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.

ISSU Congratulates Students on their Junior Cert Results 2013

PRESS STATEMENT

Irish Second-Level Students' Union Congratulates Students on their Junior Cert Results 2013

Today the Irish Second-level Students’ Union (ISSU) would like to wish all those receiving their Junior Certificate results today the very best of luck. However, the ISSU would also like to appeal to students to be responsible and mindful to others in their celebrations.Results this year are broadly in line with previous years, and we are happy with the steady increases seen in the number of students taking maths at a higher level with the project maths syllabus.The ISSU encourages all students to enjoy celebrating their well-deserved results, but to do so responsibly and to stay safe.ISSU Education Officer, Robert O’Donnell said: “Getting your Junior Certificate results is an important milestone in most young people’s lives and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all students on their well deserved results.  We were particularly interested in the increase in students opting for higher level maths, and we look forward to analysing the results of our project maths survey to get a full picture of students’ experiences of the new syllabus”.ISSU President, Mark Caffrey said: “Like lots of students across the country, I too will be receiving my junior cert exam results after three years of hard work that has led up to them.  It is great to see more students taking higher level maths, and hopefully this will feed into a similar trend in the senior cycle.“I’d like to congratulate all students on their hard-earned results, and encourage everyone to stay safe if they are celebrating tonight”.If students have any issues, they can contact the ISSU on studentvoice@issu.ie / 01 443 44661 *****************ENDS *****************