How well do you know your prepositions and pronouns? Take this test to find out! The following topics will be covered: penser à and penser de, savoir and connaître, après avoir and après être, manquer à, IOPs and DOPs. To get the most out of it I recommend you do it under test conditions (if you need a refresher before beginning though feel free to check out the relevant posts). Answers can be found in the comments.
Abbreviations used in this test: pp means past participle; IOP means indirect object pronoun; DOP means direct object pronoun
1. Translate into French: They missed their dog when they were on holiday
2. Fill in the blank with ‘à’ or ‘de’: Frédérique commence à avoir le trac quand elle pense ___ ses examens
3. Indicate whether or not the ‘f’ in ‘français’ should be capitalised: Il a enseigné le français comme langue étrangère pendant vingt ans. Give your reasoning.
4. Fill in the blank with ‘à’ or ‘de’: Tu sais ce que je pense ___ lui
5. Give the pp of the following verbs: lire, venir, apprendre, être, avoir
6. Translate into French: Karen gave him the textbook
7. Indicate whether or not the pp needs to agree: Elle s’est cassé la jambe en jouant au foot. Give your reasoning.
8. Fill in the blank with ‘à’ or ‘de’: On doit penser ___ un nom qui convient au bébé
9. Fill in the blank with ‘savoir’ or ‘connaître’: Est-ce que tu ___________ de bons restaurants à proximité ?
10. Translate into French: Do you miss your father?
11. Fill in the blank with the correct article or preposition: Elle a amené beaucoup ____ gens à la fete
12. Give the pp of the following verbs: faire, écrire, ouvrir, apporter, mentir
13. Fill in the blank with ‘avoir’ or ‘être’: Après _______ quitté la France, M. Martin s’est installé à la Réunion
14. Fill in the blank with ‘savoir’ or ‘connaître’: Vous _______________ que les crevettes me font mal au ventre
15. Sa famille vit à Rome ; il ________ voit pendant les vacances (fill in with the right DOP/IOP)
16. Fill in the blank with the correct form of ‘avoir’ or ‘être’: Ils ________ parti pour Singapour après leurs examens (don’t forget to make any necessary agreements)
17. Quand j’ai envie de parler de mes difficultés personnelles, je _____ fais avec mes amis (fill in with the right DOP/IOP)
18. De or des? La vie est pleine ______ possibilités
19. Indicate whether these verbs use avoir, être or both in the passé composé: devenir, aller, sortir, lever, montrer
20. De or des? Michel a besoin _______ articles de revue pour ses recherches
Grade Descriptors
0-5: You need more revision (and maybe some sleep and vitamin C/omega-3)
5-10: Turn off the TV when studying French
10-15: Not bad! Keep trying for that perfect score
15-17: You are well on your way to becoming a pro!
18-20: Kudos! You are a certified pro! Keep up the good work.
COMME UN PRO 
GUIDE de CORRECTION
1. Leur chien leur manquait quand ils étaient en vacances – Remember in French the entity being missed and the one doing the missing trade places, so the resulting phrase structure is something like Person A is missed by Person B instead of Person B misses Person A
2. à – she is thinking about something cognitively, not giving an opinion
3. It shouldn’t be capitalised because it is referring to the language – capitalisation only occurs when it is a noun referring to the people (e.g. Les Français sont fiers de leur langue)
4. de – Here the set-up is that of an opinion: You know what I think of him (i.e. my opinion of him)
5. lu, venu, appris, été, eu
6. Karen lui a donné le livre – if you’re wondering why it is ‘lui’ and not ‘le’, it is because of the syntax of donner: donner qch à qn. The person being given something is indirect (hence ‘lui’ which is an IOP is needed)
7. No agreement because of the presence of a direct object (la jambe) after the verb casser
8. à – Penser is being used in a reflective sense here, namely reflecting on a fitting name for the baby
9. connais – Knowledge of places is one of the uses of connaître
10. Est-ce que ton père te manque ?/Ton père te manque-t-il ? [‘vous’ can also be used in place of ‘tu’] see 1
11. de
12. fait, écrit, ouvert, apporté, menti
13. avoir – quitter uses ‘avoir’ in the passé composé
14. savez – According to the speaker prawns give them a stomach-ache, so grammatically speaking this is a fact which means savoir is needed
15. la – To see something or someone is voir qch/qn, so a DOP is needed. ‘Famille’ in French exists as a singular noun, and since it is also feminine, we need ‘la’
16. ils sont partis – ‘partir’ is one of the DRMRSVANDERTRAMP verbs which can only be employed with être. There are no objects to worry about here, so the pp agrees with the subject ils
17. le – ‘le’ is the pronoun used to replace a phrase or part of it instead of a particular object. In this case the phrase being replaced is ‘parler de mes difficultés personnelles’
18. de – expressions of quantity in French are usually preceded by the preposition de
19. devenir – E only, aller – E only, sortir – both, lever – both, montrer – A only
20. d’ – besoin is always employed with de; since ‘articles’ begins with a vowel de contracts to d’
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Hi Ferdinand,
I just used one of the free WordPress themes – Lovecraft – and changed the background colour and a few other things 🙂
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Hmm is anyone else experiencing problems with the pictures on this blog loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.
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Hi Wyatt,
I’m not sure what might be causing that, but maybe you could try using a different browser or closing some tabs which may be slowing it down.
Hope this helps 🙂
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