How to Revise A-Level Spanish
Build advanced A-Level Spanish skills with practice on grammar, literature, film, and contemporary Hispanic society.
Revision Strategy
Revising Spanish effectively means practising all four skills — listening, reading, writing, and speaking — not just the ones you find easiest. Many students focus on reading and writing because they are easier to do alone, but listening and speaking skills deteriorate quickly without regular practice. Build all four into your weekly revision schedule.
Vocabulary acquisition is the foundation of everything in Spanish. Use spaced repetition — either with physical flashcards or a digital tool — to learn and retain vocabulary systematically. Aim to learn vocabulary in context rather than as isolated words, and always learn the gender of nouns and any irregular verb forms at the same time.
For the writing and speaking components, learn a set of high-quality phrases and structures that you can adapt to any topic. Examiners reward accuracy and complexity, so having a repertoire of subordinate clauses, opinion phrases, and connectives that you can use confidently is more valuable than trying to be creative with language you have not fully mastered. Practise writing and speaking responses under timed conditions to build fluency.
Study Tips for A-Level Spanish
- ✓ Listen to Spanish-language media daily — podcasts like Notes in Spanish or Hoy Hablamos, Spanish news from RTVE or BBC Mundo, and Latin American music. Exposure to different accents (Castilian, Mexican, Argentinian) prepares you for the range you may encounter in the listening exam.
- ✓ Master the subjunctive mood systematically — learn which conjunctions and expressions trigger it (para que, a menos que, es importante que, no creo que), practise forming it in present and imperfect, and use it actively in your writing and speaking to demonstrate advanced grammatical competence.
- ✓ Prepare detailed notes on your set film and literary text with specific examples (scene descriptions, quotations, character analysis) that you can draw on in essay questions. Knowing the text in detail allows you to write analytically rather than descriptively.
- ✓ Use a vocabulary notebook organised by topic and review it using spaced repetition. Focus on learning topic-specific vocabulary (la desigualdad, la convivencia, el patrimonio cultural) and sophisticated connectives that elevate your expression beyond GCSE level.
Exam Tips for A-Level Spanish
- ✓ In the speaking exam, demonstrate initiative by developing your answers beyond what is strictly asked. Provide opinions, examples, and counter-arguments spontaneously. Using a range of tenses, the subjunctive, and complex sentence structures shows the examiner your full linguistic ability.
- ✓ For written essays on your set texts, structure your response with a clear argument. Do not simply retell the plot or describe scenes — analyse how the director or author uses specific techniques to convey themes, and support every point with precise evidence from the work.
- ✓ In translation tasks, read the whole passage first before beginning. Pay close attention to tense, number, and gender agreement. Translate sense rather than word-for-word, and check your final version reads naturally in the target language.
Topics to Cover
8 topics in A-Level Spanish
Frequently Asked Questions
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