Environment vocab: problem, cause, solution
Examiners reward answers that name a problem, a cause and a solution together, not isolated words — e.g. problem la pollution, cause les usines / les gaz d'échappement, solution recycler or économiser l'énergie. Watch genders: la pollution, la planète, la sécheresse are feminine; the -ment and -age nouns are masculine — le changement, le réchauffement, le recyclage, le gaspillage. The full three-column table is in the study note.
Opinion and "il faut / on devrait" phrases
Keep a stock of opinion and solution phrases — they carry marks in Writing Q3 and Speaking. Opinion: à mon avis, je pense que, je trouve que. Propose a solution with an impersonal phrase whose subject is the dummy il, never a person: il faut / il faudrait / il est important de + infinitive. Or use a personal subject with devoir: on devrait recycler plus, nous devrions. Justify with pour + infinitive or parce que + clause.
Drawn from real examiner reports.
Giving "il faudrait" a personal subject
il faut and il faudrait are impersonal: il is a dummy subject, so they never conjugate for je/tu/nous and never take a named subject. For "the school should provide more bins", ✗ l'école faudrait... is wrong. Fix: use devoir — L'école devrait fournir plus de poubelles — or keep it impersonal (Il faudrait fournir plus de poubelles).
w23 41 Q3(b) Task 5 — il faudrait misused with a personal subject, flagged "very challenging".
Generic "protect nature" instead of the task
A repeated relevance error is writing a pre-learned "protect nature" paragraph instead of the exact angle the bullet asks for — e.g. outdoor sport when the task is about la pollution or le recyclage, or what you personally do when it asks what a school should do. Fix: underline the exact noun and make every sentence answer THAT bullet.
s22 41 Q3(a); w23 41 Q3(b) — generic "protecting nature" written instead of the specific environmental task.
Wrong time frame on "what should be done"
Environmental tasks mix time frames: qu'as-tu fait ? (past) vs que devrait-on faire ? (conditional / il faudrait). Answering every bullet in the present caps Task Completion even when the vocabulary is accurate. Match each: past j'ai recyclé; present habit je recycle; future obligation il faudrait recycler plus / on devrait.
All four sittings (s22/w22/s23/w23) — answering in the wrong tense caps Task Completion; every Writing "Key messages" opens with this.
Wrong gender on environment nouns
Noun gender is insecure under pressure. l'environnement is masculine, yet candidates give it a feminine article and drop its accents. Learn the gender with the noun: la pollution, la planète, la sécheresse (f); le changement, le réchauffement, le recyclage (m). Get the gender wrong and the following adjective agrees wrongly too (une planète polluée).
s23 41 — l'environnement written with a wrong gender/article pairing and a missing accent (Accuracy note).
Faulty "ne...pas" placement in opinions
In a negative opinion, ne...pas must wrap the verb, not a noun or adjective: ✗ on doit ne pas gaspiller → ✓ on ne doit pas gaspiller l'eau. After a negative the partitive becomes de/d': ✓ on ne produit pas de déchets (not du/des). Misplacing ne...pas, or keeping du/des after a negative, weakens the "against" opinion.
s23 42 Q2 Task 3 — faulty ne...pas placement wrapped around the wrong element, undermining an "against" opinion.
Confusing "polluer" (verb) and "la pollution"
Candidates mix the verb and the noun of one family: ✗ il pollution for "it pollutes". The verb is polluer (il pollue, ils polluent); the noun is la pollution. Same trap with recycler / le recyclage. After a subject use the conjugated verb (les usines polluent l'air), not the noun; the noun needs an article (la pollution de l'air).
general FL trap
"il faut/il faudrait" as a normal verb
A common misconception is that il faut / il faudrait conjugate for any subject (✗ je faudrais, nous faudrions). They do not — il is a fixed impersonal dummy subject, and the phrase never changes for person.
w23 41 Q3(b) Task 5 — il faudrait misused with a personal subject, "very challenging"; the underlying belief is that it conjugates like an ordinary verb.
Shape: problem + cause + solution + reason
Routine: name the problem with its gender (la pollution); add a cause (à cause de, parce que); give a solution in the tense asked; justify with pour + infinitive. One sentence hits Task Completion, Range and Accuracy.
Check each bullet's time frame first
Decide each bullet's time frame from its wording: qu'as-tu fait = past (j'ai recyclé), d'habitude = present, à l'avenir / que devrait-on faire = conditional (il faudrait, on devrait). A right idea in the wrong tense still caps the mark.
Widen connectors beyond "parce que"
Relying only on parce que / car caps the Range band. Add variety: donc (so), cependant (however), de plus (moreover), malgré (despite), relative pronouns (qui, que), and pour + infinitive. Two or three lift an answer out of the middle band.
Environmental and global-issues vocabulary is one of the highest-value topic areas at IGCSE, because it combines fixed technical vocabulary with opinion/justification phrases that recur across Reading, Writing and Speaking.
The environment:
| French | Gender | English |
|---|---|---|
| la pollution | f | pollution |
| le changement climatique | m | climate change |
| le réchauffement de la planète | m | global warming |
| le recyclage | m | recycling |
| les déchets | m pl | rubbish/waste |
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