Junior Certificate Maths Paper 1

Art - Higher Level

Oh where do I begin... Highly challenging paper across the board I thought. Being the first year to have studied three years of project maths, it seemed a given that we would be put on the frying pan. Beginning with the sets; they didn't seem to be overly difficult, though part ii) on page one where you had to equal two parts of it through a good few. After that, we were faced with a variety of traditional paper one topics, such as functions and factorising quadratic equations, hidden behind sneaky project maths language. A half an hour in, and me still trying to figure out what the hell was going on with the phone companies I must say I feared the worst. Fortunately as time progressed my luck picked up and I worked out as much as I could. Honestly though, I wasn't happy with it at all. I left several blanks and jotted in a couple of dumb answers to work with (because you can't be marked wrong twice).Please God paper two will go my way now. It's my preferred one to be honest. I didn't think it was possible to drop marks from the mocks!

Helen - Higher Level

You could cut the tension and nervousness in the air with a knife. The exam hall featured worriers, last minute panics and hyper attitudes of a Friday afternoon.When I opened the paper, I was quite happy with the questions. As I launched into them, I noticed that some questions were a lot more complicated than they appeared. However, I persevered and pushed through! I found the suggestive maximum time helpful as I was able to track my progress in the exam. There were a couple shaky questions but I put down something and hoped that I'd get at least some marks for attempting it. I was happy that a good bit of algebra came up as I really worked on it after the mocks. All in all, I was pretty happy with how Maths Paper 1 went.

Jane - Higher Level

Well guys, it was the one exam that I was completely dreading. The thing about math is that it either goes beautifully or dreadfully. I came out of the exam on the verge of tears, everyone was talking about how easy it was and my heart just sank. It took me until Sunday evening to sit up and say.. wait... it wasn't even that bad. I think a huge flaw in a student's mindset as they come out of an exam is that if everything didn't go exactly as planned, they did badly in the paper. Things didn't go exactly as planned, I'll tell you that! There were questions on that paper that I could only attempt, and had to squeeze my eyes shut as I dismissed the fact that I had got the wrong answer, and turned the page onto the next question. It nearly killed me!!!After a massive conversation with my friend who loved paper one, and after comparing some of our methods and answers on Sunday, I hopped into bed and didn't look at a book until opening paper 2 at 9:30 the next morning.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Leaving Certificate Maths Paper 1

Lorraine - Ordinary Level

Hi all,I hope that your all as outraged as me right now..what on earth was that? Did they accidentally give us the honours maths paper because that was next to impossible!!I woke up to revise the itty bits that really niggle me in paper 1 but generally paper 1 is my okish paper whereas its paper 2 that Is my downfall! I spent a long time on complex numbers and going through the financial maths because they were a long question in the mocks.When I went into school everyone was feeling ok- a lot of revising going on!! When the examiner handed me the exam paper I started to scan through it making myself not rush into anything-my worst habit. I checked through the long questions and was really disappointed- no financial maths. I started back at the first question which was exchange rates- not my best question! The complex numbers question was like a different language - they brought cos into it!! I fought with myself in the exam not to panic or freak out but jesus Christ that was a horrible exam.After the exam from talking to everybody else, nobody seems to be happy with it! Some of the questions were just strange and some of them I had never seen on the sample papers never mind past papers!! I have to admit I am really disappointed and extremely worried now as paper 2 is my awful paper! At least I have the weekend to spend cramming on it and trying to get a half decent result!!

Leah - Ordinary Level

Out of all of the exams I've done so far, I was absolutely chuffed to pieces with the Paper! As soon as I opened Maths Paper I today, I could hardly contain my glee. The Paper opened with an easy enough questions about financial maths, like currency conversions and so on and - boy! I may be one of the few people to admit that I actually liked Maths.When I dropped to Ordinary Level Maths after Christmas of Fifth Year, I felt full of worry that I would get a horrible Paper in the Leaving - simply because I didn't know what to expect from the terrifying "Project Maths". However, I believe that this years Paper is the nicest one I've seen yet, including the Sample Papers that came in Examit's set of Past Exam Papers.In fairness though, I heard off many of my friends that they hated Question Eight and Nine and I have to agree but always remember; attempt marks are key! Attempt marks will be and are my blessing. With attempt marks alone you can pass Maths, which is nice considering the fact that it's either a subject you get or not at all. It just goes to show: everybody loves a trier.The only other question that stumped me was the second question to do with Co-Ordinate Geometry but I guess no one can be good at everything.Honestly, roll on Maths Paper II because I am feeling ecstatic. I'm as happy as Larry with what came up and I hope that the next people will be just as sweet! :)

