Notes · Greek (Modern)UK · A-Levels

Listening: Paper 3, and the twenty per cent of the A-Level that rests on hearing Greek

This topic carries Paper 3, Listening, reading and writing in Greek, which runs two hours fifteen minutes, is worth 60 marks and 30 per cent of the qualification, and carries the entire AO1 weighting — a fifth of the whole A-Level depends on understanding spoken Greek and responding to it in writing. Section A is listening comprehension for 30 marks, four questions mixing multiple choice with open response and including questions that specifically test summary skills, on a recording featuring male and female Greek speakers; the recording is issued on CD or as an MP3 obtained by secure download, and the student has individual control of it and may stop, revisit and replay as they wish. Section B, also 30 marks, pairs one unseen listening source with one unseen written source on the same sub-theme: questions 5(a) and 5(b) ask for the different points of view in each, and 5(c) asks for an evaluation of both in approximately 180 to 230 words. All questions in both sections are set in Greek and must be answered in Greek, and no dictionary is allowed. Because Paper 3 is where AO1 lives, and because AO1 exists nowhere else in this qualification, listening cannot be the skill a candidate leaves until the spring.

5 sections~33 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

T·0888 / 12

Exam profile

AO1 · Understand and respond in writing to spoken Greek from a variety of contexts, speakers and sourcesAO2 · Understand and respond in writing to a written Greek source paired with a spoken one on the same sub-themeAO3 · Manipulate Greek accurately when summarising and evaluating what has been heard and readAO4 · Bring knowledge of Greek and Cypriot society and culture to bear on what is heard, so that inference is informed rather than guessed

Operators:ακούωσυνοψίζωαξιολογώσυγκρίνωεντοπίζωσυμπεραίνωκαταγράφωεξηγώ

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is that main points and clear detail are caught on a second hearing and reported accurately in simple correct Greek.

higher level

The full A-Level expects the speaker's stance and the structure of the argument to be caught as well as its content, opposing viewpoints to be held apart, and the written response to be as accurate as anything produced with unlimited time.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Listening: Paper 3, and the twenty per cent of the A-Level that rests on hearing Greek

The shape of Paper 3, and what individual control changes#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 3 — Listening, reading and writing in Greek, 2 h 15, 60 marks, 30 per centDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Paper 3 section by section

Fig. 1Two hours fifteen minutes, 60 marks, 30 per cent of the A-Level, and the whole of the qualification's AO1 weighting. The mark distribution inside Section B is the fact worth memorising: the three levels-based grids on question 5(c) account for 22 of the section's 30 marks, so the two points-based summary questions carry the remaining 8 between them. Note also that no part of this paper is answered in English, and that no dictionary is allowed anywhere in it.

Paper 3 is unusual among listening papers and the difference is worth exploiting rather than merely noting. In most listening examinations the recording is played to a room a fixed number of times and the candidate has no say in it. Here the specification states that students have individual control of the recording and may stop, revisit and replay sections of it as they wish. That single provision converts listening from an ordeal of memory into a task of method: the constraint is no longer how much you can hold in your head but how well you budget the recommended forty-five minutes of Section A and the ninety of Section B. Candidates who do not internalise this listen the way they did at GCSE, straight through and twice, and leave marks on the table.

The paper's arithmetic tells you where to spend that budget. Section A carries 30 marks over four questions and a recommended forty-five minutes. Section B carries 30 marks and a recommended hour and a half, and within it questions 5(a) and 5(b) are marked by a points-based scheme while 5(c) is marked by three levels-based grids worth 6, 6 and 10 — twenty-two of Section B's thirty marks, which leaves eight for the two summary questions. So Section B pays roughly a mark a minute for the summaries and rather better than that for the evaluation, while Section A pays two marks for every three minutes. The practical consequence is that time spent perfecting a 5(a) list beyond completeness is time taken from the part of the paper where marks are denser.

What is on the recording is described in the specification and is worth taking literally. Section A features male and female Greek speakers speaking at a speed appropriate for the expected understanding at this level, across a variety of contexts and sources, drawing on vocabulary and structures from all the sub-themes. Section B's listening source is on the same sub-theme as its written source, which is the whole point of the pairing: the two are chosen so that they can be compared, and they will normally take different views. Preparing for this means listening to Greek that argues — interviews, panel discussions, broadcast commentary — rather than only to Greek that describes.

