The Big Book of Study Guides — Brevet Special (3e, age 14-15)

🇫🇷 This book is written in French. There is no English edition.

“I did revise, I promise.” Then comes the mock exam for the brevet, France's end-of-middle-school exam: the dictation trips them up, the dates get jumbled, and the 20 minutes without a calculator go by far too fast.

In 3e (the final year of collège, French middle school, age 14-15), everything lands at once: four years of collège syllabus, a new maths paper, a 90-minute essay, an oral exam. Your teen isn't short of lessons. What they lack are hooks to make it all stick until the end of June.

The Big Book of Study Guides — Brevet Special (French title: Le Grand Livre des Pense-Bêtes — Spécial Brevet) gives them 232: one trick per topic, arranged in the order of the exam papers, with an exercise alongside to check it has sunk in.

What's inside this book

• 232 tricks to remember everything, from dictation rules to the key history dates of 3e
• 116 exercises with answers, one per page, all solutions at the back
• 10 parts in exam order: you revise the brevet the way you will sit it
• The quick-fire maths of the new brevet (the "automatismes"): the 20-minute section without a calculator
• A « Le Brevet en 1 page » page (“the brevet on one page”) and a revision plan from 60 days out to the night before
• 136 pages in full colour, large A4 format

The 10 parts

1. Maths: quick-fire skills: mental arithmetic, fractions, percentages, conversions, the time-conversion trap
2. Maths: problem solving: Pythagoras, Thales (intercept theorem), trigonometry, functions, equations, number theory, transformations, Scratch, spreadsheets
3. French: language & dictation: dictation traps, rewriting exercises, vocabulary, agreement, homophones
4. French: texts & essay writing: answering questions on a text, imaginative and reflective essays, figures of speech
5. History-Geography · EMC (civics): analysing a document, the structured essay, the key dates of 3e, the geography of France, the Republic
6. Physics-Chemistry: energy, power, sound, light, atoms and ions, gravity, electricity
7. SVT (life and earth sciences): genetics, immunity, the nervous system, physical effort, evolution, plate tectonics
8. Technology: information and energy chains, programming, networks, design specifications
9. The Brevet oral: choosing the project, building the presentation, answering the panel
10. Method & exam day: learning without rereading ten times, getting organised, handling stress

Six tricks taken from the book

« 20 minutes · 6 points · 0 calculatrice » (“20 minutes · 6 points · 0 calculator”)

The card that opens the book sums up the new quick-fire section of the maths exam, then gives the strategy: « Je fais · je saute · je reviens » (“I do · I skip · I come back”). A first pass for everything easy, a second one for the skipped questions.

« 1,5 h = 1 h 30, pas 1 h 50 ! » (“1.5 h = 1 h 30 min, not 1 h 50!”)

The time trap that costs points every year: an hour has 60 minutes, not 100. The card shows how to convert 0.25 h, 0.5 h and 1.5 h without hesitating.

« Vendre, vendu, vendez : ton oreille choisit » (“sell, sold, sell: your ear decides”)

To choose between -é, -er and -ez in the dictation: swap the verb for « vendre » (to sell) and listen. If you hear « vendre », write -er; if you hear « vendu » (sold), write -é.

« Affirmation · Citation · Explication » (“Statement · Quote · Explanation”)

The recipe for answering questions on a text: one sentence that answers, a piece of evidence copied in quotation marks with its line number, then the explanation. The book compares it to a sandwich: there's never a slice missing.

« 1 paragraphe = 1 idée + 1 date + 1 exemple » (“1 paragraph = 1 idea + 1 date + 1 example”)

The history-geography structured essay (développement construit), finally broken down into simple building blocks, with a rough draft that holds nothing but the outline.

« Vaccin = entraînement · Antibiotique = anti-bactéries » (“vaccine = training · antibiotic = anti-bacteria”)

So two words that keep coming up in SVT papers never get mixed up again: a vaccine trains the body to recognise a microbe, an antibiotic kills bacteria, and it is useless against a virus.

The new brevet, paper by paper

Since the 2026 session, the final brevet mark is out of 20: the end-of-year exams (the four written papers and the oral) count for 60%, continuous assessment in 3e for 40%. The book follows the same breakdown:

• French (3 h): questions on a text and grammar, dictation, essay
• Mathematics (2 h): quick-fire skills without a calculator (20 min), then problems with a calculator
• History-geography and EMC (2 h): document analysis, structured essay, civics exercise
• Sciences (1 h): two subjects out of three from physics-chemistry, SVT and technology
• Oral: presenting a project carried out in class, followed by an interview with the panel

Revision notes that actually stick

This book does not replace lessons. It is not a summary of the syllabus or a collection of past papers: it is a collection of tricks for remembering what was covered in class. Each page holds two short, colourful cards, written in French and addressed directly to the student, with simple sentences and an example. You can open the book at any page, five minutes before a test or when a topic just won't go in.

At the bottom of each page there is an exercise to apply it straight away. The answers are all at the back: your teen marks their own work, with no screen, and sees at once what needs going over again.

Who is it for?

• Students in 3e preparing for the brevet, in France or at a French school abroad
• Those who "learn" but don't retain, and keep saying "I'm hopeless"
• Strong students aiming for a mention (honours)
• Parents who want to give practical help, without re-teaching the lessons

An hour of private tutoring in France costs around €30. This book costs €29.99 and stays with your teen through the whole of 3e, from the first test to exam day.

📦 Free shipping to mainland France · 🖨️ Printed on demand in Europe, just for your order · 🔒 Secure payment

The same book is available as a printable PDF version. For every year of collège, from 6e to 3e (age 11 to 15), see the Collège edition; for what comes next, the Lycée edition (French high school). The whole collection: Memos.