admin 18/06/2012 admin 18/06/2012

Junior Cert - Materials Technology (Wood)

David - Higher Level

My last exam!I wasn't nervous, at all, going into this exam despite doing very little study for it!This exam has 20 short questions (do 15) and 6 long questions (do 3)Short Question's -These were easy, nothing hard, and you could make ''educated guesses'' for a lot of them, having the choice of being allowed to not do 4, or get 4 wrong, is comforting as well! I got on well here!Long Questions's - I found them very fair this year.. despite me only being able to answer, well, 3. :L You see, I knew Question 1 and 2 are the same every year, and I can do them, easily and I then studied, manufactured boards, veneering, finishes and tress, hoping one of them would come up.. and they did! :D :PQ1. Technical Graphics question... SOOOOOOO easy.. for anyone who does TG it's practically giving you marks! It was just an elevation and end view, at a scale, nothing hard :DQ2. Design and stages of production, this was easy! Before I made my JC project though, I would have found this hard but after making it, I could basically answer the questions just from experience! :PQ3. Manufactured boards! Yay, easy question! I did this one realllllyyy quickly too! Nothing hard here, just know which board is which, and how they're made, advantages and disadvantages and you're sorted!Well, that was an easy exam in my opinion! And I did a decent project too.. so fingers crossed! :DFor those of you with Metalwork, music, spanish, latin etc.. while i'm enjoying my Summer, just Keep on truckin' it will be over soon! :D

Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union. Blogs are updated daily by 6.30 pm on scheduled examination dates

admin 18/06/2012 admin 18/06/2012

Junior Cert - Technical Graphics

David - Higher Level

My last morning of my Junior cycle! :O .. I'm getting old!Anyway, I did the bare minimum amount of study for TG as I've always done well in it. I got 72% in the mocks from doing no study, and having done very few short questions and having revised the whole course and short questions in class, I saw little need.Short Question's - These were easy enough, no surprises. There are only 15 and you pick 10 to do, I attempted them all, but feel I only got 11 right, but that's full marks!Long Questions - No surprises here, all the same questions came up and I did questions 1,3,5 and 6.Q1 - Orthagraphic .. this was easy, plan, elevation, end view, surface s.. the same thing over and over again! I got on well in this one!Q3. This was axonametric view, which is easy enough, it takes a while though! >< Oh well.. the complicated image didn't help either. I didn't do fantastic in this one.Q4. Transformation Geomatry, my old pal, I got 69/70 on this in the mocks, the only thing that changes every year is the actual image. I got on well enough here, but I had some trouble with the rotation part :/Q6. Ellipse and porabola.. this was a VERY fair question, my mind just decided to say ''hehe, let's not work properly for him, it'll be funny'' . I messed up on this question.. and god am I pissed off! :/ Oh well as Noah and the whale said '' l i f e g o e s o n ''Anyway, this exam was fair! And I got on well enough despite having the Mexican song from the doritos ad stuck in my head for the duration!

admin 14/06/2012 admin 14/06/2012

Leaving Cert Business

Emmet - Higher Level

Oh wow, the business exam wasnt too bad at all! It started at 9:30AM & finished at 12:30pm. I was really happy with this paper overall. the short questions were generally easy with a break even chart thrown in, handy marks may i say. The ABQ was realy nice, it was about RIM LTD which was kind of a community development project which did really well, where it facilitated market stalls in a factory vacated by a GMNC. Questions included, choosing suitable finance for the local business people in financing the project and for stall holders, and another on evaluating their promotional campaign. It must also be pointed out that it was the easiest ABQ to get relevant quotes from, which was a help. the ratios question was very easy and gud for catching up on lost time on the ABQ! Q1 asked about proceedures an employer should take when dismissing employees, and evaluating role ofthe NCA. Q2 looked at how reduction on public expenditure and taxation impacted on business, which was tricky enough and Q7 looked at factors to consider when choosing channel of distribution, evaluate product design/packaging etc and reasons for an Irish toy company wishing to expand. I did find however that this years paper had very specific questions, which did make the paper challenging. but i was quite impressed to find mini case studies to help you answer the question as it helped ground your answer into real life. Hoping to come out with at least a B3 fingers crossed, we were very tied for time in exam. Nearly finished now, economics and thats it!