Neil - Ordinary Level

After talking to many others, the general consensus seems to be that ordinary maths paper 1 was very difficult for an ordinary maths paper. I particularly found the question on sequences very difficult and honestly I thought oil barons earned more money lolOverall though, I think it was a very easy paper to pass as the question As were very simple and straight forward yet it was a hard paper to get an A1 in due to the Cs being challenging. Gods speed for paper 2 to all my fellow ordinary huns.

Shauna - Ordinary Level

Going into maths I wasn't too worried because I'm in pass and probably won't count it for points! I didn't study for it much last night as I had Honours Geography this morning and was stressed to the max about that! I went in just hoping for some nice questions though! Question 1 was about money exchange so that was grand! It all went down hill from there :(( I found the questions in the middle of the paper IMPOSSIBLE!!! I spent so long trying to figure out what I was being asked to do! The last 2 questions were do-able, although the very last part of the last question wasn't worded very well. I came out of the exam fairly depressed because I thought I would do well in maths, but found out that everyone found the paper soooo difficult so hopefully it'll be marked easy enough! LIVING FOR ATTEMPT MARKS !

Joanna - Higher Level

Ah, when I opened the paper and saw that there was no sign of DeMoivre's theorem or proof by induction, it felt like my prayers were answered! I was dreading seeing them, I spent the whole dull morning looking over them and trying to drill the steps into my head, without much progress. The fact that they weren't there was a massive relief and I felt ready to tackle anything else that may be on the paper.Looking over the questions, they looked challenging but didn't make me panic, and I found the first two questions were really manageable which helped me to stay calm (I even managed to get an answer in surd form for question two as was asked, so I was delighted!) the whole paper wasn't easy, I particularly struggled in finishing the last 3 questions. However, I put something down for every question which I was happy about. There were a few situations where I knew the figures that I got in a previous part of a question were wrong, but I knew what to do with them in the parts that followed. So hopefully, even though a lot of my final answers were a mess, the steps that I followed and the formula I used were correct and will give me enough marks to pass this paper.So, I hope I have a good few partial grades in the bag now, paper one was always my least favourite paper, so whatever I achieved should only get better after paper two! I'm really relieved because I knew this would be one of the most challenging exams and the fact that it went okay is really encouraging. Time to go over paper 2, as many biology exam questions as possible and make my way through Irish essays, summaries and vocab for the exams next week... But first, I'm taking the afternoon off and recommend it to everyone else after today :))

Isabelle - Higher Level

Today was definitely the most nervous I have been going into an exam. In the car on the way I wasnt sure whether I needed to cry or throw up (thankfully I did neither). Having got 40% on the dot in my mock Maths has been a huge source of stress for me, with my main end goal being to scrape a D3. This exam was baffling to me. Some of the questions were scarily easy and almost spoon fed the answers and then others (like the oil spill ???!) were difficult and just plain weird. Differentiation has never been one of my strong points, so when I saw that nearly every question included it in some shape or form (seriously though whats up with that??) I was quite disappointed. The financial maths question was a nice break from it all!Overall I was not overly happy with the paper, and I have pretty mixed emotions from most of my friends aswell, some thinking it was too easy, some finding it impossible. Either way I filled in every box and made some ludicrous attempts, so I'm hoping some nice partial credits will be heading my way and hopefully getting me to 40%.Now for a weekend full of the most intense cramming of my life, but maybe a well deserved break for tonight!

