Junior Certificate History

Jane - Higher Level

This was the exam that I had procrastinated until 24 hours before hand, where I decided to seriously knuckle down and you couldn't tear me away from my history book! I started with questions 4, 5 and 6. If I could ever give someone golden advice, it would be to do this in your JC History exam! People in history though, how weird. Can someone tell me why they couldn't have used a manor rather than a castle? I winged it big time. George Washington I was pretty okay with, I'd revised this one. I was disappointed D Day or Cold war didn't come up though!I could almost feel everyone freaking out around me for Part C of Q5. I did too at the start. How dare they use explorations! Once I got in to it it was grand. I just did P)B and used my own general knowledge about the British Empire. Hopefully my examiner will be impressed that I knew so much about the British economy haha. On to Question 6. well Part a was grand, kind of winged the accounts but they were okay. Very surprised with P6. They didn't us the option of the blockade! If I hadn't studied the entire cold war the night before I would have been snookered!The rest of the paper after this was pretty easy,as it always is.I regret leaving my study so late and hope this does not affect my grade! Certainty it has taken an effect on my mental health and sleep patterns though and I deeply regret that I let that happen.

Art - Higher Level

For some reason or another, maybe because it gives me a bit of confidence, I like to start with the short questions in history. To be safe, I answered around 14 to assure full marks. Then onto the pictures question. I wasn't very confident on what Picture A was, but I wrote something down. The black death and Mary Robinson were both pretty easy then, I thought. The Documents questions didn't seem to be too challenging. It's really just a matter of getting the answer from the source for the most part. I found it interesting however. If I'm honest, I think I spent a bit too long on the beginning of the paper. For any 2nd years reading, don't spend much over a half an hour and all of these.Then onto the more important ones. I decided to begin with the Long Questions on Q6 because I was most confident here. I did international developments in the 20th century and the Irish history one. Overall, I was pretty happy with both. I'm worried I wrote a bit too much in places though. One or two of the small questions on Ireland were a bit harden than usual. I then did Q5, the source questions on the age of exploration. For the most part, I was pretty happy with all of these. Finally, I left little time for Q4. I wrote up a good answer on George Washington I thought but Michelangelo was a little bare as the clock beat me.Overall, I thought it was a bit trickier than most years. I think I may have gotten a high B, but I doubt I got the A, which I'm sickened over as I love history!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Certificate Business

Art - Higher Level

Business Paper One: Beginning with the short questions; overall they didn't seem to be too challenging. Common sense and a hint of good memory would get you through I thought. For those trying to avoid accounting, there was no chance in section one! A nice bit of explaining was needed too but honestly they were pretty nice to us.On to section two (long questions). I gave myself two hours to do these and lads, believe me I needed it. I began with the household budget (Q1) which seemed a bit shorter and easier than usual. More of your own calculations were needed however than reading straight from the paper. This was followed up with some general questions on budgeting. Not too bad I thought. Then I moved onto Q3, all about the national budget and expenditure. This was very doable I thought. A simple T shaped account, a bar chart and a few explanations were needed for the 40 marks. On to the consumer question. This required a firm knowledge on insurance which fortunately I was ok with having studied it the previous night. Consumer rights seeped in there too if I'm not mistaken. Finally, I went on and did question 6 on People at Work. This was all about explaining terms, the content of CV's and trade unions. A fairly handy question.Overall I was really happy with paper one, though I may have lost a few easy marks here and there. A fair paper nonetheless.Business Paper Two: For some reason or another, maybe all this warm weather I went into paper two feeling like I was fit to sleep for a week. However, I pulled myself together and at two o'clock went straight down to business (pardon the pun). I was most confident with the final accounts question and immediately submerged myself into the figures and thank God had a balancing balance sheet within a half an hour. Then we had to explain carriage inwards, which seemed pretty easy. I then went at the report writing/business insurance question which seemed to be a bit too similar to another long question on paper one. Anyway, three quarters of the marks for that were writing up a report on suggested insurance which wasn't overly challenging. Though I went slightly blank when it came to explaining one or two of the five principles. The final ten marks were for explaining adequate insurance and a simple calculation of compensation.I then tackled the chains of production question. I thought this was tricky in parts as I hadn't covered it in a while. This was my poorest question overall. However I persevered and jotted down as much as I could. Hopefully I'll pick up a good few of the marks. Maybe it was my choice of questions or the relaxed attitude of males but at half three when I was going onto my final question I found many of my classmates were wrapping up entirely. I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign! Anyway, I concluded with the cash flow forecast which I was so relieved worked out perfectly, as one figure throws everything out and you're often left painting the page in tippex. A couple of unusual questions followed this up and I'm not certain if I explained them correctly as we were only given one line to. I'll try not to overthink it.Overall, paper two seemed pretty good. A bit harder than paper one. Hopefully between the two I can pull in an A or high B, with the help of God!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Certificate CSPE - Civic, Social & Political Education