ISSU Commentary

The tendency of Leaving Certificate exams demanding students to simply regurgitate what they have learned seems to be a thing of the past. They now are being asked to apply their knowledge, this was especially obvious in today’s business examination according to many teachers and pupils. Some parts of the higher level exam were challenging, which was expected to a certain degree. The choice element was again a major positive, and there were no immense shocks to be found. There was a change in thee ‘ratio’ question. The short questions were ‘typical’. Question 1 (A) of the long questions were very specific and challenging which focused on a fairly precise area of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 – 2007. Question 5 (B) the ratios were satisfactory. However some had difficulty with the Return on Investment (ROI) calculation. Students were asked to compare the ratio with industry averages, this might have surprised some, as it was the first time for such a question to appear. The paper was overall ‘absolutely fine, consistent with past papers, with plenty of choice’. Students reaction with the higher level exam was mainly positive, while the ordinary level had a more varied response. Many higher level students found the Applied Business Question (ABQ) to be particularly challenging. Some ordinary level students found the short questions to be difficult.

admin 13/06/2012 admin 13/06/2012

Junior Cert French

Clara - Higher Level

Well,that was a little beauty of a paper! Honestly-the hardest part of this morning so far has been getting out of bed after going to see a concert last night :P Let's dive right in and get down to the specifics:Aural: This was one of the easiest I've come across to be frank. Even the most difficult section (Section E I thought) was not overly challenging and was pleasant to listen to.Comprehensions: Again,this was child's play! Very basic with the usual format of 9 pieces with some questions at the bottom. These were interesting and the questions were very good for the most part - although there were a few more difficult ones peeping through. Nothing impossible.Written section: Postcards! Nooooooo!!! I had anticipated a note so when I saw this it was a moment of sheer panic. However, I told myself to calm down and re-read. I coped on that I DID know what to say and got writing. Very stereo-typical,"you're on holidays" postcard to a French pen-pal. Some of the points were a little unusual though, the one about celebrating your mother's birthday? No matter! Onwards to the letter I went. I wasn't surprised to see a formal and informal letter - I had studied both and therefore had a real choice here but in the end I went for the informal one. I was really happy with the letter I produced, the points were more like previous years here thankfully!The only thing there is, anyone reading this who really struggles with French will completely disagree - keep in mind it's one of my favourite subjects and I was therefore almost looking forward to this exam.Overall, I found this paper fun and easy. Au revoir and bonne chance avec l'histoire!

Shahed - Higher Level

Le Français? C'est très, très facile!I was both nervous and calm going into this exam. I had done very little French revision lately (I was mostly focusing on History), but after reading through the whole paper, I was relieved - it looked like a piece of cake!The first section of the exam was the listening comprehension. This has always been my favourite part of French exams, I do quite well on it. It was quite straightforward, nothing difficult at all.The next section was the reading comprehensions. This was incredibly easy, which is a little unusual. There are always some very difficult questions in most years, but this time, there was only one or two which were a little tricky. All in all, this was an easy section.Finally, the written section. This was the section that I had been dreading the most. There was a postcard and then either a formal or informal letter. The postcard was like every other year, nothing too unusual. For the letter, I chose to do an informal letter; I don't know formal letters very well, we hadn't done them much. I was so relieved when I saw informal letter. One of the points I had revised just before going into the exam had come up! This helped to put me at ease for the rest of the exam.As a whole, this was a straightforward exam. I was finished with about an hour left over, though I stayed and went over everything. I was quite happy coming out of it. That's another exam to tick off the list!

admin 12/06/2012 admin 12/06/2012

Leaving Cert Biology

Sarah - Higher Level

I think I can hear the Hallelujah chorus... I must admit, biology is not my strongest point, so pairing it up with Irish paper 2 was a cruel blow. These were probably my two most neglected subjects, so last night consisted of two years worth of study. After a lot of tears and tantrums, I settled down for a bit of sleep, to be awoken from my rest by the sound of my alarm clock, reminding me that my study wasn't finished yet. I did a very slapdash revision of my beautiful diagrams (on flashcards!) and went to school to get a last minute look over Irish. Then, I spent exactly 85 minutes learning everything I possibly could about biology. Sadly, I only got to cover Section 1 and Section 2, but I figured I'd wing it! I don't really know what to think of the exam itself to be honest! I decided to do every question because I knew I'd have the time. I thought the question on food was nice, as was question 2 on tissues. I completely blanked for the question on the bone, so I made up lots of nice little names to accompany the diagram. I liked the ecology in question four, but I thought it was very much a case of common sense. Again, question 5 was grand, I had been expecting a lot of plants so it was do-able. The question on mutations was horrific, I had absolutely no idea what to write so I put my creativity into action and came up with some random waffling. I thought the first experiment question was mighty, I think I just wrote down the first thing that popped into my head and left it at that. The other two questions were so straight-forward that Section B just flew! After that it all went downhill... I blabbed on about the most ridiculous rubbish, but I'm hoping for pity marks. In genetics, I had a mini panic attack when I saw linkage so I just said SSYY and SsYy or something! It was a case of getting something on the page. I thought the ecology question was crazy and I used my head and wrote whatever I could using the little common sense I possess. Question 12 was lovely, just a bit of reading off a diagram really?! I made a mess of 13. Despite my amazing diagrams, I freaked and everything I had learnt turned into a bundle of confusion. I found a lot of the last two questions quite hard to understand and I didn't really know what they were looking for in some of them. Nonetheless, my biology books are now firmly shut, never to see the light of day again! In short, I found the whole paper a wee bit random. I thought some of the questions were a bit out-of-the-blue, but I must get over all of that now and go listen to some french! Hope you all found Biology okay, and I'll be back next week after Chemistry (my last exam)!! :P x