Dáire - Higher Level

I was more anxious before this exam than I was for English, but I was relieved when I opened the paper. I found the short questions to be very handy, especially the financial maths one, which I found nearly too easy and was searching for the catch involved. I was happy with that, because it's my worst topic.I took my time going through the paper, it took me a few minutes to relax with the paper and once I did, it was all good from there. Usually I would go mad if there was a question I couldn't answer, but I felt that time was on my side and I pulled each question apart and got through it.It wasn't a perfect paper either, there were surprisingly only a couple of parts that I could not answer. I'll hold off on predicting my grade for now but I'm nearly certain I passed off that paper alone. I hope paper two treats me as well on Monday as paper one did today.

Rob - Higher Level

I had prepared a lot on proof by induction as well as learning off my proofs and definitions for this paper. All morning I looked over these, and so I was quite disappointed to see none of them turn up in the paper.As I don't have the paper with me to analyse I can't speak about every question. I found the first 6 to be quite straightforward, except for Question 4 involving complex numbers. I tried everything with this question, swapping positions, De Moivres, adding conjugates. I couldn;t make it work.I found the rate of change question to be challenging, there was a lot of information with the different questions requiring you to fully be following what was going on with that oil spill.I was disappointed to see no theory, no induction or simultaneous equations nor any mention of surjective and injective functions. The paper was very heavy on calculus, which I can deal with, but I would have preferred some of the other topics.Overall I'm a little disappointed and disheartened. There will surely be some theory on Paper 2 now, on top of the theorems and inferential statistics to learn off. I'm still not sure about the new aspects introduced this year so will have to check up on that tonight online.Hopefully Paper 2 will be a bit kinder to me, I know not everyone was as disappointed as I was today. 8 more exams to go!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Leaving Certificate Geography

Leah

Well well well. If that Geography paper did not just kill me, nothing will! I remember the days at Junior Cert level, where Geography was focused on Economic activities and the Physical Geography and that was all. Ah, I miss those days.The paper began with possibly the worst set of Short Questions I have seen in a long time. I spent much longer than I should have on them but I knew that the remaining questions weren't much better so I bit the bullet and got on with the questions. In fairness, there may have been a few questions that I may have answered 100% correctly, but I definitely did not get my 80 marks I could've gotten there.From then on the paper was nothing more than a farce. On the Physical Geography Section, I decided to do the first question because I knew Karst surfaces fairly well and how a waterfall was formed. That got part A & B out of the way fairly sharpish. However, C blew me away. I am not going to lie - I may have totally waffled my way around that question.After that question and the Shorts, my pride in my Geography knowledge may have been hurt and so, it's no surprise that I did not do too well on any other question in the exam. I didn't have enough time to even attempt the Electives on Section III and I recall writing about The Mezzogiorno for a Manufacturing question but all the rest was a blur of scrawled writing and panic.I only hope I did well in the Field Work Project now because it may very well end up being my my saving grace. It wasn't all bad though, I did give it my best shot and I was glad Processes of Erosion came up on the Physical Geography so I guess every cloud does have a silver, Geographical lining.

Susanna

Having had no time whatsoever to revise, seeing as English 2 had used up the last of our energy reserves, it wasn't a surprise that nerves today were all rather frazzled. 9:30 arrived and there was a collective frenzy to the back of the paper - I was absolutely delighted with the Plant & Animal adaptation biomes question, and having prepared that exact essay, it certainly got the exam off to a confident start. I can imagine that there was a quiet country-wide celebration upon seeing that glorious waterfall question, and having written about under cuttings and overhangs in every geography exam since first year, it was a delight to see a familiar face. Unfortunately I had to compromise by attempting an unfamiliar tectonics question, but I trudged through that regardless. Besides, the Karst part A was a beaut! There were some rather off-putting human environment questions in my opinion, including an industrial decline essay and a vile part A - a misleading and badly phrased immigration vs emigration question. Anywho, regional proved reasonably manageable, with a reassuringly open question about climate which could be adapted to any region, and a glorious primary economic activity essay in which I could talk about soya, fazendas and cattle ranching to my heart's content.While the predicable classics such as land form development, human interaction with the rock cycle and sedimentary rocks appeared, overall in my opinion, it was an exam of unexpected challenges.Well done to everyone today! Time to enjoy our well-deserved weekend. No more isostasy for us!