Art - Common Level

The relaxed attitudes of students across the school, coming up from a lunch time game of football spoke wonders in itself. ''Oh sure it's only CSPE...''. The exam paper itself reflected this I believe. Four pictures of buildings; Áras an Úachtairáin, The Four Courts, The Central Bank and Leinster house appeared and students were to match them to the provided images. Very handy I thought. The short questions were also a bit too manageable. The Document Questions included a piece on recycling and the water charges which was naturally was a bit of fun to argue out on the page. UN Peacekeeping, The Nobel Peace Prize and European Elections also came up. For my long question I decided to write about the Ombudsman for Children. Two pages in I had just finished the six mark letter question. With time to burn I managed another two pages on the extra sheet provided.The second part was on reasons why it is important for children to take part in appointing the ombudsman. Finally, you had to give 3 ideas on promoting Children's Rights. Easy! Was very happy with it I must say. Though I am a little concerned about the reputation of the subject and lack of challenge behind it for the most part!

Helen - Common Level

I like it when you can walk into an exam and know that you have 60 per cent of it completed already. The short questions were a mix between organisations and your European studies along with a few others. I did questions 1,2 and 3 which were about Malala, Aid etc. For the long questions, I choose to go with Question 1, which was centered around the Special Olympics. I felt happy with how this paper went.

Jane - Common Level

Ahhhh, CSPE. After getting full marks in my pre I wasn't too stressed about my junior cert, and we already had 60% of the exam done so I was pretty happy going in. I love CSPE, due to my involvement with student politics and Comhairle na nÓg, so when most other people had left the exam centre an hour in, I was on my sixth A4 page of my long question! (Yes I wrote eight A4 pages on the ombudsman for children).It might sound totally ridiculous, but I am really passionate about children's rights and really value the presence of the ombudsman, so I enjoyed talking about my feelings towards the role. I'm very happy with how the exam went, and looking forward to receiving my result in September. All I'm hoping is that my examiner is equally passionate about the ombudsman, and doesn't mind reading eight pages of my scrawled handwriting on a hot summers day!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Certificate Maths Paper 2

Art - Higher Level

I have to say, I don't want to dwell on this in case the State Examination Commission change the marking scheme, but I was delighted with the paper! Though I must say that paper two is my favourite of the two by a long shot and I found paper one tricky, so don't panic if you disagree with me. The trigonometry questions seemed pretty straight forward, bar one or two where they weren't right angled triangles and you had to use measurements which I found strange. Both geometry and co-ordinate geometry seemed to be very doable. No theorem was needed to be proved, just mention it was a cyclic quadrilateral (proud of my spelling). The very very last part of the paper however I couldn't calculate for the life of me. It was getting the radius but in a weird fraction. Other than the odd narky part here and there I overall was really happy with how it went.Hopefully if I aced paper two it might balanced me up to a B :/ Please God...

Helen - Higher Level

I was feeling calm whilst going into this exam as I knew I had prepared all I could for it, of course I was nervous but I think that adds to the momentum of the whole day. Once I got the paper I scanned through the questions to see if there was any major bit that I needed to digest in my head before attempting it. I was surprised to see that there were no formal proofs on the paper, which I had learned off but hey it won't go to waste! The construction was quite straight forward being that we only had to bisect the shape. Overall I felt that it was a fair paper with the odd blimp of a question here and there but I was fairly happy with how it went.

