Notes · SpanishUK · A-Levels

Modern and Traditional Values

Los valores tradicionales y modernos opens AQA's Aspects of Hispanic society theme and carries three strands: los cambios en la familia, las actitudes hacia el matrimonio y el divorcio, and la influencia de la Iglesia Católica. The notes cover the real Spanish social and legal landscape - the shift from la familia extensa to smaller and more varied households, la emancipación tardía, the divorce law of 1981 and its 2005 reform, the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2005, and the aconfesionalidad written into Article 16 of the 1978 Constitution - together with the Spanish needed to describe change (imperfecto for how things were, presente for how they are, cada vez más for a trend) and the tact required to discuss religion and family in a foreign language without caricature.

5 sections~27 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

T·0111 / 16

Exam profile

AO1 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to spoken Spanish on family life and valuesAO2 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to written Spanish on marriage, divorce and religionAO3 · Manipulate the language accurately, using a range of lexis and structureAO4 · Show knowledge of, and respond critically to, values and family life in Hispanic society

Operators:describircompararexplicartraducirresumirmatizar

basic level

AS Spanish (7691) includes this sub-theme within Aspects of Hispanic society. The expectation is accurate description of family structures and of attitudes to marriage, divorce and religion, with clear personal opinion and secure present, preterite and imperfect tenses.

higher level

The full A-Level expects the change to be explained rather than listed: why household size fell, why civil ceremonies overtook religious ones, why practice can decline while cultural Catholicism survives. Answers must concede, weigh and conclude in Spanish, using subordination, the subjunctive after expressions of doubt and emotion, and precise vocabulary for social change.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Modern and Traditional Values

Family change: los cambios en la familia#

StandardAQA 7692 3.1.1 - Los valores tradicionales y modernos: los cambios en la familiaDfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

Los modelos de familia

Fig. 1The classification is the vocabulary. Naming the model precisely in Spanish is worth more than any adjective of approval or disapproval.

Begin with the vocabulary of household shapes, because the whole sub-theme is built on it. La familia nuclear is parents and children; la familia extensa adds grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins under one roof or in daily contact; una familia monoparental has one parent, usually described as una madre soltera or un padre soltero, or as separada or viuda; una familia reconstituida or ensamblada is formed when two adults bring children from previous relationships; una familia homoparental is headed by a same-sex couple; and una pareja de hecho is an unmarried couple registered as such, a status recognised in Spanish law with rights that vary by autonomous community. Note the adjectives you will need to describe them without judgement: diverso, variado, cambiante, mayoritario, minoritario.

The direction of change in Spain is not in dispute and can be stated safely without inventing figures. Households have become smaller; couples have children later and have fewer of them, so that Spain's fertility rate is among the lowest in the European Union; life expectancy is high, so the population is ageing - el envejecimiento de la población - and la pirámide demográfica se ha invertido. Two consequences follow that examiners like to see connected rather than merely listed. First, la generación sándwich: middle-aged adults who care simultaneously for children and for elderly parents. Second, the continuing weight of los abuelos, who in Spain frequently provide childcare that makes both parents' employment possible - a point that complicates any simple story of the extended family disappearing.

The most distinctive Spanish fact in this strand is la emancipación tardía: young people in Spain leave the parental home markedly later than in northern Europe. The causes are economic rather than cultural - el paro juvenil, la precariedad laboral, los contratos temporales and above all el precio de la vivienda, both el alquiler and la compra. The vocabulary is worth memorising as a chain, because the chain is the argument: sin empleo estable no hay hipoteca ni contrato de alquiler, y sin vivienda no hay emancipación ni proyecto familiar. Say it that way and you have simultaneously described a fact, explained a cause and linked two sub-themes, since youth unemployment returns under Jóvenes de hoy, ciudadanos del mañana.

Finally, learn to describe change with the right tenses, because this is where marks are quietly lost. Use el imperfecto for how things used to be: antes, las familias eran más numerosas y varias generaciones convivían bajo el mismo techo. Use el presente for the situation now: hoy en día predominan los hogares pequeños. Use cada vez más or cada vez menos for a trend: cada vez más parejas deciden no casarse. Use el pretérito perfecto for change with present relevance: la familia ha cambiado profundamente en las últimas décadas. And use se + third person for impersonal statements, which is far more idiomatic than la gente: se tienen menos hijos y se tienen más tarde.

Worked example

Translation into Spanish: describing family change

Translate into Spanish: Fifty years ago, Spanish families were larger and several generations often lived together. Today young people leave home later because they cannot find stable work. Many couples decide to have only one child, and some prefer not to marry at all.

