Junior Certificate Civic, Social & Political Education (CSPE)
Kate - Common Level 
CSPE is such a great exam. I love CSPE as you can actually show up to the exam with an honour grade (due to the action project). I answered every question on the exam for section one and two and did the question on voting for section three. The picture questions were quite unusual and I only recognised the Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan but I guessed the rest (quite successfully I would hope). I continued the rest of the exam and answered everything. I chose the question on voting as it had a poster and I am quite passionate on the issue of voting so this question suited me perfectly. This exam was a lovely end to my first 8 exams and I have a day and a half off to recover!
Philip - Common Level 
The picture questions came with their usual clues. The girl from the Garda was in uniform, the person from Northern Ireland had a crown pin and the youngest paddies day parade leader was the only young person in the four pictures, which left one left making it obvious enough (God after describing it like that I hope I'm not wrong!). The questions with the missing words seemed perfect for me, with the only ones that weren't common sense being the ones I'd glanced at before the exam. Finally the last question on the second page was matching letters to the type of right type of energy (you know, you should probably just take the last brackets for the whole exam).So then I did the comprehension questions, doing every one instead of three and answering in full sentences to not leave myself open to being docked any marks. This was all the usual stuff, the only surprising thing was not finding a question that you could answer with "poster campaign" until the last comprehension!In the long question I did the third one, on visiting the council offices and the youth café, unlike most of the people in my school who saw the word "poster" and jumped at question four before reading the rest. I did a page on each of them and ended up asking for extra paper to do part C.So that was my CSPE exam. Now that its over lets get down to business (that is hilarious and no one can tell me otherwise).
Shane - Common Level 
“I studied really hard for CSPE yesterday” - said nobody ever. I don’t know what there is to say about it. CSPE was a nice exam and it went amazing. There is something very reassuring about walking into an exam knowing you have around 60% already in the bag. I was not worried for this exam in the slightest, I got 99% in mocks and put a lot of work into writing up Darkness Into Light as my Action Project. I sat down and did the first section (which was much easier than some years). Then I moved on and did Section 2 questions 1,2, and 3. That was grand. Then I had to choose a long question. I did Question 1 on the 1916 Rising Commemorative Event because I love history and I’ve been to several 1916 events. I actually had to ask for more paper for this section which I thought was weird. Anyway I hope it went as well for all of you as it did for me and to everyone else doing business tomorrow, good luck!
Chloe - Common Level 
Well after that horrific maths encounter I was glad that CSPE was next in line! It was good, I guess, to see very different faces on the first page that we wouldn’t have come across before, they were easy enough to make a stab at even I you weren’t 100% sure with one or two.The advertisements were a breeze as usual although I must admit some of the questions on raising awareness for different topics were slightly trickier than usual, maybe that’s just me though! I did questions 1, 2 and 4, skipping the refugee crisis one.Next was the long question, I was glad to see a 1916 question up and I tackled that one without a doubt. I did read through the others but they didn’t appeal that much to me. For this I basically regurgitated what my school did for the rising.So that was CSPE, way harder than maths paper 2 (joke). On to business tomorrow whoo!
Joe - Common Level 
This exam was one of least concern I had done well in the mocks and was confident. The short question went well and I did question 4 in the long questions on the voting awareness event. It was an interesting question and I enjoyed drawing and designing the invite! Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union. Blogs are updated daily by 6.30 pm on scheduled examination dates.Zeminar is an event for Generation Z, particularly those aged between 15 and 19, and their parents, teachers, mentors and coaches. It will take place from 11th - 13th of October 2016. For more information see www.zeminar.ie