How do I tackle the translation exercises in the exam? I’m really worried that I won’t remember anything on the day…

The new translation exercises can make revising vocabulary and grammar like a really daunting task when you are trying to revise for all of your other exams at the same time! However, it’s really important to remember that the examiners aren’t looking to catch you out: they want to give you marks, rather than take them away, so there’s quite a bit of leeway to make a few mistakes and still get a really good mark. To make the task seem less intimidating, work backwards and break the passage down into small segments. From there, it can help to try to work out what each segment is testing your ability to do – for example, it might be something grammatical (using a particular tense, adjectival agreement…) or it might just be some vocabulary that you will have encountered over the course of your studies. It’s a bit like showing your working in Maths… Let’s practice doing this with an example from an exam: I went to the cinema yesterday and I did not do my homework. Now I cannot visit my grandparents’ house because I have to study. They live in a city where there is a lot to do. I like to go shopping there. The shops are better. I want to buy a mobile phone. I am going to look on the Internet. (AQA GCSE Spanish, Specimen Paper) The first sentence can be broken into two sections, separating at the word ‘and’: (I went to the cinema yesterday) and (I did not do my homework). I went to the cinema yesterday: here, the use of the word yesterday is a tip that you need to use the preterite for the verb, so Ayer, fui al cine I did not do my homework: you’re still being asked to show the examiner that you know how to use the preterite, but this time they want you do show that you can use it with negation, so no hice mis deberes You now have the first two blocks of your translation and can join them together with the conjunction ‘y’: Ayer, fui al cine y no hice mis deberes. The next step is to work through the translation, doing the exact same thing by breaking the translation into manageable segments. Through practicing sample passages doing this at your own pace, you'll find that you'll be able to work out the translation exercises much faster that you think on the day of the exam...