The usage of passé composé and imparfait is one of the most challenging topics in French grammar for anglophone learners. Based on the aspect hypothesis formulated by Andersen and Shirai (1994 Andersen, R. and Shirai, Y. 1994. Discourse motivations for some cognitive acquisition principles. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16: 133–156. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), this study explored the patterns of errors made by higher-ability as opposed to average-ability students and male vs. female students with different abilities in the acquisition of the two French tenses. A model for predicting the difficulty of test items related to passé composé and imparfait was previously devised by Nikolova (2009 Nikolova, O. R. April 2009. Difficulty components of a French grammar test, April, Statesboro, GA: Poster session presented at the Conference for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.  [Google Scholar]). The current article further develops the ideas in the above-mentioned study and examines similar data from a more pedagogical point of view. It brings forth evidence that female students scored better than males on prototypical usage of the tenses and females of high ability outperformed all other groups on instances of their nonprototypical usage. The study discusses these results in light of findings on giftedness, gender, and second-language acquisition. It suggests ideas for differentiating instruction for various groups of students attempting to master this grammatical topic.