Choose the past tense deliberately
Families were larger describes a state in the past with no defined end: that is el imperfecto, hace cincuenta años las familias españolas eran más numerosas. Often lived together is a repeated habitual action, so imperfecto again: convivían. Using the preterite eran becomes fueron here would wrongly close the period off.
Handle leave home and the causal link
To leave home in this sense is irse de casa or emanciparse; the technical noun is la emancipación. Because introducing a reason is porque; do not start a Spanish sentence with porque unless you are answering a question. Cannot find stable work = no encuentran un empleo estable - encontrar is radical-changing (o to ue), so the third person plural is encuentran.
Decide the mood after decidir and preferir
Deciden tener un solo hijo: when the subject of both verbs is the same, Spanish uses the plain infinitive, not que plus subjunctive. The same applies to prefieren no casarse. The subjunctive would appear only if the subject changed: prefieren que sus hijos no se casen.
Render some and at all
Some couples = algunas parejas. Not to marry at all is an intensifier that Spanish carries with no plus a phrase rather than word for word: prefieren no casarse, or more emphatically, prefieren no casarse en absoluto. Do not translate at all as en todo.
Check agreement and the reflexive
Numerosas agrees with familias; un solo hijo keeps solo as an adjective meaning single, without an accent. Casarse is reflexive, so the pronoun attaches to the infinitive: no casarse, never no se casar.

Result: Hace cincuenta años, las familias españolas eran más numerosas y a menudo convivían varias generaciones bajo el mismo techo. Hoy en día los jóvenes se van de casa más tarde porque no encuentran un empleo estable. Muchas parejas deciden tener un solo hijo, y algunas prefieren no casarse.

Typical mistakes

Translating parents as parientes; los parientes are relatives in general, and parents are los padres.
Writing la familia son numerosas - familia is a singular collective noun in Spanish and takes a singular verb: la familia es numerosa.

Active revision

Escribe en español un párrafo de 120 palabras que compare la familia española de los años sesenta con la de hoy, usando al menos tres verbos en imperfecto, dos en presente y una expresión con «cada vez».

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level Spanish (7692) specification - subject content (AQA) · GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

Marriage and divorce: actitudes hacia el matrimonio y el divorcio#

StandardAQA 7692 3.1.1 - Los valores tradicionales y modernos: actitudes hacia el matrimonio/el divorcioDfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

Spanish marriage law changed twice in ways every candidate should be able to name. Divorce was legalised in 1981, only three years after the democratic Constitution, by the law usually referred to as la ley del divorcio; before it, a marriage could be annulled or a couple separated, but the bond could not be dissolved. In 2005 the law was reformed to remove the requirement of a prior separation and of alleging a cause, which is why Spaniards speak of el divorcio exprés. In the same year Spain legalised el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo, becoming one of the first countries in the world to do so, with full adoption rights for married couples. These three facts - 1981, 2005 divorce reform, 2005 equal marriage - are precise, verifiable and enough on their own to lift an answer out of generality.

Describe today's practice with the right nouns. Una boda is the ceremony and el matrimonio the institution or the married couple; una boda civil takes place in el ayuntamiento or before a juez, and una boda religiosa in la iglesia. Civil ceremonies now outnumber religious ones in Spain according to the official statistics, and couples marry later than their parents did. Alternatives to marriage have their own vocabulary: convivir or vivir en pareja, la cohabitación, and the registered pareja de hecho. For separation: separarse, divorciarse de alguien (note the preposition), el divorcio de mutuo acuerdo or contencioso, la custodia compartida, la pensión alimenticia, and la manutención de los hijos.

The interesting analytical question is not whether marriage is in decline but what it is now for. Three positions can be argued in Spanish and each can be evidenced. First, marriage as a legal instrument: la gente se casa por motivos prácticos - la fiscalidad, la herencia, la reagrupación familiar, los permisos de residencia. Second, marriage as a symbolic commitment stripped of religion: el matrimonio civil conserva el compromiso pero se desvincula de la Iglesia. Third, marriage as an increasingly optional milestone: para muchos jóvenes, la convivencia estable ha sustituido al matrimonio. That the number of same-sex couples seeking to marry rose after 2005 is itself an argument that the institution retains meaning even where tradition has weakened - an elegant counter to the simple decline narrative.