Two practical matters that candidates discover too late. First, everything is set in Greek and must be answered in Greek, including Section A: there is no English-answered section anywhere in this paper. That means listening practice must include writing in Greek about what was heard, not merely understanding it, because the two are different skills and only the second is assessed. Second, no dictionary is permitted. The corollary is that vocabulary for this paper has to be active rather than recognisable, and the most efficient way to build it is to write summaries of what you have listened to, in Greek, immediately, so that the words arrive attached to the act of using them.

Worked example

Budgeting the paper before you hear a word

You have two hours fifteen minutes and the recommended timings are forty-five minutes for Section A and an hour and a half for Section B. Plan the paper.

Divide Section A by question, not by recording
Four questions, thirty marks, forty-five minutes. That is roughly eleven minutes and seven or eight marks per question, and each question has its own portion of the recording. The mistake is to treat the recording as one object to be listened to and then answered; treat it instead as four objects. Read the question, listen only to its portion, answer, move on. Leave five minutes at the end of Section A, unallocated, for the one question that will turn out to be harder than the others.
Split Section B's ninety minutes by mark density
Eight marks live in 5(a) and 5(b) and twenty-two in 5(c). A defensible split is thirty minutes on the two sources and the summaries — listening, reading, and writing two compact lists — and sixty on the evaluation, of which perhaps fifteen are planning and forty-five writing and checking. Two hundred words of accurate Greek takes most people forty minutes under examination conditions, and the AO3 grid inside 5(c) is worth ten marks, so the writing time is not padding.
Decide in advance what your replay policy is
Replay is a resource and it costs time. Decide before the examination that you will replay a passage at most twice, and that you will replay only where you have written a question mark on your notes rather than replaying everything. The single most wasteful behaviour in a controlled-playback listening paper is re-listening to material you already understood, in the hope that something new will emerge.
Fix the note language before you start
Take notes in Greek, not in English. The answers must be in Greek, and a note taken in English has to be translated under time pressure, which is where errors enter. Notes in Greek also force you to commit to a word while you can still hear the source, which is exactly when you are best placed to choose it. Keep them telegraphic — subject, verb, stance — and reserve full sentences for the answer paper.

Result: Section A: four questions of about eleven minutes each, with five minutes held back. Section B: thirty minutes for the two sources and the summaries, sixty for the evaluation, of which fifteen are planning. Replay at most twice, and only where the notes carry a question mark. All notes in Greek.

Typical mistakes

Listening straight through twice, as at GCSE, and never using the replay control on the dense passages.
Over-polishing 5(a) and 5(b), where eight marks live, at the cost of 5(c), where twenty-two do.
Preparing by listening only, and never by writing Greek about what was heard.
Assuming a section is answered in English. None of Paper 3 is.

Active revision

Take a ten-minute Greek podcast or broadcast interview on any sub-theme. Give yourself twenty minutes and the ability to pause. Write, in Greek, a list of the viewpoints expressed, then a 200-word evaluation of them. Then listen again and mark yourself on how many viewpoints you missed. The number that matters is not how much you understood but how much you could write down accurately.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

From sound to sense: what actually makes Greek hard to hear#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 3 Section A — a recording featuring male and female Greek speakersPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Appendix 2, items 1 and 2 — the position of the stress; the writing system

Greek has a small and clean vowel system — five vowel sounds, no length distinction, no reduction of unstressed vowels — which makes it easier to hear than English and harder to spell. Several written vowels and digraphs share one sound: ι, η, υ, ει and οι are all pronounced the same, as are ο and ω, and as are ε and αι. For listening that is good news, because there are few vowel contrasts to miss. For writing about what you have heard it is the central difficulty, because you cannot spell from sound; you must spell from grammar. Whether a verb ends in -ει or -η, whether a noun's plural is -οι or -ι, is decided by what the word is doing in the sentence, not by what it sounded like.

The consonants hold the real listening obstacles, and there are three. First, the digraphs: μπ is heard as b, ντ as d, γκ and γγ as g, τσ and τζ as affricates. A learner who reads these as two sounds each will not recognise them when spoken. Second, palatalisation: γ and χ before ε and ι change quality substantially, so γεια and χέρι do not sound as their spelling suggests to an English ear. Third, and most disruptive, the assimilation across word boundaries that Greek performs constantly. Τον πατέρα is heard as a single group with a b in the middle; στην Κύπρο with a g; δεν πάω with a b. Word boundaries in fluent Greek are not audible, and expecting them to be is the commonest reason a learner hears an undifferentiated stream.

