English - #LC2017 - Alex Fogerty

  #LC2017 - #EnglishAlex Fogarty - Ratoath CollegeWell, that went well, thank you State Examinations! I was honestly so happy with this paper. I found it to be very fair and pretty well rounded. I answered Question A from Text 3, I enjoyed the theme of that particular text being childhood memories. The questions were very straight forward and I was grateful for that. I then went onto answer Question B from Text 2. Again a very straight forward question and it was actually just lovely. Asking about the biased media... All I had to was go on about Fake News and Donald Trump, easiest opinion piece, just do what I've been doing since November... Complain about Trump. Lastly, I chose No.3 for Section II of the paper. The Speech on Democracy at the World Youth Conference. Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a nicer question! Loved waffling on about politics as I do best, and was even able to bring a very lovely, truthful anecdote. Loved this paper, I hope it went well for everyone else! #LC2017 #StateExams #ISSU17 

Leaving Cert German

John - Higher Level

 No major surprises here in a pretty fair paper. As usual, the reading comprehensions were abstract to say the least. The extract from a literary text concerned an overworked journalist falling in love with a life-sized stuffed pig she sees in a toy shop. Those Germans! In the final question, we were asked to explain how the narrator's outlook on life had been changed by the pig. Really, who writes this stuff? The journalistic text was banal in comparison, merely trying to promote the idea of house-swapping holidays. Although the first half of the grammar question was straightforward, the section on adjective endings (which appear to be governed by an infinite number of rules) caused me a fair bit of head-scratching. While the general themes in the letter weren't anything out of the ordinary, the way they were presented was somewhat awkward. Interestingly, I was asked if I blogged, although my limited German vocabulary meant I was forced to lie to my imaginary German penfriend. I didn't find the tape too bad, but unfortunately it wasn't quite as easy as last year's. Ah well, eight down, only two to go. Freedom's getting ever closer! 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 French

Dylan - Higher Level

 Today was one of my brighter days when it comes to comparing this bleak Leaving Cert period. I am just about half way there!! I opened the French paper to be greeted by a reading comprehension on hitch hiking. It was a handy text and most answers were easily found in the text. The following journalistic text was also very approachable with basic vocabulary littered throughout the text. The one thing that really appeals to me about French at Leaving Cert level is the fact that it is more of a test of your basic French skills and knowledge of the language rather than a memory test. I really enjoy French as a subject and found that anyone who could write in all tenses and had basic vocab would have found this a very paper fair. I am sure like every other student when I first saw the written pieces on 'The Gathering', 'The Horse Meat Scandal' and 'The Influence Celebrities have on us' I absolutely died inside. If anyone in my exam noticed me, I was more or less rubbing the exam paper off my head to try and get ideas. I wrote so much on each written piece, basic, accurate French with a few phrases here and there. As I completed the paper with twenty five minutes remaining(bit of a personal best), I decided to read over everything. What a smart move that was as Dylan had stupidly answered the diary entry in the future tense not realising that it required your thoughts of the party after you had organised it. I started to doubt my worthiness of being in Higher Level English not to think about Higher French as I changed everything to the past tense. Passé Composé you are a life-saver! As I finished correcting my stupid mistake, I left that question messy. With scribbles and brackets all over that question, I hoped that Hedwig would fly in the classroom door and drop a Tippex pen on my table. Sadly I was severely mistaken. It killed me to see a question so messy, I hate scribbles on a question, it makes me feel sick. I had ten minutes left on the clock having looked over everything so I decided to continue my track record of writing to the end and began to answer another written piece. The Horse Meat scandal it was as I spoofed my way from start to finish and wrote the seventy five words required. Sadly I am not one to stick to the word count as I wrote over 150 words for each piece(I'm not bragging, I promise!) but this one was an exception. Maybe I might get more marks for this clean, structured, word count perfect question than the messy 'journal intime' on my Project X House Party last Friday. I felt so cool writing it but as I think back, I should have been studying. Will he(I always assume its a man, no offence all my fellow French scholars.) take marks from me for that? August will tell. The Listening Comprehension was a bit of a surprise. I thought there might have been an outbreak of drama when the CD wouldn't start, I was expecting RTÉ News to be in helicopters outside the school but eventually it did and I didn't get to make a reappearance on the television tonight! The Aural was fair but tricky in parts. The career mentioned wasn't the usual engineer, lawyer, teacher or nurse but a civil servant. Overall it was a lovely paper and I am very happy with it. Lets hope Monsieur SEC will be too. Until tomorrow!  