Donagh

Opening up the exam the first thing I did was jump over to the geo-ecology section to see had I gotten lucky. I had (I think). The biome question that came up seemed to be ideal, although the underlined use of the word "specific" will bug me till I get my results. I decided to get this out of the way and do it, I then went and did the short questions. Unlike the last few years these were the hardest part of the paper in my opinion. There were a lot of difficult questions that haven’t been on the paper before. The second OS maps question was also really hard to understand. I could not for the life of me figure out from what direction the picture had been taken. I moved onto the physical geography doing the old reliable features of erosion question. Regional was not too bad I did the question on industrial decline and tertiary activities. There was also a sketch map of a European region which I dreaded, although for the first time ever I was happy with my sketch of the Mezzogiorno. Then all that was left was the economic section which was tough enough. I picked the question on environmental impacts of economic activity and colonialism. These went alright for me although I ran out of time and didn’t get to say as much as I would’ve liked for colonisation.All in all I think that it was a fair paper giving a good choice of questions and as long as my answer for the biomes question works out I think I’ll be fine.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Leaving Cert English Paper 2

Lorraine - Higher Level

Hey all,I hope your all as happy as I am right now! I really liked the fact that we weren't starting paper 2 till 2pm so you had the morning to revise which I did! I decided that I was only studying Hardy, Frost and Montague and on my head be it! I was also determined that the role of women would come in Othello and received much criticism when I kept saying it was coming up so as you can imagine I was delighted when I turned the paper and it was a question on Desdemona and Emilia! I couldn't have picked it better myself!! :D The comparative question was a bit shaky I'm not gonna lie! I was really confused what the question actually meant and wanted me to do so I did the Q2 which I know I messed up! When I turned to poetry BOOM I had the choice of Hardy, Frost, Montague and Ni Chullean!! :D The question on Montague was a really lovely question about how his evocative language shows his profound empathy for people in his poems. I can honestly say it was a beautiful paper and I actually am sad to not be studying English anymore! I'm dreading maths paper 1 tomorrow it is my nightmare- but not as bad as maths paper 2!!

Rob - Higher Level

Monty Monty Monty, thank you Monty!Nerves were running much higher this morning before the exams, with most of us depending on Montague, Frost Hardy and the beautiful Ní Chuilleanáin. I had banked too on Literary Genre for my Comparative, with General Vision and Viewpoint as a backup. Othello was always going to be a lucky guess, there were no patterns to study as it hasn't been on in so long.On opening the exam papers I raced to the poetry section where the first question that greeted my eyes was my favourite, Montague. Not only that, but his question on evocative language and empathy was almost identical to the essay I had been studying all morning. I had been totally we would receive a horrible combination of poets, but this was ideal.I started my exam on the Comparative, the Literary Genre questions was phrased differently to other years, asking specifically for just one literary technique across three texts. I had learned essays using a number of techniques, but decided to go with character creation as I could combine narration under that title too. I wrote for the full 70 minutes I had allotted, and was happy enough with my answer. Overall I found it a challenging question, definitely requiring alertness and thinking on the day,I wrote out my poetry essay before continuing on to my Single Text, Othello. I chose the character question about Desdemona and Emilia, I hadn't prepared an essay exactly like this but was able to combine what I had written before to use for this question.The unseen poetry was interesting, however talking to my friends I found they had seen completely different meaning in the poem than I had, so I'd rather forget those last panicked 15 minutes of the exam!Overall I'm quite happy. I have never like Paper 2 and the need to memorise countless quotes, but I found this paper to be approachable and interesting. Apart from the first literary genre question which may have caught out some people, the general consensus was the same.Now onto maths!