Stress is the compensating gift. Greek is stress-timed at the word level and the stress is fixed, distinctive and audible, which means the accent you learned to write is also the accent you can hear. That is what makes πότε and ποτέ, πού and που, νόμος and νομός distinguishable in speech, and it is why the accent has to be learned as part of the word rather than added afterwards. When you cannot catch a word, catch its stress pattern and its length; that is often enough to identify it on a replay, and it is always enough to write a useful note.

Two further features of real spoken Greek that a prepared candidate expects. Elision is pervasive and normal: σ' αυτό, απ' το, μ' αρέσει, τ' άλλα, and in fast speech it goes further than the written apostrophe records. And discourse markers do heavy structural work — λοιπόν, marking a move to the point; δηλαδή, that is to say, marking a restatement; βέβαια, of course, often conceding; ωστόσο and όμως, however, marking a turn; τέλος πάντων, anyway, closing a digression. Those words are the signposts of a spoken argument, and a listener who tracks them knows where the speaker is going even through a stretch of unfamiliar vocabulary. Learning eight discourse markers well is worth more to a listening mark than learning eighty nouns.

Worked example

Hearing a sentence, then spelling it from grammar rather than from sound

You hear the following and must write it down and understand it: Ο υπουργός είπε πως τα μέτρα θα εφαρμοστούν από την πρώτη του μήνα, αλλά δεν διευκρίνισε πώς θα χρηματοδοτηθούν.

Catch the shape before the words
The sentence has a subject, a verb of saying, a reported clause, a contrastive αλλά and a second reported clause. That skeleton is audible from the stress pattern and from the marker αλλά alone, and it is worth writing down before any content. In an examination this is a note that reads something like: Χ είπε ότι Α, αλλά δεν είπε Β. Everything else is filling.
Spell the vowels from the grammar, not the sound
Εφαρμοστούν and χρηματοδοτηθούν are both third person plural, and the ending is heard as -oun; there is only one way to spell it, -ούν, so no decision arises. But είπε and πως offer two traps: the sound of είπε could in principle be spelled several ways and is fixed by the verb λέω, and the sound of πως is spelled πως as a conjunction and πώς as the interrogative. The second clause has the interrogative — δεν διευκρίνισε πώς — so it takes the accent. Both instances in this sentence are decided by grammar, and neither by ear.
Handle the assimilations you will actually hear
Από την πρώτη του μήνα will be heard as a single run with a d-like sound where την meets πρώτη — the final nu assimilating to the following stop. Τα μέτρα θα εφαρμοστούν runs together across the θα. Do not try to segment these while listening; write what you understand as a phrase and segment afterwards, when you have the grammar to guide you. Του μήνα is a genitive of time, of the month, and depends on πρώτη, the first — an ellipsis Greek uses constantly for dates.
Note the two verbs that carry the mark
Εφαρμοστούν is the perfective subjunctive mediopassive of εφαρμόζω, will be applied, here after θα as a simple future passive. Χρηματοδοτηθούν is the same form of χρηματοδοτώ, will be funded. Both are passives, and a comprehension question will be about the second: the minister said what would happen but not how it would be paid for. That contrast — a statement made and a question left unanswered — is the item's content, and it is carried entirely by the two passive verbs and the negative.

Result: The minister said that the measures would be applied from the first of the month, but did not clarify how they would be funded. Note for an answer in Greek: Ο υπουργός ανακοίνωσε την ημερομηνία εφαρμογής των μέτρων, αλλά απέφυγε να απαντήσει στο ερώτημα της χρηματοδότησης.

Typical mistakes

Writing -η where the grammar requires -ει because that is what it sounded like.
Failing to recognise μπ or ντ in speech, and so failing to identify a word you know perfectly well in writing.
Trying to hear where one word ends and the next begins, which in Greek is not audible and is not necessary.
Building listening vocabulary as nouns only, and having no signposts when the nouns run out.

