History - #LC2017 - Gabriele Grudyte
Gabriele Grudyte - St. Mary's Holy Faith Secondary School, KillesterSo the long awaited history exam paper is finally over. My hand is throbbing, feels like it's going to fall off. But it was all worth it. The cramming the night before, will hopefully pay off. The minute the examiner gives out the the papers my heart started racing hoping US foreign policy comes up but just my look it didn't, it's very disappointing when your favourite topic doesn't come up on any exam but on this exam it was heartbreaking. It was an easy enough paper as girls in my year would say "That was a lovely paper" . Apart from us foreign policy and the harrow match everything that I expected to come up came up. The thing about history is you can't squish information in that you've forgotten about no matter how hard you try. So you have to write everything down straight away. I suggest you write out the points your going to talk about on the exam paper so you don't forget to mention it. I know it may be time consuming but it proved to be very useful for me today. Today before the exam my class got together and brainstormed the essay which was surprisingly very helpful. Later in the exam y saw some girls leave early, which is something you want to avoid in the history exam. But overall I found the exam easy as in the topics that came up were manageable it's just the timing and the fact that your hand will most likely fall off after the exam. Feeling good about history.#StateExams2017
Leaving Cert Maths Paper 1
Keelyn - Higher Level
Although certain parts of the paper were doable, some of the questions were quite mean especially considering there was no mention of financial maths or algebra. It was mainly to do with arithmetic series and integration. Let's just hope paper two will be more straightforward
Brendan - Ordinary Level
Area and Volume and Co-ordinate Geometry are expected to generally appear on Paper 2, but in going with what seems the general trend of the state examinations so far today bucked the trend and emerged on Paper 1. Apart from that there were no major surprises, although of course some questions proved more challenging than others. A question about the theory behind complex numbers was thought provoking. Overall it was a manageable paper, the final question about the rocket was in particular very straightforward. Most of the candidates seemed reasonably happy with the paper and are now looking forward to a brief rest before diving back into study. Paper 2 is my stronger of the two, and I am looking forward to Monday.
Aoife - Ordinary Level
It would be completely impossible for this exam to have gone any better. Everything was so straight forward, and that 75 marker at the end was the cherry in the cake. The tricky question with the box had me stuck for a while, but it was more manageable when I stopped to think about it. I spend so much time studying for paper two, I was a bit worried with this one but that paper was easier to me than any of the sample papers I did to prepare for the exam. I know many people that were struggling with ordinary maths that were laughing as they came out. I'm hoping for a B with that paper, let's hope paper 2 is as nice. :)
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.
Leaving Cert Polish
Katarzyna - Higher Level
My final exam was probably the most enjoyable of all. Everything on the paper was written and had to be answered though polish. The questions were really nice and the main topic of the paper was quite interesting and I was able to write about it.The paper began with a comprehension and six follow up questions. This year the comprehension dealt with the problem of the increase in the numbers of people in Poland who do not read. According to a study, about 65% of people in Poland did not have a book in their hands for a whole year. The comprehension explored the causes and the possible consequences of this trend. The second part involved writing a response to a quote taken out of the comprehension.Lastly, there are two essay titles and you had to choose one and write an essay on it. The two titles were "Read, to live!" and "In today's society everything revolves around "the here and now" ". I chose the second title because I was a bit fed up with writing about the importance of reading in previous questions. Generally it was an easy paper and I was really happy with it.I hope that other Polish students in Ireland also found it as good as I did!
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.
Junior Cert Maths Paper 2
David - Higher Level
Paper 2 was a delight for me! After my worrying that paper two would be as hard as paper one, I wasn't confident going into the exam, but I soon settled when I read the questions.Q1 - I got on great, no surprises but I had trouble with part C, attempt marks will have to do for that one! Q2 - Was co-ordinate geometry, probably my favorite section of p2, so easy, so likable, for me anyway, I spent a good bit of time on this question though as I had to draw two diagrams.Q3/Q4/Q5 - Trigonometry, my least favorite part of the course, I think we went through trigonometry pretty fast in school, so I never really got a feel for it, but these questions went great, I got both theorems correct along with the construction so I got a good few marks there my teacher predicted one of the two theorems correctly, the long equiangular triangles one, but the other one was a pleasant surprise as it's shorter and easier than the other one she predicted. The rest was pretty easy too though, maybe that could be down to me trying to learn theorems all weekend getting used to it more? Who knows, bottom line - It went well.Q6 - I did no study for this, this was always easy to me, there was an ogive question which is always nice to see, no drawing of a histogram however, which was disappointing as although they take longer, they're easy marks. Q6 went great for me - thankfully.All in all, Maths was okay this year, the very hard paper 1 and the easy paper two balanced out to make it not too tough.. and not too easy :(
Lorraine - Ordinary Level
Hey guys!Lorraine here! :) I did Maths paper 2 today! Im ordinary level and I have to say, after a gruelling 3 hours study yesterday of solid maths with my sister, I think I did OK!Normally, I'm ok up to Q4 and thats when I start to get stuck. In the first few questions there was no shocks or anything, it was all whats normally on the papers. At Q4 we had to bisect an angle and we wernt allowed to use a protractor, although I'm not sure how they would know or not? :P I probably did it wrong, but I did attempt it! After that It was grand. All the usuals were there and we had the log books with all the formulas we needed in it. I think I did very well until Q6. I could do the first parts no bother it was only the last bit where I was like Arrrghhh! I attempted everything which I was delighted with.Overall, If you studyed I think you'll do well. A good few people out of my room did get up and leave and there was only 2 of us ordinary level students walking out at half 11. I walked out of my exam and there weren't many of us walking out at half 11, even though most of the year is ordinary.I felt very sorry for the honours and I looked through there paper and my God its hard! Seriously, If your doing honours fair play to you! If I find pass hard imagine what I'd be like in honours?!I think I done well and I'm happy with how I answered everything this time round.Good Luck to everybody in the exams still to come :)
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.
JC Religion
Roisin
Religion was quite hard and I was right up to the time at the end but I managed to answer everything. I answered fifteen of the short questions, just to be safe, questions two, three and four of section two, section three, questions three, four five and six in section four and question four in section five. It was a lot of writing but I think it was okay!I have the day off tomorrow, and my last exam is tech graph on Monday!
JC Business
James (Higher Level)
This morning I had Business Studies Paper 1. The paper started with the twenty short answer questions of Section A. In Section B, four long questions were to be answered. I completed everything and was satisfied on my lunch break. In the afternoon, I had Business Studies Paper 2. Four long answer questions were to be answered and I completed these questions well with lots of detail. I did not choose question 1 or question 4 on Paper 2. Overall, I'm happy with my Business Studies exam.