Joanna - Higher Level

I spent this morning looking over a small selection of notes and essays I prepared for myself earlier over a cup of peach tea. I was panicking. I don't know why, I spent ages looking over poets, reading over all sorts of Othello notes and polishing sample comparative essays. Well, none of it was enough to calm me. I was scared because yesterdays exam really felt exhausting and made me dizzy and I wasn't sure how today would go... Anyway, looking over Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, there was a particular sample question I liked about challenging subject matter and style in her poetry. When I opened the exam paper and saw the exact same question before me (slightly reworded) well, I almost cried with relief. The Othello question that I decided to do was about Emilia and Desdemona, apparently they were both 'weak' and didn't gain our sympathy. My response to that was that a total chauvinist must have written that because even though Desdemona was shallow and submissive, Emilia totally rocked the end of that play and her realism, development and courage at the end made her my heroine of the play! And the comparative; that I found a bit more challenging, but I referred to the question throughout my answer and stuck to the structure that followed in all my sample essays, trying to fit in quotes and references to specific key moments. I hope it worked!Overall, once again I was writing until the last minute, but I felt better doing the exam. I found it easier to get focused and also had some water with me and took a break when my hand couldn't go on after about an hour, so it was okay for the rest of e exam. The joints in my right hand are sore, but I'm glad that this exam is done and hopefully the others won't make it worse!I'm nervous about maths tomorrow. De Moivre's theorem and proof by induction are not my favourite topics at all! I always liked paper two more... I suppose I was nervous today and it ended up being fine, so maybe tomorrow will be similar. Well, I'll relax tonight with some mathstutor.ie videos and more peach tea and it should be alright... Lots of deep breaths and remember, its not in my top six and the minimum entry requirement for my course is a pass in maths, so no need to stress too much.Best of luck to everyone else!

Leah - Higher Level

Hello, hello and welcome to another exciting installment of "did I fail that subject or not?" On this weeks show, we have Leah, who thinks she totally bombed that exam and even panicked when she entered her exam centre.Seriously though, I found Paper II way harder than Paper I. I started off with the Comparative because that was worth the most marks and I chose to do Question (i) from the Theme or Issue because I didn't even want to attempt a two part question. They do not bode well for me. I don't think I did too bad on that but I may have summarised the stories a little too much? I don't really know, to be perfectly honest. That's why I really dislike Paper II, there's virtually no room for your own take on the works of Literature.Next, I decided to go to the Poetry Question and, boy, did we hit the jackpot or what! I had predicted that Ní Chuilleanáin, Frost and Montague would come up and I was right. I was so lucky in that. I decided to do Ní Chuilleanáin because I like her the best out of those three and I think I didn't fair to badly but I don't know. I always feel like that after an English test, it seems I always get marked randomly. Who knows though?Anyway, I then went on to the Unseen Poetry and I totally just hazarded a guess at the two questions in part one. Let's hope I didn't do too bad on that because I need a B1 in English for my course.Finally, I took one look at Section I, Part E and my heart dropped. I decided to do the second part out of the two options because I didn't know squat about Emilia or Desdemona. I know, I know - I should have studied them more but I was too concerned with my other subjects to even look over anything that was optional. I ran out of time for the Othello Question but I was doing so bad, it's probably best that way.All in all, I can't stress enough how important studying is and I just pray to God that I got my B. I was such a nervous wreck before and during that exam, it was unbelievable. Who knows, maybe I didn't do as bad as I thought? I am a bit of a perfectionist in that sense.

Isabelle - Higher Level

English paper 2 was by far the most emotionally draining experience of my school career. The big question everyone was asking before was which poets would come up, and the good news for anyone who had followed predictions was that all the favourites came up (with a really nice Montague question, thank the lord).However this in my opinion was the nicest part about the paper. As someone who has been loyal Literary Genre at every given opportunity, at first I was delighted to see it make an appearance of the paper; and then I read the question. One literary technique for a whole essay??? This freaked me out quite a bit and so I instead went for the theme question, which was kind of like a mixture of theme and general vision and viewpoint? ("Some texts leave readers with a largely idealistic impression of a theme, while others leave readers with a more realistic or believable impression of the same theme or issue.") This worked to my advantage as the only theme essay I have ever prepared was about what the authors were trying to say about the theme. Another thing I found strange about the comparative questions was that they both requested 3 texts, which as far as I'm aware has never happened before, as there is usually one that only asks for "2 or more". The unseen poetry was very boring, i still don't quite know if the boy's father is dead or not to be honest.Now for Othello. Quite possibly the meanest part of the paper. Luckily that morning I had briefly gone over women's role in the play so I had a basic idea of what to write for "Desdemona and Emilia are weak characters who fail to gain our sympathy" , but i was not too happy about having to write it as I knew a lot more about other questions. The second Othello question apparently carried quite a bit of controversy."The values evident in Othello have a profound influence on the outcome of the play." To be quite honest i had no idea whether the question meant the character Othello or the play itself (I have been informed now it meant the play itself - still don't know what the values of the play are...?).Overall I was happy enough with how I answered all of my questions, and think I did as well as I could have for a paper that didn't suit me as well as I would have hoped! All i can say is thank God it's over!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Cert Irish