Active revision

Take three minutes of Greek speech and transcribe it in full, then check your transcription against a text if one exists or against a second listening if not. Count your errors in three categories: vowel spellings, digraph consonants, and word boundaries. Whichever category dominates is what your next month of listening practice is for.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

The three-pass method, and taking notes in Greek#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 3 Section A — students will have individual control of the recording and may stop, revisit and replay sectionsDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The method that exploits individual control has three passes and they have different purposes. The first pass is without a pen: listen to the whole of the relevant portion once, for shape — who is speaking, how many of them, what the topic is, whether they agree. Writing during this pass is actively harmful, because the hand lags the ear and you lose the following sentence to record the last one. The second pass is with a pen and with stops: work through in units of a sentence or two, pausing to note not the words but the function — this sentence states a position, this one gives an example, this one concedes, this one concludes. The third pass is targeted: return only to the places where a question needs a detail you do not have.

Notes should be in Greek and should be telegraphic. Three columns, drawn before the recording starts, are enough: who, what they claim, and any specific — a date, a number, a name, a place. In Greek the note is faster than in English because the words are the ones you will use in the answer. Develop your own abbreviations and use them consistently: an arrow for consequence, a slash for contrast, a question mark for anything you want to replay. The purpose of the note is not to reconstruct the recording; it is to make the answer writable without a fourth pass.

Certain kinds of detail need their own discipline because they are easy to hear and easy to write down wrongly. Numbers: Greek numerals above twenty are compound and fast — εκατόν είκοσι τρία — so write digits, not words, and convert later. Dates: Greek says στις 5 Ιουλίου, on the fifth of July, and the month name may be all you catch; note it and reconstruct. Names: Greek surnames are long and often unfamiliar, so note the first syllable and the stress and move on rather than losing a sentence to spelling. Percentages and quantities: note the figure and the noun it attaches to, because a figure without its noun is worthless in an answer.

One habit is worth building over the whole two years and it is not glamorous: listen to Greek every day for fifteen minutes, and write three sentences in Greek about what you heard. The reason is that AO1 is defined as understanding and responding in writing to spoken language, so the assessed skill is the pair, not the first half alone. A candidate who has done this three hundred times arrives at Paper 3 with the conversion from heard Greek to written Greek automatic; a candidate who has only listened arrives able to understand the recording and unable to say so in the language it is in. Radio, podcasts, news bulletins and interviews are all free, and the specification's own list of what counts as an authentic source for research names most of them.

Worked example

The three passes applied to a two-speaker item

A Section A item features an interviewer and a guest discussing whether young Greeks should be encouraged to stay in the country. Show what each pass produces.

Pass one, no pen: establish the shape
Two speakers, an interviewer whose turns are short and questions, and a guest whose turns are long and argued. The guest disagrees with the framing of the first question. There are at least two distinct arguments in the guest's second turn. That is all — four facts, none of them detailed, and every one of them useful. The value of this pass is that it tells you where the content is, so that pass two knows where to slow down.
Pass two, with stops: notes in Greek by function
The note is a grid. Δημοσιογράφος: ερώτηση — να μείνουν οι νέοι; Καλεσμένος: απορρίπτει το ερώτημα / λέει ότι δεν είναι θέμα επιλογής. Καλεσμένος: επιχ. 1 — μισθοί. Καλεσμένος: επιχ. 2 — προοπτική, όχι μόνο χρήμα. Δημοσιογράφος: αντίρρηση — και όσοι γύρισαν; Καλεσμένος: παραδέχεται, αλλά λέει «λίγοι». Six lines, all in Greek, all telegraphic, and between them they contain every point the questions can ask about.
Pass three, targeted: fill only the gaps
Look at the questions. If one asks Ποια δύο επιχειρήματα προβάλλει ο καλεσμένος;, the note already answers it. If one asks Τι απαντά ο καλεσμένος στην αντίρρηση του δημοσιογράφου;, the note says he concedes but calls the numbers small, and you may want the exact wording of the concession — so replay that one exchange, and nothing else. Thirty seconds of replay, one detail recovered.
Convert the notes into Greek answers, not into translations
Because the notes are already in Greek, the answer is an expansion rather than a translation: Ο καλεσμένος υποστηρίζει, πρώτον, ότι το ζήτημα δεν είναι ζήτημα προσωπικής επιλογής και, δεύτερον, ότι οι μισθοί από μόνοι τους δεν εξηγούν τη φυγή, καθώς αυτό που λείπει είναι η προοπτική. Πρώτον and δεύτερον cost nothing and organise the answer visibly, which is what a points-based marker wants to see.