The grammar this strand rewards is opinion with subordination. Learn three frames precisely. Positive belief takes the indicative: creo que el matrimonio sigue siendo importante. Negated belief takes the subjunctive: no creo que el matrimonio esté en crisis. Value judgements take the subjunctive after an impersonal expression: es lógico que las parejas convivan antes de casarse; me parece bien que exista el divorcio exprés. Add the concessive aunque, which takes the indicative for a fact and the subjunctive for a hypothesis: aunque muchos se casan por la iglesia, la mayoría lo hace por tradición (fact); aunque algunos lo critiquen, el divorcio es un derecho (hypothesis or concession).

Worked example

Reading technique: inferring an attitude from a text

A Paper 1 reading text contains: «Mis padres se casaron por la iglesia porque en su pueblo no se concebía otra cosa. Nosotros nos casamos en el ayuntamiento, con vaqueros, y a mi abuela le costó entenderlo. Pero vino, y bailó.» The question asks: ¿Qué actitud muestra la autora hacia la tradición familiar? Work out the answer.

Register that the question targets attitude, not fact
AQA states that reading questions include the need to infer meaning and cover abstract material such as opinions, views and emotional reactions. Nowhere does the writer say what she thinks, so the answer must be built from her choices of detail.
Read the impersonal se as social pressure
No se concebía otra cosa is impersonal and in the imperfect: nothing else was conceivable. It attributes the parents' church wedding to the village's norms rather than to personal faith - a distancing move, not a criticism of the parents.
Read the contrast markers
Nosotros is an emphatic subject pronoun, used precisely because it contrasts with mis padres. En el ayuntamiento and con vaqueros are two deliberate breaks with the same tradition. Le costó entenderlo shows the grandmother's difficulty, expressed with sympathy rather than mockery.
Read the final sentence as the key
Pero vino, y bailó reverses the expected conclusion. The two short preterites do the work: the grandmother came, and she danced. The writer therefore presents change and family continuity as compatible, which is precisely the inference the question wants.
Write the answer in Spanish, giving only what is asked
Muestra una actitud respetuosa pero independiente: se aparta de la tradición religiosa sin rechazar a su familia, y subraya que su abuela terminó aceptando el cambio. Two clauses, no lifted sentences, no retelling of the text.

Result: Muestra una actitud respetuosa pero independiente: rompe con la tradición religiosa de sus padres sin romper con su familia, y destaca que su abuela, pese a la dificultad inicial, acabó aceptando su boda civil.

Typical mistakes

Writing casarse con becomes divorciarse con; the Spanish is casarse con alguien but divorciarse de alguien.
Assuming a pareja de hecho is the same as marriage; it is a registered partnership whose rights differ, and whose regulation varies between autonomous communities.

Active revision

Redacta cinco frases en español sobre el matrimonio actual: una con «creo que» + indicativo, una con «no creo que» + subjuntivo, una con «es lógico que» + subjuntivo, una con «aunque» + indicativo y una con «aunque» + subjuntivo.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level Spanish (7692) specification - subject content (AQA)

The Catholic Church: la influencia de la Iglesia Católica#

AdvancedAQA 7692 3.1.1 - Los valores tradicionales y modernos: la influencia de la Iglesia CatólicaDfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

Start from the constitutional position, because it is exact and it settles a question candidates usually get wrong. Article 16 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 guarantees freedom of ideology, religion and worship, and states that no confession shall have a state character, while requiring the public authorities to take account of the religious beliefs of Spanish society and to maintain relations of cooperation with the Catholic Church and the other confessions. Spain is therefore aconfesional - non-confessional - rather than laico in the strict French sense: the State has no religion but does cooperate with religious bodies. Say el Estado español es aconfesional, no laico, and you have made a distinction most candidates miss.

Historically, the Church's public influence was far greater. Under the Franco dictatorship, national-Catholicism made Catholicism effectively the state religion, gave the Church control over much of education and moral legislation, and outlawed divorce; the Constitution of 1978 and the reforms that followed unwound that settlement. Today the influence is real but indirect: la enseñanza de la religión is offered as an optional subject in state schools, many schools are concertados - privately run and publicly funded, often by religious orders - and the Church takes part in public debate on abortion, euthanasia, education and family policy. The historically loaded vocabulary is worth having: el nacionalcatolicismo, la jerarquía eclesiástica, la Conferencia Episcopal, la secularización.