Sheila - Higher Level

 I had been so nervous for history today that I somewhat neglected french for the night and decided to get up at 5 and study it instead.  Well I'm wrecked now I can tell you. But french was a subject that I have worked on a lot this year because the mocks gave me a bit of a shock. I thought I had done a great mock until I got the result and got a c3 so I realised I had to step it up if I wanted a B in the actual leaving (even to scrape a B would be great). I have been getting grinds all year and the paper I had been dreading was actually okay :) Well in a surprise twist the second comprehension the literary one was easier than the first which had never been the case for me in the past. The texts were easy to understand and the English questions at the end gave a little tip as to what both were about which was great (especially because i didn't know they were hitch hikers in the first one to start.) Also a first appeared on the paper with the imperatif as the grammar question which had been predicted to come up. The written pieces.. these are what brought my grade down every time but today I was so happy to see a need for a degree and education because I managed to bring in all of my recession and emigration notes. The journal was so good this year a slightly humorous one and in it you could show off your negative and positive phrases. The last written piece for me was my weakest I would say I went for the celebrity one. But they used every possible word in relation to the icons they are and the bad influence in the question so it was difficult to find new words and avoid repeating the question but over all a fair paper. The aural was great! It could have been so much worse as it had been other years but it wasn't. some one was feeling kind this year. The odd question was hard to catch the first time round but after the third playing it was manageable to answer all questions. Question five which usually consists of some fella speaking really quickly in a strange french accent but this year that changed. It was as easy as section one with China and Hier Soir almost over emphasised. But I am not complaining that's great for us! So glad to only have one more exam.. 8 days to wait... great!  

Jessica - Higher Level

 I couldn't have been happier upon opening the French paper yesterday, it was by far the fairest paper I've seen! The comprehension questions were easy to understand and the answers were simply found. I always find them quite difficult and seeing as their the most marks on the paper, 120 combined, I think there's a lot of pressure to do well but these ones were very fair! Something that interested me was question 1 part (a), now if my knowledge of French serves me right it was about writing a story real or imaginary, about your first hitch-hiking experience? I have never seen writing a sort of story as a qu'en pensez vous before! However, I opted for part (b) which was about the necessity of university for the world of work where I put all my good education system phrases to work! Next the trusty diary entry was there which I loved. It was about you having a party when your parents are away, all my phrases about young people drinking sufficed there! There was a wide range of choices for question 3&4 which was great! Friendship, the gathering, celebrity culture and well, the house meat scandal! I don't think anyone in the entire country could have predicted that one to make an appearance but the little cartoon of the horse saying "je me suis pas le beouf" provided much entertainment...or was I the only one laughing to myself?? I chose the celebrity culture one although before getting stuck in to writing my 75 words I spent 10 minutes (you have plenty of time for the exam!) trying to figure out who the second celebrity caricatures in the picture was, it will forever linger in my mind as to who it is! All in all it was a very fair paper and I couldn't have been happier with it!  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 English Paper 1

Dylan - Higher Level

 Wow what a day it has been. I woke up greeted by bundle of nerves and a knotted stomach. Today was the day. It was English Paper One!! As I sat down in the exam hall and received my answer book, I started filling everything in and had the page folded open and ready to start. I always jump to Section II first and start with the essay as I find it is the longest and it generally decides your overall grade in English. It has for me over the past six years! I looked at the titles once I received the paper and started to die inside. There's always that sense of failure once you scan through the paper because the questions aren't exactly as you prepared. Having calmed down I realised that the first option which was a speech titled ''We live in an un-heroic age'' was an essay I could write on using the essay I wrote on in the mocks on celebrity culture. I pretty much made it fit anyways talking about how celebrities are considered heroes when they really aren't etc. After finishing my four pages in a record breaking 50 minutes, I no longer felt pressured and started reading the three texts. The first one was horrible, the second one was ok and the third one wasn't great either. Having picked text two I started to write to realise it was a handy comprehension. It was an interview with short story writer William Trevor and his approach to writing etc. I finished all questions after one hour which was a bit too long but I was still on track. I looked at Question B then to find that the best one was on Text 2 but No! Dylan answered on Question A making it not possible to answer the Question B on Text 2. As I started complaining to myself I notice how the other two Question B's were dreadful. An introduction for a book and a recommendation of a place in Ireland for tourists to visit. Neither appealed to me so I sat there for about ten minutes complaining how unfair it was. Time was sliding by and I still hadn't started my Question B. 20 minutes remained on the clock and I did an eenie meainie on the two Question B's. I was left with the recommendation and chose Thomond Park. As I started spluttering out all types of cheesy and cringey lines about Thomond Park and how it was a place where magic happened(Yes, I made it out to be like Disneyland). I really do turn into such a creep when I am writing, effects of the Leaving Cert violating my brain and almost leaving me mentally unstable. As I came to page two of throwing cringey sentences down on the paper, the test had finished and the fun part had come. Oh boy did I like sealing the exam with the sticky bit and treasury tag. That is how exciting my life has been the past month. Can't wait for English II tomorrow. If Plath, Mahon or Bishop don't appear on the paper then I mightn't be mentally available to blog tomorrow evening. If there isn't a blog post then you'll understand I hope! Until tomorrow!!!! 

