French CLEP

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My daughter scored 49 after completing French 2 in high school. She retested 3 months later and scored 52. Over the 3 months she read several chapter books in French and listened to French podcasts. She said the part school classes did not prepare her for were the long selections of dialogue you only get to listen to once before answering a question and also the vocabulary words appearing in the paragraphs of text. She said reading and listening to French helped raise her score.

My husband and I just began to learn French together. We are also using Duolingo and enjoying it. 

If you have a Netflix account you may want to try and watch as many shows in French as you can. We search for International Movies in French and have found an excellent selection of sitcoms, comedies and movies where subtitles/audio are available in French. 

There are also quite a few French audio books available to listen to in French on youtube, including many classics you are probably already familiar with such as 1984. 

Personally I find listening to French musicians such as Indillia (available on youtube with English subtitles) very helpful in increasing/strengthening my vocabulary since I love music. 

I also try to practice speaking/texting french as much as possible with my husband.