Helen - Higher Level

I was quite comfortable with Irish Paper 1 as I had learned my list of phrases for my scéal/eachtra so I was ready! I find with the scéal section that no matter what the title is, you are able to twist it into a story about a fire. Quite handy! I found the listening quite alright as the places mentioned were ones that come up quite a lot. Time wise, I felt confident as I had at least ten minutes to spare to review what I had written. The comprehensions featured a lot of opinionated questions and carried on through to paper 2.I have to say, at first glance of Irish Paper 2, my heart dropped as themes such as grá, bás or brón didn't come up. I decided to go with 'misneach' and my chosen pros was Imithe by Ruaidhrí Ó Buaille Aagain I was a bit thrown when I saw the themes for the poems, I chose 'tuismitheoir' and wrote about Subh Milis by Séamas Ó Neill. Luckily I was able to slant both of my studied pieces to fit into the themes. I think I must have quickly scanned through the options for the letter as I realised after finishing the exam that I hadn't written it in the prescribed tense. However, I was pretty happy with the way the exam went.

Gearóid - Higher Level

Paper 1Firstly with the aural: it started off well with Cuid A however Cuid B didn't go so well. Cuid C went off "okay". The two comprehensions were doable. I knew about Lorde already so I knew one or two answers of the questions before. The grammar section went good. They put it up to us translating present to future tense! I finished off with 45 minutes for a story. I wrote about sitting outside the principals office and there were a few deaths in my story, a bit too morbid! Overall I liked this paper, nothing that surprised me. Thank be to God.Paper 2With the written exam, I started with the letter, which I usually find hard. I done the first choice (A) as I felt that going to the cinema was easy. I quickly went onto the seen poetry, which I wrote about a poem Faoiseamh a Gheobhadsa and the subject of country life. I swiftly went onto the seen pros. I felt the themes were extremely hard, not like other years (grá, brón etc.). I wrote about Gleann seo an nDeor, it fitted in with "cineáltas" or kindness. Onto the unseen pros, the comprehension was difficult in my opinion but I tried my best! The unseen poetry were the last thing I done and I only had 10 minutes left in the exam. They didn't go the best either but I may have got half marks. Overall I enjoyed the letter but the unseen literature let me down.

Art - Higher Level

Irish Paper One: Personally, I have to say I found this year's Listening to be easier than most in the exam papers. Fortunately, we were not hit with a harsh Donegal Gaeltach accent! On from there, section two began with the Comprehensions; one on Lorde and the other or Oireachtas. I found the first one easy but overall they both seemed relatively doable. As for the Grammar, I didn't find the transformation from present to future too difficult, though I'm not so sure about the other part. Finally, we were blessed to be given two reasonable options for the Scéal; outside the principal's office and unsure why or else something that happened when you went shopping with your friend. I chose the shopping one and sort of roped in pieces from a missing person and a robbery, mixed with phrases and hopefully it'll get me through. Overall, I was relatively happy with paper one, as Irish is not a strong for me.Irish Paper Two: I nearly had a heart attack when I opened the paper to find a pretty tricky selection for the Studied Prose. I ended up using a theme from the given prose to work for mine; ainmhithe. The unseen itself I found rather challenging and I don't think I answered it too well. I then moved on to the Studied Poem where I used 'tuismitheoir' for Teilifis and sort of improvised from there. You could get away with reading one given poem if you were caught for time (which I was). Giving an opinion on The News poem wasn't impossible, though again not for the fainthearted. Finally, the letter to a friend was on a trip to the cinema. Not too bad. Overall, I found paper two a struggle and I felt demoralized heading into the final half hour. Hopefully it won't drag the grade too far down!

