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

History - JC2017 - Diego Brule

 Diego Alonso Brule Galleguillos - Coláiste EindeIf you can quote me from before the mocks it would be something like 'Irish history is the most boring thing ever' but, when my history teacher said one of the essay questions is always definitely Irish history, it suddenly became the most interesting topic on the course.I knew the history exam was going to be a gamble, because, even though I prepared the two definite essay questions (WWII and 20th century Irish History), The essays weren't all there was to the exams. There was a whole blank space in my mind when it came to the reformation or the middle ages.So, I went into the exam, scared by the source papers because they promised questions about Neolithic Ireland. But it wasn't that bad actually. Section 2 was reading comprehension with a bit of background knowledge, which wasn't bad either. Section 3 was very simple short answer questions which I flew through.Everything was going fine until question 4. People in history. I prepared a few of these but none came up. I decided to prepare the ones I could manage to write the most about: A woman in the Roman Empire and A soldier on the D-Day landings.Question 5 was just as tough as it was purely reformation. And then my best-prepared question: Question 6. I did part C and D of it, and it was quite easy, the only problem was, that I left this section untill the end of the exam, which meant I didn't get to finish my last essay: The Cuban Missile Crisis. But I still wrote about two paragraphs more than in the mocks. Is that good enough?I'm kind of sad I won't see history again, as it's one of my favourite subjects and I didn't get the chance to pick it for LC, but, my hand is thankful that I'm not going to be writing these huge essays anymore. #StateExams2017

French - #JC - Diego Brule

Diego Alonso Brule Galleguillos - Coláiste EindeIf there's one thing I love more than learning sciences, it's learning languages. There's something about it, that makes learning languages so interesting. Maybe it's because of the culture they carry, maybe it's the fact of being able to speak more than one language, or maybe because you think flirting will be easier in other languages.Anyways, French for me was quite simple. Grammar and vocabulary wise it's very similar to Spanish, which made the reading comprehension and written section very simple. But, Listening to it, always has been my nightmare. And of course, the exam has to start with this.Luckily though, this year's listenings were probably the easiest listenings that have come up so far (I've done all the exam papers for this too). Or maybe it's because I stayed up late last night listening to Emmanuel Macron's speeches in French?The rest of the exam was a breeze. Reading comprehension, and written. There was only one question that I can remember that asked for a word that I had absolutely no idea what it meant. But apart from that, the rest of the test went pretty good.I have to point a funny thing about this exam though, our exam centre has around 35 students, but only 6 of us did French. It's safe to say the examiner was disappointed, as she is a French teacher in her school.For the JC I'll be doing Spanish and French, hopefully for the LC I'm able to sit Italian as well! #StateExams2017

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

French - #JC2017 - Maria Hayes

Maria Hayes - Scoil RuainToday's French exam began with the listening comprehension. I am very happy with how this section of the exam went! I could understand the speakers much more easily than in the mocks, thankfully!Next I began the comprehensions which put me in the French 'zone'. I was happy with most of these questions with the exception of some of the questions in question 9. However I am happy with how I answered the questions!Last but not least I did the "written expression"! As I had thought, a note appeared as the first part of the question. I was well prepared for both a note or postcard so I didn't mind what the turnout was. I'm happy with how I wrote my note.The letter was the best part of the exam!! I love writing letters usually so this was my best section! I was delighted in the way that I could use "better late than never" in my letter. I learned this from the section 'Idioms and Proverbs' on the website/app "Duolingo". I had also prepared paragraphs for things I could be asked to write about in my letter. Thankfully nothing out of the blue appeared, except when I had to ask my pen pal if they had gone to the cinema recently. I think I handled that topic fairly well!I am delighted with how this exam went. I hope that the results won't disappoint me! Check out more exam blogs here: http://issu.ie/the-issu-exam-blogs-2017/#StateExams2017

Biology - #LC2017 - Sarah Connolly

 Sarah Connolly - Ratoath CollegeWhile I had a great morning sitting Irish sweet lord I didn't know what was coming when I got my biology paper, I'm kidding but it was definitely a more challenging paper than other papers but I got it done! There was a minimal choice on it but I'm happy enough with the options that I had! There was a nice question on ecology and I found that very nice tbh!I did find the short questions tough but that's the nature of the exam really!#StateExams2017