Course

The last days, and changing your date

Final 5 days before your sitting

D-5 is five days before your test and D-1 is the day before. If you sit on Thursday 31 December (Day 57), use this table instead of Days 53, 55 and 56 (Day 52 = D-5 and Day 54 = D-3 stay as written). For any other date, these five days replace the calendar days they land on.

The taper rules

• No new material. No new Anki cards (reviews only), no new grammar, no new prompts or cards. Use only papers you planned for mocks and items already in your error log.
• The last full mock is on D-3, and never later than D-2. After that you only do short, easy work, so you arrive rested, not drained.
• Sleep. From D-5, go to bed and get up at the same times every day, with the wake-up time you will use on the test morning. Aim for 8 hours.
• Mock at the test's time of day. When your convocation gives the start time, sit the D-5 and D-3 mocks at that hour.

Notes:

• "Next unused" papers are listed in "If your sitting is earlier or later than Day 56". Use them in order, so a mock is never a paper you have seen.
• If D-5 or D-3 shows one skill below NCLC 7, spend D-4 and D-2 on that skill only, inside the hours above. Don't add hours: tired work in the last week costs more than it gains.

Logistics, done by D-2

• ID document. Bring the original of the identity document you registered with, the passport for TCF Canada (you gave its number at registration). Check that it is valid on the test day and that the name matches the convocation letter for letter. Your photo is taken at the centre.
• The convocation. It is the letter or email your centre sends with your times. Check the times of each paper; speaking is face to face and can have its own time slot. If you don't have a convocation by D-5, phone or email the centre that day. Print it.
• The address and the arrival time. Find the exact building and room on the convocation. Do the trip once by D-2 at the same time of day, or check the travel time on a map. Plan to arrive 45 minutes early. Nobody is admitted once listening has started.
• What the centre allows. Ask the centre or read its rules: usually your phone is switched off and handed in or stored, and no dictionary, notes or smartwatch are allowed. Bring two pens, a pencil and an eraser for a paper sitting, water, a snack for the breaks, and a watch with no connection if the centre allows one.
• TEF Canada (e-TEF at an Alliance Française): the same checks, with the centre's own convocation. The papers are on computer except speaking, so practise typing accents fast (TEF kit, TEF-D9).

The morning of the test

• Get up at your usual time, at least 3 hours before the first paper. Eat a normal breakfast.
• Listening warm-up, 15 min, before you leave: a short French clip at normal speed (an RC-01 news item or a TV5 item you have already done). Listen once, say the gist aloud, and stop. Don't score anything.
• Speaking warm-up, 10 min, aloud (in the car, on a walk, in a quiet corner). Say each frame once, with different details from your practice, so they are adapted, never recited:
  • T1: « Je m'appelle…, je viens de… et je prépare… parce que… »
  • T2: « Bonjour, excusez-moi de vous déranger. J'ai vu votre annonce et j'aurais quelques questions. »
  • T3: « À mon avis… D'une part… D'autre part… Certes…, mais… En conclusion… »
  • Repair: « Pourriez-vous répéter, s'il vous plaît ? » and « Pourriez-vous reformuler la question ? »
• At the centre: read the free rules one last time. Between papers, don't look back at the paper you have just done; read the options for the next one instead. On the papers, follow the exam-day routine in listening-reading-tcf.md §2.9.
• TEF Canada: the same morning. During the TEF taper, D-5 to D-1 are TEF-D6 to TEF-D10 of the TEF kit's 10-day plan (tef-hedge.md §8.2): its full TEF mock on TEF-D7 (D-4) is your last full mock, and the TCF blocks in the table above shrink to fill the remaining hours.

If your sitting is earlier or later than Day 56

Earlier: for example Saturday 12 December (Day 38) or Wednesday 16 December (Day 42)

The dates found on 4 November make these the likely early sittings: the e-TEF at AF Bombay on 12 December, and the TCF Canada at AF Delhi on 16 December if it is confirmed (exam-analysis.md §1.4). For a TEF on 12 December, the TEF kit's 10-day plan starts on Day 28 (Wednesday 2 December).

Keep, every day, until D-6:

• Words reviews, and new cards only up to rank 1,000 (the top 1,000 cover about 89–91% of new writing and speaking prompts, but only about 77% of an unseen reading paper).
• Listening and reading on Q20–29 as the largest block: 210 points per skill, the band that decides the score.
• The most frequent writing prompts and whole sets: SET-W01 (12 of 34 months), SET-W02 and SET-W03 (each 4 of the 6 months June–November 2026), SET-W04 (5 of the last 12 months); the top T1 prompts (surprise party 19 of 52 months, château venue 16, Anna's transport 14, birthday help 14, weekend trip 13), T2 (studying abroad 17, learning a language 16, favourite artist 16) and T3 debates (video games 24, fast food 17, cooks 16).
• Speaking: SET-S3A and SET-S2a, the top 12 T2 role-plays, and the top T3 subjects (living abroad 18 of 33 months, tourism 16).
• Mocks: a full mock every second or third day from D-12, then the taper. Take the papers in the plan's order (INF-L/R 29, 30, 31… and the SET-W of each mock day), so you never sit a paper twice.

Drop or cut:

• New words above rank 1,000 (keep their reviews if you have started them).
• Grammar points not yet done, except the B2 lifters: relative clauses, il faut que + subjunctive, the conditional, comparatives. Learn those with prompt P1 if they are still ahead of you.
• Q1–10 drills once you get them right in two mocks in a row, and lower-ranked prompts that appear in fewer than 10 months.

Bring forward: move the whole-set days (SET-W01 to SET-W04, SET-S3A, SET-S2a) and the mock days so they all fall before D-5. Then paste this file, your tracker and your error-log summary into prompt P2: it rewrites the remaining days in the same format.

Later: after Day 56

From Day 57 to D-6, repeat a two-day cycle:

1. Mock day: a full mock of all four papers in exam order (the next unused papers below), then scoring into the tracker.
2. Repair day on the weakest skill: like Days 43–51. LR-P1 and LR-P3 on Q20–29, LR-P5 on Q30–39, or a rewrite of the weakest writing task with a twist, or EXAMINER on the weakest speaking task, as the tracker says. Re-test 10 logged misses. Keep your Anki reviews every day.

Then the five-day taper above. If the cycle leaves an odd day before D-5, make it a repair day.

Mock papers not used by Days 1–56 (take them in this order):

• Listening and reading: INF-L36 and INF-R36, then 37, 38, 39 and 40: five full mocks.
• A fourth timed check: TV5-11, all 15 items, the kit's spare unseen series. After it, TV5MONDE's simulator is allowed.
• After INF-L40 and INF-R40, re-sit the earliest InfinLume papers in exam mode and tick R beside items you recognise.

Writing sets not yet rehearsed (in order of how often they recur, writing-tcf.md §1.6): SET-W12, SET-W14, SET-W15, SET-W18, SET-W19, SET-W20, SET-W21, SET-W22, SET-W23, SET-W24, SET-W25. When they run out, sit SET-W01 to SET-W03 again with twists: a new place, new people, the other side of the debate.

Speaking: each mock day, Jour NN | EXAMINER | full mock with T2 and T3 cards you haven't drawn in a mock yet (speaking-tcf.md §4 and §5).