JC CSPE

Roisin

C.S.P.E. was fine... it had the normal fill-in-the-blank question followed by three out of four short questions, and a long question, so that should have been fine!I have the day off tomorrow and I intend to use it to cram as much history as possible for Thursday! I have French on Thusrday too but I'm more worried about history so I'll be giving more time to that probably. It's nice to think that this time next week I'll be finished! :-)

James

After lunch today, I had my CSPE exam. There was a lot of writing to be done in the hour and a half. I feel I did well in this exam as the questions were topical and not too difficult to answer. Tomorrow, I will sit Business Studies Paper 1 and Paper 2. Talk then, James.

JC Maths Paper 2

Roisin (Higher Level Maths)

Today, we had maths paper two and C.S.P.E. - a day I'm very glad is over! Maths went pretty well, I think! I understood pretty much all of it, even the dreaded proofs! I only ran into one or two problems and I gave them my best attempt so hopefully it will have been fine!

James (Higher Level Maths)

This morning, I had Mathematics Paper 2. This wasn't the easiest way to start the new week but I managed the paper well. I answered questions 1, 2 and 3 before skipping on to question 6 and then back to 5. By the time I had reached question 4, I had very little time remaining and was disappointed as this looked like a handy question. However, I answered every other question well and overall, I feel good about my Maths exam.

LC Irish Paper 1

Ailbhe (Higher Level/Ardleibhéal)

Well after that funny little listening comprehension (clean toilets yeah right!) and the Oxegen newsletter just in to my mailbox, I don't feel like I am now 3.5 subjects deep into the abyss of the Leaving Cert.As I leave the great news to sink in, I'll give the blow by blow on Irish.I was very happy to see the debate was highly accessible"There is nothing in store for Gaeltacht areas except decline"I rattled on for cúpla leathanach.....the usual suspects appeared in my essay....Patrick Pearse, Des Bishop, TG4, Foinse, Peig...basically all the ingredients you need to make a hearty Irish stew of a Diospóireacht.Léamhthuiscints were slightly difficult in the sense that I found it hard to substitute my own words for the text. Thank God I already knew a bit about Santiago Di Compostella and Ted Kennedy, making the comprehensions run smoother!The listening comprehension was deceptively éasca, faraor, I am slightly worried that a no mercy marking scheme will be curtha in bhfeidhm?!However I am now faced into a jam-packed evening. I shall wear my pyjamas on the bus, gamble my life away, worry about drochstáid na tíre and do some underage drinking with Muiris and Thomas!Quite happy paper one wasn't too bad.....will I say it? Ah go on....Tús maith leath na hoibre!!! :D

 Owen (Higher Level/Ardleibhéal)

Well it was much to my delight that a lovely essay title came up, 'Daoine atá i mbéal an phobail' ... lovely, how much more lucky could we get!? While it might be a scourge on society in real life, the problems with the government and politics, education and health system and dare I say it the recession are a Leaving Cert Higher Level Irish student’s complete and utter life line during exam time!!Ar an taobh eile, the reading comprehensions did prove to be difficult enough and in a couple of cases, I had to resort to my old tricks of copying and pasting... thank God that wasn't too often... however, it was a bit of a downer for me considering the reading comprehensions are usually one of my stronger points, fingers crossed I still managed to get the majority of marks anyway which I'm confident enough I did... guess I'm a bit of a perfectionist!The listening comprehension proved again to be a little problematic; overall it was quite manageable and got easier as the exam went on. This may have just been a problem with my exam centre as at the beginning, we did experience some technical difficulties with people trying to fix the lights so this was a distraction for many during ‘Cuid A’.Hopefully everything went really well, overall, which I feel it did but I do tend to get caught up on the smaller parts that I didn't get instead of looking at the big picture!Now with Irish Paper 2 and Business tomorrow, I have another long and painful day ahead of me!! These full days are a killer, I'm already wrecked after today and now I have to study for two big exams tomorrow....oh the joys! Can't wait ‘til it’s over... it’s about the only thing motivating me at the mo!

LC Maths Paper 2

Ailbhe (Higher Level Maths)

WHERE WERE THE THEOREMS????????I'm sorry Mr. Chief Examiner but I happily divided my weekend amoung perpendicular distances, angles between lines and cos (A+B), I was not a happy bunny rabbit to see a grand total of zero theorems on the paper after I had so painstakingly learned them.Paper two was definitely harder but that was expected due to the lack of challenge posed by paper 1. In my wisdom I started off with question 3. "You like trig Ailbhe, get that sorted first off, we'll deal with circles, vectors and lines later".Part (a) not a problemPart (b) not bad eitherPart (c) sure I didn't know which way was up in that question In the end I resorted to using some dodgy "area of a trapezium" formula that I came across leafing through the tables for part (i). It's not on the course and I don't think I even did it for Junior Cert, but you know what they say - always trust strangers!I was very happy with Q8 which was my elective. The MacLaurin series and I have never had the best of relationships but we overcame our differences and worked it out in the end.What was most thorny about paper 2 was that it's harder to check your answers. I found that there were a lot more questions in paper 1 where you knew if you were right based on the answer you got. Paper two just left me all adrift!I have been waiting to say this sentence since day 1 of Fifth Year and I'm going to relish it for all it's worth.I NEVER HAVE TO DO MATHS AGAIN!!! EVERRRR!!!!

Owen (Ordinary Level Maths)

Back again after a weekend that could not have gone any slower!!My clock just seemed to taunt me for the whole weekend with its 'tik tok'-ing and believe me, I was not feeling like P Diddy with my head in the books! :(How and ever, the exams are now back in full swing!!Maths Paper 2... well to be honest, it was a lovely paper, couldn't have asked for a nicer more user-friendly paper! I really like the “does exactly what it says on the tin” attitude that goes with it and as for the whole simplicity of plugging numbers into formulas... LOVE IT!!No surprises on this paper I have to say and I, personally found all the questions grand... everything seemed to go well from area and volume to linear programming...  however, it left me wondering what the probability was that Irish Paper 1 would be the same!??!

LCA Mathematical Applications

Rosemarie

This morning, I had Maths which went very well. Overall, I thought it was a fair paper. I flew through question one and was well able for the rest of the paper. The only part of the paper I found difficult was question 2 (e), the question was on the Pythagoras Theorem. However, I am not too worried about it, as it is only one part of a question and I was able to answer the rest of the questions easily.

LCA Hotel Catering & Tourism

Rosemarie

I found this exam very hard. I thought the paper was a lot harder than previous examination papers that I had been studying in preparation for it. Although I found it difficult, I attempted all questions and did my best.I am going to prepare over the weekend for my final exam Office Administration on Tuesday. I did well in this exam in the mocks so at least that settles the nerves a little bit. I also hope to relax over the weekend after a busy few days of exams.