Result: Pass one: two speakers, the guest disputes the framing, two arguments in the second turn. Pass two: six telegraphic lines in Greek. Pass three: one thirty-second replay for the exact concession. Answer: Ο καλεσμένος υποστηρίζει, πρώτον, ότι το ζήτημα δεν είναι ζήτημα προσωπικής επιλογής και, δεύτερον, ότι οι μισθοί από μόνοι τους δεν εξηγούν τη φυγή, καθώς αυτό που λείπει είναι η προοπτική.

Typical mistakes

Writing continuously through the first pass and hearing half of what was said.
Taking notes in English and translating them under time pressure.
Replaying material already understood instead of the passages marked with a question mark.
Preparing for listening by listening only, and discovering in the examination that writing about it is a separate skill.

Active revision

Find a five-minute Greek news bulletin. Run the three passes with a timer: two minutes for pass one, six for pass two, two for pass three. Then, without the recording, write in Greek a summary of every item in one sentence each. Check afterwards how many items you have and how many the bulletin had. The gap is your measure, and it should shrink over a term.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Section A: the question types, and the summary questions inside them#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 3 Section A — four questions, multiple-choice and open-response, including questions testing summary skillsDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Section A has four questions and the specification says they are made up of multiple-choice and open-response questions, including questions testing summary skills. Each type has its own technique. Multiple choice in a listening paper is not a matter of recognising the right answer but of eliminating three wrong ones, and the wrong ones in a well-set paper are not random: one will usually be true of the recording but not an answer to the question, one will be a plausible inference the speaker did not make, and one will contain a real word from the recording in a false relation. Read all four options before the relevant portion plays, so that you are listening for a decision rather than for meaning in general.

Open-response questions are answered in Greek and are marked on points, which dictates their shape. Answer the question asked, in as many words as it takes and no more; a question beginning Γιατί wants a because and a question beginning Πώς wants a manner. Do not lift a phrase from the recording if you can re-encode it, because a marker cannot distinguish transcription from comprehension and the safe reading is the unfavourable one. And do not offer two answers hoping one is right: where an answer contains a correct element and an incorrect one, a points-based scheme normally cannot award the correct part.

The summary questions are the ones that differentiate, and they are also the closest thing in Section A to what Section B will ask. A summary question asks for the content of a stretch of the recording in fewer words than the speaker used, which means selecting rather than compressing. The technique: identify the number of distinct points the marker is looking for, which the mark allocation usually tells you; write one clause per point; and cut every example, every repetition and every aside. The Greek for this is a small set of verbs worth having ready — αναφέρει, υποστηρίζει, επισημαίνει, τονίζει, παραδέχεται, απορρίπτει, καταλήγει — because a summary written with seven different reporting verbs reads as analysis and one written with seven instances of λέει does not.

Two things a candidate should look for in every Section A recording because they are so frequently tested. First, the correction: a speaker who says δεν είναι ότι X, είναι ότι Y has told you both what the answer is not and what it is, and questions cluster on that structure. Second, the concession: a speaker who says βέβαια, X, αλλά Y has conceded something in order to make a stronger claim, and a candidate who reports only the concession has reported the opposite of the speaker's view. Both are audible from their markers alone, which is why the discourse markers in the previous section are worth learning before any more nouns.

Worked example

Eliminating three distractors on a real structure

The recording contains: Βέβαια, ο τουρισμός δημιουργεί θέσεις εργασίας. Το ζήτημα δεν είναι αν δημιουργεί, αλλά τι είδους θέσεις και για πόσους μήνες τον χρόνο. The question is Ποια είναι η θέση του ομιλητή; with four options: A Ο τουρισμός δεν δημιουργεί θέσεις εργασίας. B Ο τουρισμός δημιουργεί θέσεις εργασίας και αυτό αρκεί. C Το πρόβλημα είναι η ποιότητα και η διάρκεια της απασχόλησης. D Ο ομιλητής ζητά λιγότερο τουρισμό.

