Junior Certificate Business

Art - Higher Level

Business Paper One: Beginning with the short questions; overall they didn't seem to be too challenging. Common sense and a hint of good memory would get you through I thought. For those trying to avoid accounting, there was no chance in section one! A nice bit of explaining was needed too but honestly they were pretty nice to us.On to section two (long questions). I gave myself two hours to do these and lads, believe me I needed it. I began with the household budget (Q1) which seemed a bit shorter and easier than usual. More of your own calculations were needed however than reading straight from the paper. This was followed up with some general questions on budgeting. Not too bad I thought. Then I moved onto Q3, all about the national budget and expenditure. This was very doable I thought. A simple T shaped account, a bar chart and a few explanations were needed for the 40 marks. On to the consumer question. This required a firm knowledge on insurance which fortunately I was ok with having studied it the previous night. Consumer rights seeped in there too if I'm not mistaken. Finally, I went on and did question 6 on People at Work. This was all about explaining terms, the content of CV's and trade unions. A fairly handy question.Overall I was really happy with paper one, though I may have lost a few easy marks here and there. A fair paper nonetheless.Business Paper Two: For some reason or another, maybe all this warm weather I went into paper two feeling like I was fit to sleep for a week. However, I pulled myself together and at two o'clock went straight down to business (pardon the pun). I was most confident with the final accounts question and immediately submerged myself into the figures and thank God had a balancing balance sheet within a half an hour. Then we had to explain carriage inwards, which seemed pretty easy. I then went at the report writing/business insurance question which seemed to be a bit too similar to another long question on paper one. Anyway, three quarters of the marks for that were writing up a report on suggested insurance which wasn't overly challenging. Though I went slightly blank when it came to explaining one or two of the five principles. The final ten marks were for explaining adequate insurance and a simple calculation of compensation.I then tackled the chains of production question. I thought this was tricky in parts as I hadn't covered it in a while. This was my poorest question overall. However I persevered and jotted down as much as I could. Hopefully I'll pick up a good few of the marks. Maybe it was my choice of questions or the relaxed attitude of males but at half three when I was going onto my final question I found many of my classmates were wrapping up entirely. I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign! Anyway, I concluded with the cash flow forecast which I was so relieved worked out perfectly, as one figure throws everything out and you're often left painting the page in tippex. A couple of unusual questions followed this up and I'm not certain if I explained them correctly as we were only given one line to. I'll try not to overthink it.Overall, paper two seemed pretty good. A bit harder than paper one. Hopefully between the two I can pull in an A or high B, with the help of God!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.