Jessica - Higher Level

 As I flicked through the pink pages on English paper one I was delighted! None of the questions that I feared appeared but nothing I was rooting for did either! Where was the usual diary entry from question B?? I was quite shocked at the question A's, they were a lot easier than any of the ones I looked through in panic yesterday evening! The theme of the page was 'story-telling' - a very nice one in my opinion! Text 1 of the comprehension was an edited text based on an article 'Tune in Next Week - The Curious Staying Power of the Cliff-hanger' on my first glance at the title and images I thought it was about death I was awful confused upon reading it to find out it was actually about the cliff-hanger endings in tv programmes! This text was my chosen question B - unfortunately the question B's were not good ones at all. The question was to write the text of a talk you would deliver in which you consider the role of tv and radio in the lives on young people today. It was terrible but I'm not sure rambling on about the development of technology was what they were looking for, I'm quite disappointed to say the least. Text two was an interview with Irish writer, William Trevor, on The Art of Fiction, conducted for the Paris Review by Mira Stout. During the exam I only glanced over this one as I wasn't overly keen on either question A or B and I'm not a fan of interviews! I was delighted with text 3. It was the edited text of an article from the Irish Times by Belinda McKeon ''New York stories on a Perfect Platform' celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the opening of New Yorks Grand Central Station! It's was a really interesting article! This was my chosen question A, I feel it was definitely the easiest of the three. I was extremely happy with how it went, so much better than I expected! Although they weren't horrific, I feel the long compositions were extremely specific. There was a speech, two personal essays, a descriptive essay (never seen that before?!), a feature article and a short story. Usually I would opt for the article, I love writing them but I wasn't keen on it this year at all, it was to discuss the competing attractions of both urban and rural lifestyles, seeing as I've lived near the city for so long I don't think i could have made a good argument for the attraction of rural lifestyle at all! I chose question 7, the short story which was about a reunion. Have to say again I definitely felt it was easiest and after giving the exam a post mortem afterwards with my friends, it was the most popular choice! My essay was loosely based on the idea of the popular show Homeland but of course putting my own twist on it. It's such a relief to have the first exam over with and I'm glad it wasn't too horrific! 

Jenny - Higher Level

 As the examiner told us we could start, there was a rustle of paper as the pages were turned and the texts and composition titles were sought. We were like race horses out of their boxes, raring to go. I immediately looked at the titles and tried to settle down into the first exam which sat before me. I started with the Question A and chose text three as I preferred the Question B from the first text. I had been hoping a letter would come up but a talk on the importance of television and radio in young people's lives didn't seem too terrible. All in all the paper wasn't too bad which seemed to be the general consensus of my fellow students. The composition titles weren't too bad and were quite broad and there seemed to be something for everyone. With paper 1 it's hard to know how well you have done. I'm just grateful for the first test to be done and dusted so we can move on to paper 2 which should be interesting. I wonder if Plath will make an appearance this year... 

Nathan - Ordinary Level

 Paper 1 has to have been one of the best papers I've ever done. Obviously I was nervous walking in this morning first exam I didn't know what to expect but boy was I wrong for being nervous. When I opened the paper I had a quick look through it and read through the comprehensions and decided what Q-A and what Q-B I was going to do.  I soon realised that Micheal McIntyre's autobiography was the Q-3 this made my day as he is my favourite comedian and I have read his book 2-3 times so had a fairly good idea how to answer the questions.  The composition was even better. I'm usually fairly good at writing speeches so the Q-7 was the one for me. so far so good.  I'll blog again tomorrow  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.