Jane - Higher Level

Paper one:I was fairly happy with paper one. The listening comprehension was very easy in comparison to my pre, or other comprehensions for other years. The reading comp was good I think.... I can't really remember what it was about now though. The grammar sections were okay... I was freaking when I saw the future tense but it was actually grand once I got down to it. The heading of the eactra put me off definitely. Because Irish is not my strongest subject I like to get notes from my friends in other schools who have amazing teachers and just learn them off. It worked for me in the pre but today I hadn't prepared anything in that fit into the titles perfectly. However I managed to slot in a couple of the best parts from all the essays I had learnt off into one. I was pretty pleased at the end but thinking back now I think it might be all over the place... It was like three pages long and had about a million seanfhocals! I hope my examiner appreciates all my wise old words of wisdom.Paper twoAhhhh paper two. Well first of all I spent all of the two hour break cramming for this, but I did pretty well in the studied work. I thought the headings for studied stories were strange... Usually grá or brón will come up but they were more complex this year. Lots of the girls in my year didn't even attenmpt this question as they didn't have a clue what the words meant. I quite liked this question because it made me look at the story. I had studied, Calua, and see it in a different light. Shoutout to the SEC there! Unstudied fiction didn't go so beautifully, I found the passage to be pretty wordy and the questions seemed to require long answers when there wasn't that much information there in the first place. I didn't mind poetry too much, although I didn't comprehend the complete meaning of the entire poems I could decipher what the question wanted. The letter was pretty okay too!Thankfully I've already done my Irish oral, so I have forty per cent out of the way! In conclusion, I think after finishing my gaelige Junior Cert course, that I now regard continuous assessment to be even more imperative to the Irish education system than I did before. I spent a huge amount of time cramming for this exam so I could get a good mark, from studying late at night to get up early this morning. I've been studying for Irish like this for the last half year, but it's the nature of the long blocks of text to require constant review. I wish I had a teacher for Junior Cert who would have taught me to understand the language rather than speel out pages and pages of text which I didn't understand, but would get me an A.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Cert English

Art - Higher Level

English Paper One: The exam began with the reading comprehension, as always. This year's was on Mary Bück, the Irish astronomer. Personally, I found this to be not overly challenging, though I spent a good forty five minutes answering questions on it. I thought the essay titles were very open ended and relatively easy to work with, though my friend found the speech difficult. I worked with the title Tremendous Silence and wrote about a wake. The Functional question was considered to be tricky by most. Guidelines for workers in a shop was a first for the exam commission to come out with. I did the report instead which I found to be the most challenging part of paper one. Finally, there was media studies. I chose to do the question on the editor and not the report on Rotten Tomatoes. Explaining the job of the editor was pretty main stream. Then we were to give our opinion on the ice bucket challenge which was fun. I went against the writer's alternative. Finally, a page of rambling about politics did the trick on the politics question, I think...English paper two: As always, paper two drains all the energy from junior cert students as you're writing till the end. The questions on the unseen drama weren't overly tricky if I remember correctly. However the studied was more difficult to work with than usual. A sense of place was asked on poetry which shocked many students I'm sure. We then worked with two poems on ocean birds which wasn't overly challenging. The studied novel gave students the option to talk about a character or alternatively pick two words from a list. I used inspiration and gripping for Roll of Thunder. At this stage I was utterly wrecked. The Book Thief was a short extract with two scenes. I found question two and three on this to be tricky. Fortunately we only had to do one of those. The first was pretty workable. Overall, a mediocre paper, which I thought was harder than paper one.