admin 12/06/2012 admin 12/06/2012

Leaving Cert Irish Paper 2

Aoife - Higher Level

Well that’s it, the last written Irish exam most of us will ever do, an end to the love/hate relationship. After a night full of revising every pros and filíocht, and an Triail I wasn’t too disappointed when I got the paper. It was grand was the general reaction in my school. The comprehensions were manageable; the new format where you can just take the words out of the text makes it a lot easier. However I was slightly surprised to see that they had changed the marking scheme even though they hadn’t mentioned it. Question 6 is now worth 15 marks and questions 1-5 are worth 7 marks. I was delighted to see that Hurlamaboc came up as it’s an easy text to write about. I didn’t feel much the same about an tEarrach Thiar, the questions were still alright. An lastly the an Triail question was good and suited the material that I had. Overall it wasn’t a bad paper it was a long paper however as it’s a lot to write about in the space of time that’s given. I hope it went ok for everyone, Aoife

Hugh - Higher Level

Right, Irish paper 2. Very quick overview:First Comprehension featured an element of the much-anticipated Olympic Games mixed with biographical material. The 6b question asked for your impression of the attitudes of certain segments of American society and the Olympic organisation body towards "people like" the sportsman Jim Thorpe who was of mixed European-Native American ancestry. These were given in the piece so just required re-phrasing. Verdict = Grand!Second comprehension was a piece by an Irish journalist on life in the favelas in Brasil. Featured personal experiences, reflections and historical information, 6b asked which genre did the piece belong to and to identify two traits of this genre evident in the piece. Verdict = Grand.Both comprehensions featured grammar questions, nothing too exhausting, it asked students to pick out examples of certain tenses etc.Prose question featured Hurlamaboc, this was widely anticipated and the question focused on the central character of Lisín and the insights we get from the extract into modern life.Poetry was in a slightly different format to the sample papers, but only slightly. It featured An tEarrach Thiar - by Mairtín Ó Direáin and we were asked about 1. The effectiveness of sounds and images in the poem. 2. To write a short biography of the poet, and 3. The effectiveness of repetition in the poem. So no big surprises on that section.The An Trial question went down well with most students.......except for me....who managed to wrongly translate a word I've come across hundreds of times "fimíneacht" which means hypocrisy, in my exam addled brain it meant feminism! Oh well, on to history!

ISSU Commentary

There were some new and ‘tricky’ elements in the higher level Irish paper two this morning; with the much-maligned Stair na Gaeilge consigned to ancient history, the new look Irish paper 2 held no major shocks, although it was challenging. The paper opened reasonably well with a comprehension piece about an Irish American Jim Thorpe Olympian who won two gold medals at the 1923 Olympics. Many described this as interesting.Overall, the questions based on the piece were, “fairly typical,” The final question on the piece was a new addition to the exam this year. Broken into two parts, a grammar question and an opinion piece, the question drew a varied feedback, it was broken into two parts. The grammar segment was “reasonable”, according to many, adding the opinion piece was too taxing. Some raised questions about the amount of time spent learning proportionate to the amount of marks attainable for the ’poetry and prose’ sections. There was a similar line of thought about a ten mark question from the comprehension section Gaeilgeoir Alex Hijmans, a Dutchman appeared in the subsequent comprehension piece which was an excerpt from his book, Favela. Some highlighted that a glossary might have been helpful for some of the more unusual and unfamiliar terms used. Some had problems with question 6, as asking students about the literary genre of the piece was described as ‘”unfair” by some. The prose question, on Hurlamboc, presented no great challenge and the poem, An tEarrach Thiar was anticipated. There were few complaints about the additional literature question.Ordinary level students had a good start with two “very interesting,” comprehension passages. One featured sports presenter Evanne Ní Chuillin and the other presented tennis player Daithí Ó hEithir. The questions on both pieces were typcal. The prose questions on Hurlamboc were uncommon. Students were asked 6 short questions rather than a ‘summary’ type question.The second prose question about Oisín í dTír na nÓg was more like what we have previously seen.The two poems given were Géibheann and An tEarrach Thiar. These were accompanied by short questions and questions on emotions and imagery. There were little or no complaints about these.