Jane - Higher Level

First of all shout out to the SEC for the prettiest and loveliest paper 2 I have ever laid my eyes on. I throughly enjoyed this paper, all the questions that I wanted to come up, came up! Even the hated question where we were given a picture of a water tank, I could get my head around and I really liked it. It was so rewarding when I got my answer at the end! Everything went swimmingly, including the question on the swimming pool which was the most gorgeous area and volume question I'd seen! Hopefully though, my answers were actually right and I'm not blissfully ignorant of the fact that I hadn't read the questions properly or anything!I feel very fulfilled after finishing my junior cert Maths course. I really felt great when I opened my paper and loved the feeling of solving problems and applying the knowledge which my amazing Maths teacher had taught me. I'm really looking forward to leaving cert math! (does that sound weird...??)Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Certificate Geography

Gearóid - Higher Level

I started with the short questions as I often find that they give me confidence. I didn't find these particularly hard, as they were not that different from other years.Onto the long questions, I started with question 5, the map one. I didn't find this particularly hard, nothing too difficult. I was only surprised that they asked us to draw an aerial map rather than an OS map. I went to question 4 next on Economic Activities next. I done a lot of work on these topics so I thought it was easy enough. Finishing with question 1, I understood volcanoes and earthquakes, I wrote about flood plains on the rivers section, which I should of wrote on waterfalls in my opinion. However overall I thought that this paper was not too difficult and no major surprises came up.

Helen - Higher Level

I was a bit apprehensive before the geography exam as the course is so expansive with great detail. However, I went in with an open mind! I found that the short questions were quite straight forward. I think it helps that most are multiple choice answers and an optional question here and there. The short questions featured topics such as, limestone rock and carbonation, climates, rivers, population density and features of coastal erosion. Overall I was happy with the short questions.Whilst doing my long questions, I'd thought I'd be stuck for time but fortunately I wasn't! I decided to do questions 2, 3A/B/D and 4. Question 2 was all about the atmosphere such as, relief rainfall, global warming and acid rain. Acid rain coincides with chemical weathering to a certain extent so I was able to write all about it. Question 3A was about Fold Mountains and I had to draw, label and explain the diagram. Unfortunately, I was blissfully unaware that I had written all about mid-Atlantic ridges but I'm confident that I got the next part of it correct!3B was about Population and 3D was about Traffic Congestion, so I felt that section went well. Question 4 included topics such as Farming, Tourism and Fishing. All parts were looking for either 2 reasons, measures, inputs, etc.Overall I was happy with the geography paper.

Art - Higher Level

After two endless days of major exams, in English and Irish, and a two and a half hour long maths exam in the evening, I was almost looking forward to geography... Beginning with the short questions, they seemed to be slightly more narky than usual. For example, my class hadn't covered the named river's location. There also seemed to be one or two new styles of asking questions, like with the ordnance survey early on, they printed the graph in it. Other than that they weren't too challenging. At least I hope they weren't!On to the long questions. Personally, I believe the combinations fell nicely. I answered questions 1, 2 and 3. I normally do the ordnance survey but I couldn't resist the geographical mix when I read it. They were very nice to allow us to write about any river feature in question one. What else was there; explaining fold mountains, traffic congestion, relief rainfall and a few other handy ones. Overall, I seemed very happy with it.

Jane - Higher Level

I was crazy nervous before this exam! I have a really great geography track record, and because I did very well in my pre I had kind of neglected it, that is, until five o clock on the morning of my paper! I crammed loads of information into my head (always a bad idea guys) and was ready to word vomit all of my answers I had learnt on weather, climate, and population, only to see they hadn't come up in the long questions!!! I was distraught, and opted to do Q1 Q2 and Q3. I would have done Q4 but I hadn't revised first year geography before the exam (I've always hated 1st year geography). I completely finished my exam script paper with pages and pages of descriptions, and I left my diagrams until the end, as my teacher had told me to do if you're tight on time. I ended up not doing either of the two diagrams, but I'm not worried about it as they're only worth one out of ten marks, and if you get 9/10 in every long answer question, and do well in the shorts, you'll still get your A. I found though, I was stretching myself a little when I had to write copious amounts of information on acid rain, and ended up putting a lot of my knowledge about acid rain from science in there.Hopefully my examiner will be impressed with my effort, because I really put everything into that exam!!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

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.