Eliminate A: contradicted by the speaker's own concession
Βέβαια, ο τουρισμός δημιουργεί θέσεις εργασίας. Βέβαια is a conceding marker, of course, and what follows it is granted, not denied. Option A states the opposite of a proposition the speaker explicitly accepts. This is the true-but-reversed distractor, and it catches candidates who hear the critical tone of the passage and assume the speaker denies everything about tourism.
Eliminate B: true of the first sentence, but not the speaker's position
Option B contains the concession and stops there. It is a fair report of sentence one and a false report of the item, because sentence two exists precisely to say that the concession is not the point. This is the true-but-irrelevant distractor, and it is the one that catches candidates who answer from the first thing they understood.
Eliminate D: a plausible inference the speaker did not make
Nothing in the passage asks for less tourism. The speaker asks a question about the kind and the duration of employment, which is compatible with the same volume of tourism differently organised. This is the plausible-but-unstated distractor, and it is the hardest of the three, because it is the conclusion a listener might reasonably draw. The discipline is that a listening paper tests what was said, not what follows from it.
Confirm C from the structure, not from the vocabulary
Το ζήτημα δεν είναι αν … αλλά τι είδους … και για πόσους μήνες. The δεν είναι X αλλά Y frame identifies the speaker's position unambiguously, and the two elements after αλλά are exactly quality and duration. Option C is a paraphrase of that clause with η ποιότητα and η διάρκεια substituted for the speaker's own words, which is what a correct option normally looks like: not the same words, the same claim.

Result: C. The correct option paraphrases the clause after δεν είναι … αλλά; A reverses a concession the speaker granted; B reports the concession as the position; D states an inference the speaker did not draw.

Typical mistakes

Choosing the multiple-choice option that contains a word you definitely heard.
Answering a γιατί question with a description of what happened rather than with a cause.
Offering two possible answers, which in a points-based scheme usually forfeits the correct one.
Writing a summary that is a shortened transcript rather than a selection of points.

Active revision

Take any four-minute Greek interview. Write four questions on it yourself — one multiple choice with three plausible distractors, two open-response of different types, and one summary question with a stated mark allocation. Then answer your own paper a week later. Writing the distractors teaches you what a distractor is for, which is the fastest way to stop falling for them.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Section B: the heard source inside the double-source task, and the six AO1 marks#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9GK0 Paper 3 Section B — one listening source and one written source on the same sub-theme; 5(c) grids AO1 out of 6, AO2 out of 6, AO3 out of 10DfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Section B is the only place in the qualification where a heard source and a read source are handled together, and the specification is explicit that they are on the same sub-theme. That is a design decision with a consequence: the two sources are chosen so that they can be set against each other, which in practice means they normally differ, either in the position they take or in what they consider relevant. A candidate who approaches them as two separate comprehension exercises and then writes an evaluation has done the work in the wrong order. Read and listen with the comparison already in mind, noting for each point in one source whether the other addresses it, agrees with it, or ignores it.

The mark distribution is what decides the tactics, and it repays memorising. Question 5(c) is marked by three grids: understanding and responding to spoken language (AO1) out of 6, understanding and responding to written language (AO2) out of 6, and accuracy and range of language (AO3) out of 10. Those twenty-two marks sit on one answer of 180 to 230 words. The six AO1 marks are awarded for judgement on the viewpoints in the spoken source and for conclusions drawn from it — the grid's own wording is about evaluation, not about recall — so an answer that summarises the recording accurately but never evaluates it can score near the bottom of a grid it appeared to answer.

The practical rule that protects those six marks is simple: name the spoken source explicitly and repeatedly, and attach a judgement to it every time. Ο ομιλητής υποστηρίζει ότι …, και το επιχείρημα αυτό είναι πειστικό επειδή …. Ο ομιλητής παραδέχεται ότι …, αλλά δεν εξηγεί …. Two sentences, and the AO1 grid can see both an understanding and an evaluation. The same applies to the written source and its own six marks. An answer with four such sentences, two per source, has satisfied twelve marks of the twenty-two before a word of conclusion is written.

Preparing specifically for this task is different from preparing for Section A, and there is one exercise worth doing weekly. Find a Greek article and a Greek broadcast item on the same subject from the same fortnight — the news cycle supplies them constantly — and write, in Greek, three sentences: what they agree about, what they disagree about, and which of them makes the better case and why. Fifteen minutes, three sentences, and it drills exactly the operation that 5(c) rewards. Doing it fifty times over two years is a better preparation for this section than any amount of listening in isolation, because the assessed skill is not hearing, and not reading, but weighing.

Worked example

Protecting the six AO1 marks in four sentences

The spoken source argues that young people leave Greece because of pay. The written source argues that they leave because of a lack of prospects and of meritocracy. Write the part of a 5(c) answer that the AO1 grid will mark.

