes to plan a shape, not a script
Three beats, each with a French keyword: (1) causes - l'évolution des mentalités, l'émancipation des femmes; (2) legal ratification - le PACS 1999, le mariage pour tous 2013; (3) nuance - la famille reste le premier refuge des Français. Write only the keywords on your notes; you may refer to them during the discussion.
Open with a frame, not with hesitation
Il convient d'abord de distinguer les causes sociales des causes juridiques. This buys you two seconds, signals structure, and is credited under AO3 for range of structure.
Deliver the three beats with connectors
D'une part, l'émancipation des femmes et la généralisation du travail féminin ont bouleversé le modèle traditionnel. D'autre part, la loi a entériné ces changements : le PACS en 1999, puis le mariage pour tous en 2013. Cela dit, il ne faut pas exagérer cet éclatement.
Close on a judgement, because AO4 wants one
En définitive, ce sont les formes qui ont changé, non la fonction : la famille demeure le premier lieu de solidarité. The cleft ce sont... qui and the contrast non... but adds structural range.
Then ask your question
Diriez-vous que cette évolution est comparable dans les pays francophones que vous connaissez ? It seeks an opinion, contains a conjugated verb (diriez), and is not a rephrasing of the printed question - so it meets the requirement.

Result: Il convient d'abord de distinguer les causes sociales des causes juridiques. D'une part, l'émancipation des femmes et la généralisation du travail féminin ont bouleversé le modèle traditionnel. D'autre part, la loi a entériné ces changements : le PACS en 1999, puis le mariage pour tous en 2013. Cela dit, il ne faut pas exagérer cet éclatement : en définitive, ce sont les formes qui ont changé, non la fonction, car la famille demeure le premier lieu de solidarité. - Et vous, diriez-vous que cette évolution est comparable dans les pays francophones que vous connaissez ?

Typical mistakes

Ignoring the French supporting text provided with the English-into-French translation, which is there precisely to supply the vocabulary and structures you need.
Preparing card answers as a memorised speech - the examiner asks the three printed questions in her own way and then follows up, and unresponsive recitation is penalised under AO1.

Active revision

Préparez une carte de stimulation sur la famille : rédigez trois réponses d'environ 45 secondes aux questions « Pourquoi la famille change-t-elle ? », « Les familles recomposées sont-elles une réussite ? » et « Quel rôle pour les grands-parents aujourd'hui ? », puis formulez deux questions à poser à l'examinateur.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - scheme of assessment (AQA) · AQA A-level French (7652) assessment resources (AQA)

References & sources

Sources

AQA

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The changing nature of family

5 sections~27 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 4 · Advanced 1

The changing nature of family

Key points

Translation into English: a passage on grandparents

Key points

Translation into French: a passage on blended families

Key points

The 90-100 word summary in French (le résumé)

Key points

Upgrading a sentence in three passes

Key points

Answering a stimulus card on la famille

Sources

The changing nature of family

Key points

Translation into English: a passage on grandparents

Key points

Translation into French: a passage on blended families

Key points

The 90-100 word summary in French (le résumé)

Key points

Upgrading a sentence in three passes

Key points

Answering a stimulus card on la famille

Sources