The central analytical move is to separate practice from identity, and Spanish gives you the words to do it. Many Spaniards describe themselves as católicos no practicantes: they identify culturally with Catholicism without attending Mass. Practice has fallen sharply, especially among the young, while cultural Catholicism survives in the calendar and the street: la Semana Santa with its cofradías, pasos and procesiones; las romerías; los patrones of every town with their fiestas; la primera comunión as a family event; el Camino de Santiago, walked today as much by tourists and hikers as by pilgrims. The examinable sentence is that la práctica religiosa ha disminuido mucho más rápido que la identidad cultural católica.

Do not confine the strand to Spain, since the specification allows any Spanish-speaking country. Latin America is historically the most Catholic region of the world, and it produced the first Latin American pope, the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, elected in 2013. It also produced la teología de la liberación, the twentieth-century current that read the Gospel as a demand for social justice and became deeply controversial within the Church. And it is changing fast: las iglesias evangélicas have grown strongly in countries such as Guatemala, Brazil and across Central America, so the Latin American religious landscape is now plural rather than uniformly Catholic. Popular religiosity there often blends Catholic and indigenous or African elements - el sincretismo - as in the Day of the Dead in Mexico or the devotion to la Virgen de Guadalupe.

Worked example

Translation into English: a passage on secularisation

Translate into English: «Mi abuela iba a misa todos los domingos y no habría entendido que alguien no bautizara a sus hijos. Yo no piso una iglesia desde hace años, salvo en Semana Santa, cuando salgo a ver las procesiones con los mismos ojos con que veo un desfile. La fe se ha ido; la costumbre, no.»

Decide how to render Semana Santa
Semana Santa is Holy Week, and English usage allows Holy Week or, more loosely, Easter. Choose one and keep it: the ten-mark translation rewards a consistent, natural English register rather than a gloss such as Saint Week.
Map the tenses
Iba is imperfect: used to go, or went every Sunday. No habría entendido is a conditional perfect: would not have understood. No bautizara is an imperfect subjunctive after a negated verb of understanding. Se ha ido is a present perfect with present relevance: has gone.
Handle desde hace and the negative
No piso una iglesia desde hace años uses the present with desde hace to express a period still running - English requires a perfect: I have not set foot in a church for years. Pisar literally means to tread on; the idiom no pisar un sitio means never to go there.
Preserve the comparison
Con los mismos ojos con que veo un desfile is a relative construction: with the same eyes with which I watch a parade. Keeping the repetition of eyes preserves the writer's point that she attends as a spectator rather than a believer.
Render the elliptical final clause
La fe se ha ido; la costumbre, no. The comma marks an elided verb. English cannot omit it in the same way, so restore it while keeping the balance: faith has gone; the custom has not.

Result: My grandmother went to Mass every Sunday and would not have understood anyone not having their children baptised. I have not set foot in a church for years, except at Easter, when I go out to watch the processions with the same eyes with which I watch a parade. Faith has gone; the custom has not.

Typical mistakes

Saying that Catholicism is the official religion of Spain; the Constitution states that no confession shall have a state character.
Treating Latin America as uniformly Catholic; the growth of evangelical churches and the persistence of indigenous traditions make it religiously plural.

Active revision

Explica en español, en unas 100 palabras, la diferencia entre la práctica religiosa y la identidad cultural católica en España, citando al menos dos ejemplos concretos.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level Spanish (7692) specification - subject content (AQA)

El léxico y los giros: talking about values in Spanish#

StandardAQA 7692 3.1.1 - Los valores tradicionales y modernosAQA 7692 3.3 Grammar

The lexical field, in blocks you can revise as blocks. La familia: el hogar, el parentesco, los progenitores, los hermanastros, los suegros, los nietos, la convivencia, la crianza, el apoyo mutuo, la brecha generacional. El matrimonio: el compromiso, la fidelidad, la boda, el enlace, los recién casados, la luna de miel, la ruptura, el desamor. Los valores: las creencias, las costumbres, la tradición, la herencia cultural, los prejuicios, la tolerancia, el respeto, la libertad individual. El cambio social: la modernización, la secularización, la igualdad, la diversidad, la evolución de las mentalidades. Note two false friends that cost marks here: los parientes are relatives, not parents, and una carrera is a degree course or a career, not a race in this context.

Verbs of change and continuity are the engine of the topic. For change: cambiar, transformarse, evolucionar, modificarse, desaparecer, sustituir a, dar paso a. For continuity: mantenerse, conservarse, perdurar, seguir siendo, permanecer. Two are especially useful because they are subtle: seguir plus gerund means to go on doing something - la familia sigue siendo el pilar de la sociedad española - and llegar a ser means to become through a process, as against hacerse (through effort or conviction), ponerse (a temporary state), volverse (an involuntary change) and convertirse en (a transformation). Getting this ladder of becoming right is a genuine A-level discriminator, because English hides all five under one verb.