Jane - Higher Level

Paper 1I was delighted with all of paper one. As most English Junior cert paper ones do, it followed a theme form section to the personal writing section, and this year is was astronomy. I found this a very interesting topic which insipred me to choose Stargazing as my personal writing heading. Even though I had planned beforehand to compose a speech, as soon as I saw the word a hundred things jumped out at me so I knew I had to do it!I chose the first option for function writing and I put a twist to it.. I wanted to make it jump out at my examiner for being different.. hopefully they will appreciate it!The media section was pretty nice this year, I chose the film question as reading the first part of the newspaper section nearly put me to sleep! (It was "write about the purpose of a news editor")Paper 2I decided to complete my studied works questions first, as during my pre I didnt get to finish any of my To Kill A Mockingbird question! Anyway I think this is a pretty good idea, all you second years listen up!Usually I opt for the Shakespearean Drama from section one, but today, whatever was in the air, I just couldn't handle reading Shakespeare and went for the other Drama. I have a lot of experience in Drama and so I usually love these questions, today however I found the scene quite mundane. I didnt think there was anything interesting about the passage or the dialouge and I was pretty disappointed about this!Actually, something I've noticed about this year was the use of bullet points in paper one, and having a few adjectives as part of a question and having to chose one and describe it... I found this pretty weird because they had nothing like it in past years.And now, for poetry.. I LOVED the poems! I thought both poems were fantastic and loved answering questions on them! However, even if you didnt like the poems, as a lot of my friends didn't don't be too hard on yourself because the entire question is only worth 30 marks!And now for unseen fiction...I'm not quite sure what was the matter with me today, but I had a feeling that I had a half an hour more than I actually did have (KILLER) and it was 25 past 4 and I still hadn't started the unseen fiction. I literally got no chance to even read the fiction so it was 30 marks completely gone!I was absolutely kicking myself. I have a very good English track record and have a achieved straight A's in the subject since first year, so you can imagine I was very distressed. However, I really did my best, and honestly, thats all I could do. I think if I do get a bad grade for it in September, that I should not take it to heart and not let it interrupt my enjoyment of the subject. At the end of the day, its just a little letter, so honestly, in case anyone else is on my boat... We'll be grand as long as we keep our head high!!

Helen - Higher Level

- English Paper 1 -I felt that English Paper 1 was quite straight forward as it's not a paper which you can study for. The Reading Section was centered around the theme of astronomy which later linked with an optional question later on in the paper, in Personal Writing which was "Stargazing".In Section 2 which was Personal Writing, there was an option of 8 topics. I chose (1) Breaking the mould. I centered this piece in a short story format. It was about a boy who lived in a small conservative town and he's gay. It features the obstacles he must overcome, which includes having to tell his parents about his sexuality. He then begins to campaign for the right to gay marriage in his state. I chose this theme as it is topical and modern with regard to the recent referendum.In Section 3 which was Functional Writing, there was an option between writing a set of customer service guidelines or to write a report based on a survey within your school. I decided to go with the first option which was writing a set of guidelines. Again, I felt this was quite straight forward, as it was mostly common sense with regard to good manners, cleanliness and etiquette.In Section 4 which was Media Studies, I found it was quite relevant as it featured such trends as the "Ice Bucket Challenge" The question for this was centered around the misuse of the social media phenomenon. Question 2 of this section was centered around "Rotten Tomatoes" website, which was all about movie reviews. All in all, Paper 1 went quite well.- Paper Two -The Unseen Drama was a choice between a Shakespearean piece or a more modern piece. I decided to go with the Shakespearean piece as it was the one I was most comfortable with. It was about two lovers who were about to be separated because the male lover was about to revolt against the king. The Other Drama was about a family picnicking on a sunny afternoon in June. Question Two in the Drama section featured your studied piece. I, like a lot of the country had studies Romeo and Juliet. It was interesting to see that within both questions, the staging and how you'd go about staging and performing the play were featured.The Unseen Poetry was a surprise as it featured 2 poems in which you had to answer. The studied poem featured questions such as imagery and setting or to note what the poet had to say about either People and Nature or Adults and Children. I chose imagery and setting and I decided to go with The Daffodils by William Wordsworth.The Unseen Fiction was based on the novel, 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak. This tied in with the World War 2 topic in my history course so this aided my understanding of the questions.The studied piece questions gave a choice between choosing two words to best describe the novel from a list of words. My chosen novel was, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde. I chose the words, 'Gripping' and 'Complex' to describe this piece. The other option was to describe the most interesting characters in your chosen novel which display both strengths and weaknesses.Furthermore, I was happy with how the English papers went.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.