Russian AS Level explained

The Russian AS level consists of 2 exam papers, one spoken and one written.

Unit 1 Spoken Expression and Response in Russian (50 marks)

You talk with the examiner for 8-10 minutes on one of the following general topics, which you choose:
* Youth culture and concerns
* Lifestyle: health and fitness
* The world around us: travel, tourism, environmental issues and the Russian-speaking world
* Education and employment

You prepare for the conversation by reading a written stimulus and the examiner's initial questions will be based on this text. After the first couple of questions, the examiner will steer the conversation to the topic in general.


Unit 2 Understanding and Written Response in Russian

There are 3 sections of the paper, for which you have 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete. The first section is restricted to 45 minutes, but you can split the remaining 1 hour and 45 minutes between the last 2 sections as you require.

* Section A: Listening comprehension (20 marks)
You listen to a recording in Russian, and answer questions about it in Russian. You have 45 minutes to complete this task, and have full control to replay the recording as many times as you require within this time limit. The recording could be a telephone message, radio broadcast, advert, interview, discussion, and will last about 5 minutes.

* Section B: Reading comprehension (20 marks)
You read a passage in Russian and answer questions in both Russian and English. Some of the tasks test your ability to paraphrase in Russian and some focus on transferring meaning from Russian into English. The text could be a magazine or newspaper article, passage from a report, the internet or a book. It will be about 410-520 words.

* Section C: Essay (30 marks)
You write a passage in Russian of between 150 - 165 words, in the form of a letter, report or article. You will be asked to respond to a short text in Russian and some related bullet points. You will be marked out of 15 for content and response, and out of 15 marks for the quality of language and accuracy.

The whole paper is structured around the following topics, and you are advised to prepare for the exam by reading and learning vocabulary according to these topics.

Youth culture and concerns
* Music and fashion
* Technology (eg MP3/blogs/mobile phones/internet/games)
* Relationships (family/friendships and peer pressure)
* Drink, drugs, sex

Lifestyle: health and fitness
* Sport and exercise
* Food and diet
* Health issues (eg smoking, skin cancer, health services)

The world around us: travel, tourism, environmental issues and the Russian-speaking world
* Tourist information, travel and transport
* Weather (eg natural disasters, climate change)
* Pollution and recycling

Education and employment
* Education (schooling and higher education)
* Education policy and student issues
* The world of work (eg the changing work scene, job opportunities
and unemployment)

Not many schools offer Russian AS level to their students, but if you are willing to study alone or with a private tutor, you can enter as an external candidate.

Edexcel is the exam board for Russian GCE (AS and A2 level), and you can find more details about the syllabus and download sample exam papers on their website.