For opinion and nuance, build a small stock of frames and use them deliberately. To open: en mi opinión, a mi juicio, desde mi punto de vista, cabe destacar que. To concede: es cierto que... sin embargo; si bien es verdad que...; por un lado... por otro lado. To qualify a generalisation: en términos generales, por lo general, en la mayoría de los casos, salvo excepciones. To draw a conclusion: en definitiva, en resumidas cuentas, a fin de cuentas, todo apunta a que. A model closing sentence for this topic: En definitiva, los valores españoles no se han perdido, sino que se han transformado: la familia sigue siendo central, aunque haya dejado de tener una única forma.

Finally, guard against the two registers that damage answers on values. The first is caricature - describing Spain as a country of siestas, bullfights and devout grandmothers. Replace it with dated, verifiable content. The second is the moralising superlative: es horrible que la gente ya no se case is neither an argument nor good Spanish. The mature register uses hedges - tiende a, suele, en cierta medida, hasta cierto punto - and above all uses soler, the verb English has no equivalent for: los jóvenes suelen independizarse más tarde. One correctly used soler is worth a paragraph of adjectives.

Worked example

Building a nuanced paragraph from a flat claim

Turn the bare claim En España la religión ya no importa into an A-level paragraph that concedes, distinguishes and concludes.

Replace the flat claim with a precise one
Nothing can be argued from ya no importa. Name the mechanism instead: La práctica religiosa ha disminuido notablemente en España, sobre todo entre los jóvenes. A precise claim can be defended; a vague one cannot.
Concede the opposite case with evidence
Es cierto que la Iglesia conserva una presencia notable en la enseñanza concertada y en el debate público sobre cuestiones morales. The concession must be specific, or it reads as a formula.
Introduce the key distinction
Ahora bien, conviene distinguir entre la práctica y la identidad: muchos españoles se declaran católicos no practicantes. Conviene distinguir is an impersonal construction that signals analysis rather than opinion.
Support the distinction with a cultural example
Así se explica que las procesiones de Semana Santa sigan llenando las calles aunque las misas dominicales estén cada vez más vacías. Note two subjunctives: sigan after así se explica que, and estén after aunque used concessively.
Close on a judgement, not a summary
En definitiva, más que una desaparición de la religión, lo que se observa en España es su desplazamiento de la esfera pública a la cultural. Más que X, lo que se observa es Y is a high-value frame for reframing a debate.

Result: La práctica religiosa ha disminuido notablemente en España, sobre todo entre los jóvenes. Es cierto que la Iglesia conserva una presencia notable en la enseñanza concertada y en el debate público sobre cuestiones morales. Ahora bien, conviene distinguir entre la práctica y la identidad: muchos españoles se declaran católicos no practicantes. Así se explica que las procesiones de Semana Santa sigan llenando las calles aunque las misas dominicales estén cada vez más vacías. En definitiva, más que una desaparición de la religión, lo que se observa en España es su desplazamiento de la esfera pública a la cultural.

Typical mistakes

Using la gente with a plural verb; la gente is singular in Spanish - la gente piensa, never la gente piensan.
Reaching for actualmente to mean actually; actualmente means currently, and actually is en realidad or de hecho.

Active revision

Escribe seis frases sobre los valores en España, cada una con un verbo distinto de la lista: seguir siendo, soler, tender a, dar paso a, conservarse, convertirse en.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level Spanish (7692) specification - grammar (AQA)

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

AdvancedAQA 7692 4.4 Paper 1 - Listening, reading and writingAQA 7692 4.6 Paper 3 - Speaking, part one

This sub-theme appears in Paper 1 as listening and reading material - interviews with several generations of one family, opinion columns on marriage, reports on ageing - and in Paper 3 as a stimulus card. Remember the mechanics of the paper exactly, because they govern how you write. Listening carries 30 marks and reading 50; all questions are in Spanish and are answered non-verbally or in Spanish; one listening question and one reading question require a summary in Spanish, marked independently for content and for language; and across the passages reference is made to at least two Spanish-speaking countries other than Spain, so expect Mexican, Argentine, Colombian or Peruvian material on family and religion, not only Spanish.