Sentence one: report the spoken source and judge it in the same breath
Ο ομιλητής αποδίδει τη φυγή των νέων κυρίως στους μισθούς, και το επιχείρημα έχει τη δύναμη ότι στηρίζεται σε κάτι μετρήσιμο. Two moves in one sentence: αποδίδει σε reports the claim, and έχει τη δύναμη ότι evaluates it with a criterion, measurability. The AO1 grid asks for judgement expressed on the viewpoints in the spoken source, and this sentence contains one. Note that the judgement is favourable — you are not obliged to disagree with a source in order to evaluate it.
Sentence two: identify what the spoken source does not do
Δεν εξηγεί, ωστόσο, γιατί φεύγουν και όσοι αμείβονται ικανοποιητικά, και σε αυτό το σημείο το επιχείρημά του είναι ελλιπές. Ελλιπής, incomplete, is a precise evaluative adjective and better than λάθος, wrong, because it says exactly what the deficiency is. Identifying the case a source cannot account for is the single most effective evaluative move available, and it works on any source of any kind.
Sentence three: draw a conclusion from the spoken source specifically
Συνεπώς, το επιχείρημα του ομιλητή ισχύει για ένα μέρος του φαινομένου, όχι για το σύνολό του. The AO1 grid rewards conclusions drawn on the spoken source, so a conclusion attached explicitly to it is worth writing even in a short answer. Note the shape: not the speaker is wrong but the argument holds for part of the phenomenon — a narrower conclusion, which is almost always the more defensible one.
Sentence four: relate it to the written source, which also serves AO2
Το κείμενο καλύπτει ακριβώς αυτό το κενό, εντοπίζοντας την έλλειψη προοπτικής και αξιοκρατίας, και γι' αυτό μου φαίνεται πιο πλήρες. Εντοπίζοντας is the gerund in -οντας, which the grammar list names and which costs nothing here. This sentence works for both grids at once: it evaluates the written source and it completes the argument about the spoken one. Four sentences, roughly eighty words, and twelve of the twenty-two marks are addressed.

Result: Ο ομιλητής αποδίδει τη φυγή των νέων κυρίως στους μισθούς, και το επιχείρημα έχει τη δύναμη ότι στηρίζεται σε κάτι μετρήσιμο. Δεν εξηγεί, ωστόσο, γιατί φεύγουν και όσοι αμείβονται ικανοποιητικά, και σε αυτό το σημείο το επιχείρημά του είναι ελλιπές. Συνεπώς, το επιχείρημα του ομιλητή ισχύει για ένα μέρος του φαινομένου, όχι για το σύνολό του. Το κείμενο καλύπτει ακριβώς αυτό το κενό, εντοπίζοντας την έλλειψη προοπτικής και αξιοκρατίας, και γι' αυτό μου φαίνεται πιο πλήρες.

Typical mistakes

Summarising the recording accurately in 5(c) and never evaluating it, which forfeits most of the six AO1 marks.
Writing an evaluation that draws only on the source that was easier to understand.
Treating the two sources sequentially rather than comparatively, which wastes the design of the task.
Exceeding 230 words, which costs the checking time that the ten AO3 marks depend on.

Active revision

Every week, take one Greek article and one Greek broadcast item on the same subject and write three sentences in Greek: what they agree about, what they disagree about, and which makes the better case and why. Keep them all in one notebook. By the examination you will have a hundred and fifty sentences of practice at precisely the operation 5(c) tests, and a stock of evaluative phrasing that is yours rather than borrowed.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification (Pearson Edexcel) · GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Pearson Edexcel

Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Greek (9GK0) specification

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Listening: Paper 3, and the twenty per cent of the A-Level that rests on hearing Greek

5 sections~33 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

Listening: Paper 3, and the twenty per cent of the A-Level that rests on hearing Greek

Key points

Budgeting the paper before you hear a word

Key points

Hearing a sentence, then spelling it from grammar rather than from sound

Key points

The three passes applied to a two-speaker item

Key points

Eliminating three distractors on a real structure

Key points

Protecting the six AO1 marks in four sentences

Sources

Listening: Paper 3, and the twenty per cent of the A-Level that rests on hearing Greek

Key points

Budgeting the paper before you hear a word

Key points

Hearing a sentence, then spelling it from grammar rather than from sound

Key points

The three passes applied to a two-speaker item

Key points

Eliminating three distractors on a real structure

Key points

Protecting the six AO1 marks in four sentences

Sources