#HomeEc - #JC2017 - Emily Reilly
#JC2017 #HomeEcEmily Reilly - Meánscoil Mhuire LongfordI was overall happy enough with the home economics paper this year. I didn't prepare myself much as I was too excited to finish up and was hoping to receive the B I got in the mock.The paper started off with Section A which consisted of 24 short questions but you only had to answer 20. I answered 24 as I wanted to be sure I'd get full marks for my best 20. The questions weren't too difficult as a few were repeated from the previous exam years.Section B consisted of 6 Long questions in which you had to choose 4 of your best questions. I managed to complete 5 as the examiners would mark my best 4. The question I was most confident with was about the family and the roles and responsibilities within a family but the question I did not answer was about fabrics which I find most difficult to study.I had plenty of time to look over my answers and I found the paper was fair overall. 
#StateExams2017
History - #JC2017 - Olivia Whelan
Olivia Whelan - Meánscoil Mhuire LongfordIn all, I really enjoy history, but like many others, coming up to a history exam I always get nervous as it's one of the more 'bulky' and 'heavy subjects. History always has me under pressure the night before studying.I was really hoping there would be a good selection of questions on this years paper.The exam began with the picture and document questions. These aren't too difficult as you're asked to refer back and get your answer from the passage or relate it to the picture. These questions were easily answered. Then followed 20 short questions where we had to answer 10, I did my best 10 with a few extra ones to be sure.Then it came to the people in history question, myself like others were hoping for Martin Luther or maybe another named person we had studied, but this year we were asked for example "a woman living in a names civilisation outside of Ireland" this is a very broad topic but I managed it well. After the two accounts , we had to read sources and answer questions , this went well and at the end we were asked to give a small account on a topic , we were very lucky to receives topics exactly to the mocks.Question 6 then my favourite section as I love Irish history , was to my favour very similar again to the mock , I was delighted with this and finished the exam with the renaissance and Irish history question. Overall I thought it was a very good paper. #StateExams2017
Business - #JC2017 - Diego Brule
Diego Brule - Colaiste Einde Salthill GalwayBusiness P1 & P2If there was a single exam that scared the soul out of me, it was Business. Business was never my strong subject, strongly because of the high amount of memorisation that had to be done. The only topic I ever liked about business was economics on the bigger scale, but this is only 3 chapters out of about 30 chapters on the JC course.As I opened the exam in the short questions part, I felt delighted to see simple question after simple question. But I kept telling myself, don't be too happy, section 2 is coming. But in Paper 1, Section 2 wasn't actually that bad. I knew how to answer the 4 questions quite well, and when I got out of the exam I felt that went way better than expected, definitely better than in the mocks at least.Paper 2 was a nightmare though. Upon flicking through the pages to pick out which 4 questions I would answer out of the 6, I found that there were 2 questions in which I was confident in, and I knew the rest of the questions would ruin all my marks. But I hung on to it, I picked the lesser of the evils to answer, and wrote a lot, one of my pens even ran out on me!I finished it and I couldn't help but saying to myself: 'Huh, that wasn't too bad'. Of course, my expectations for business had hit rock bottom after the mocks, so that's probably why I felt better during this exam.Now I only have French, History, TG and Spanish left. I'm so glad the toughest are done.Check out more exam blogs here: http://issu.ie/the-issu-exam-blogs-2017/issu-exam-blogs-leaving-cert-2017/#StateExams2017
Maths P2 - #JC2017 - Diego Brule
Diego Brule - Colaiste Einde Salthill GalwayPaper two is the easier of the two, I said. It won't be that hard, I said. Well, this maths paper 2 was just about the most confusing maths paper I've done up to now.When I first opened the exam at 9:30, my sleepy self immediately wanted to cry at the complexity of the questions, even at the beginning at the paper. But I worked through the easy ones first: some statistics, simple volumes, simple trigonometry. I left one or two blank spaces as I moved on.As my brain was getting warmed up, the complexity of the questions seemed to disappear, and I worked through the paper ever so relaxed, until I came to a very difficult trig question and a proof that was easy but I hadn't studied recently so I just skipped it for the time being.11:45: I finish all the simple parts of the exam, having left behind three questions to look over. The challenge had begun. I did the proof which actually was very easy, and I filled in a probability question that I had left blank. Now, to the final boss, the trig question, in which I had no idea what theorem they were asking about (It was a very weird circle)How did I conquer it you might ask? I used the legendary technique of staring at it, as if was going to give me the answer. But eventually, it actually worked. After 10 minutes or so of staring at it, I noticed something that allowed me to do the maths to find out the measurement of the angle they were looking for.After all this was the easier of the two papers, its simplicity hidden away under confusing wording and contexts, and very little information. I'm pretty happy with it, and I guess it taught me: There is no such thing as a question you don't know the answer to, you just haven't stared at it for long enough#StateExams2017
Geography - #JC2017 - Diego Brule
Diego Brule - Colaiste Einde Salthill GalwayHigher Level
English - #JC2017 - Diego Brule
Diego Brule - Colaiste Einde Salthill GalwayWant me to be honest? I can say I almost didn't prepare for English, solely because our teachers simply didn't know what would come up(we're the first generation to sit the reformed English JC) but hey, it actually didn't go bad. (And if it did I can always use the excuse that it's not my first language)Exam starts, I open the paper. I immediately read 'fantastic beasts'. My heart jumps and happiness floods me as I'm sure I can answer anything about one of my favourite movies. (Sorry I didn't read the book) But under fantastic beasts were small letters: 'fantastic beasts and the people who love them'.. what? To say the least, I was disappointed. But as I finished this question, I turned the page and an actual Harry Potter Fantastic Beasts question was there, so naturally, I was happy again.You can see that I went through a rollercoaster of emotions in just under 30 minutes, not bad right? Well, there's more.Next was Poetry. I started hating myself. Why did I not go over all those quotes, I ask myself, and the funny thing is, I kind of knew the quotes, but not having them learned off word by word pissed me off. I skipped this section, only to find that next question was drama, and I was even less prepared for that.I say a prayer(not kidding) before skipping and seeing what awaits in the last question and- aha! we had to make up a TV dialogue between a teenager and an adult, confronting, obviously because we teenagers aren't capable of rational thought. (rolling my eyes hard at that one)And so I have a bit of fun making up this dialogue and then I notice there's half an hour left. I panic as I went back to poetry and drama to answer the best I can, and before I know it the time's up. But oh well, a roller coaster isn't fun without the up and downs, I still enjoyed that test, even though it was the one I had fewer hopes for.