The register trap in this sub-theme is that speakers on family topics use very colloquial Spanish. Prepare for it. Expect diminutives carrying affection or irony: abuelita, hermanito, ratito. Expect fillers and discourse markers, which AQA lists explicitly in the grammar annex: pues, bueno, o sea, es que, la verdad es que, ahora bien. Expect the loose use of tú in the impersonal sense - te casas y todo cambia meaning you get married and everything changes - and the Latin American vos in some recordings. None of these need appear in your own writing; all of them must be recognised instantly, because a single misheard es que can lose the logic of a whole answer.

For the stimulus card, the danger is drifting into your own family. The card asks about Hispanic society, and AO4 credits knowledge of that society, so anchor every claim to something Spanish or Latin American and verifiable: the 1981 divorce law, the 2005 reform and equal marriage, the aconfesionalidad of Article 16, la emancipación tardía, el papel de los abuelos, los católicos no practicantes, las iglesias evangélicas en América Latina. Your own experience is useful only as a contrast: en el Reino Unido, en cambio, los jóvenes suelen independizarse antes. Prepare that comparative move in advance - it turns an anecdote into analysis.

Finally, prepare the two questions you must ask the examiner. AQA's requirement is precise: the question must seek information or an opinion, must contain a conjugated verb, and must not be a rephrasing of a printed question or a request for repetition or clarification. For this sub-theme, two that work on any card: ¿Cree usted que el matrimonio seguirá siendo importante para la próxima generación? and ¿Cómo era la familia en su país cuando usted era joven? The first seeks an opinion and contains cree; the second seeks information and contains era. Ask one early and one late, so that neither is lost to the clock.

Worked example

The summary question: compressing a passage on the family

A reading text of about 300 words argues that Spanish grandparents have become the invisible pillar of the welfare state, because they provide childcare that public nurseries do not. Write the summary the mark scheme wants, and check it against AQA's rules.

Recall the three rules that govern the mark
Content is marked under AO2 for a reading summary and language separately under AO3. Marking stops at the first natural break between 90 and 100 words, so anything after that is wasted. Lifted language earns no AO3 credit, so you must reformulate.
Extract the content points, not the sentences
Three ideas carry the text: grandparents provide regular childcare; this substitutes for insufficient public provision; and the arrangement has costs for the grandparents themselves. Write them as three bare notes in Spanish before composing anything.
Reformulate rather than transcribe
If the text says los abuelos cuidan de sus nietos a diario, write se ocupan de sus nietos de forma habitual. Changing the verb and the adverbial phrase is enough to make the language your own, which is what AO3 credits.
Budget the words
Aim for roughly 95 words: about 30 per content point. Count as you go. A 130-word summary is not penalised as such, but everything after the first natural break past 100 words is simply not marked, so the third point may vanish.
Check the language separately
Re-read once only for AO3: verb endings, ser and estar, agreement of adjectives, accents on preterite forms such as ocupó. One targeted re-reading catches more than a general anxious one.

Result: Model summary (95 words): «El texto sostiene que los abuelos españoles se han convertido en un apoyo esencial para las familias. Muchos se ocupan de sus nietos de forma habitual, lo que permite que los dos progenitores trabajen fuera de casa. Según el autor, esta ayuda suple la escasez de plazas públicas de guardería y el elevado coste de las privadas. Sin embargo, advierte de que ese esfuerzo tiene un precio: cansancio, menos tiempo libre y, en ocasiones, problemas de salud. Concluye que conviene reconocer y compensar ese trabajo, que hoy resulta invisible para las estadísticas oficiales.»

Typical mistakes

Answering a card on family with an autobiography; the assessment objective rewards knowledge of Hispanic society, not of your household.
Leaving both required questions to the last thirty seconds and running out of time, which loses the marks entirely.

Active revision

Prepara una tarjeta de estímulo sobre «los valores tradicionales y modernos»: escribe tres respuestas de unos 40 segundos, cada una con un dato verificable sobre España o América Latina, y dos preguntas para el examinador.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level Spanish (7692) specification - scheme of assessment (AQA)

References & sources

Sources

AQA

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Modern and Traditional Values

5 sections~27 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

Modern and Traditional Values

Key points

Translation into Spanish: describing family change

Key points

Reading technique: inferring an attitude from a text

Key points

Translation into English: a passage on secularisation

Key points

Building a nuanced paragraph from a flat claim

Key points

The summary question: compressing a passage on the family

Sources

Modern and Traditional Values

Key points

Translation into Spanish: describing family change

Key points

Reading technique: inferring an attitude from a text

Key points

Translation into English: a passage on secularisation

Key points

Building a nuanced paragraph from a flat claim

Key points

The summary question: compressing a passage on the family

Sources