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Geography - #LC2017 - Maeve Richardson

 Maeve Richardson - St. Annes Secondary School Tipperary TownGeography as per usual involved a lot of writing and very little time to think. It was a generally alright paper though.

I was jumped straight to question one, well the second part, I had to wait on graph paper to do my sketch map! So I wrote about intrusive and extrusive volcanos. And then picked human activities with flood defences and wrote about the river Rhine.Moving on to regional I had hoped for a map of Ireland but did India instead there was no difficult features here. Followed by tertiary activities in Paris (Tourism in my case) and then primary activities in Ireland for which I picked Dublin's agricultural sector.I then did my short questions when I felt more confident about the exam. I didn't analyse these really I moved quickly but did notice there was no question on glaciers on its own.Moving to human I found this alright. It wouldn't be my strongest section. It was quite similar to both the mock papers going around. Ethnic and religion differences made an appearance to keep up with current events. I honestly shot through this section and I can't remember what question I did.Finally, I did Geoecology. I chose the human interaction question with the three headings. I was delighted to see this as if that question wasn't there I probably would've walked out of the exam! So with five minutes to spare I finished feeling as if someone had tried to hammer my hand to pieces.#StateExams2017 
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English - #LC2017 - Sarah Connolly

Sarah Connolly - Ratoath CollegeI sat my first leaving cert paper this morning and it's safe to say that I was nervous going in! I woke up at 4am convinced I was late!! But I wasn't and I got to school for our usual pre-exam breakfast (despite not being able to eat any of it because of allergies!). It was a grand paper, with no curveballs thrown in there. I did the Question A from text 1 which was a lovely piece about poetry. It had a lovely 15 mark question about why poetry benefitted you in there as well which suited me lovely! I was delighted to see a question like that. I got the question A done on time (which was a first for me!). I did the Question B of text 2 which was a fabulous piece about people's reliance on online news sources. I was dead chuffed with that as we are supposedly in a “fake news” era so it was very easy to pull ideas together for that. 

I was feeling good going into my composition and there wasn't an awful lot of choice on composition to be fair but there was a speech about democracy that suited me to a tee. I was absolutely delighted to write my composition on that. It took me about an hour and twenty minutes to get it done and I wrote about 6 pages (my handwriting is pretty little to be fair as I fit 15 words a line). I was dead happy with my work that I handed up. Now it wasn't perfect and I still have the big battle ahead tomorrow with paper 2 so I better go look over my last few notes!

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English - #LC2017 - Alex Fogerty

  #LC2017 - #EnglishAlex Fogarty - Ratoath CollegeWell, that went well, thank you State Examinations! I was honestly so happy with this paper. I found it to be very fair and pretty well rounded. I answered Question A from Text 3, I enjoyed the theme of that particular text being childhood memories. The questions were very straight forward and I was grateful for that. I then went onto answer Question B from Text 2. Again a very straight forward question and it was actually just lovely. Asking about the biased media... All I had to was go on about Fake News and Donald Trump, easiest opinion piece, just do what I've been doing since November... Complain about Trump. Lastly, I chose No.3 for Section II of the paper. The Speech on Democracy at the World Youth Conference. Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a nicer question! Loved waffling on about politics as I do best, and was even able to bring a very lovely, truthful anecdote. Loved this paper, I hope it went well for everyone else! #LC2017 #StateExams #ISSU17 

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Leaving Cert Business

Shay - Higher Level

It was my last test. I walked into the room with fear on my face but thankfully that changed. I opened the paper to the 10 lovely short questions, relatively easy. Then came the ABQ, which was considerable easy compared to previous years. I had to do 4 questions , 1 from part one , 2 from part two and another from either part one or two. I did my first question on "people in business". This question was the easiest out of my 4 chosen questions. My next 3 questions where about "managing". They were all varied in topics. Question 5 had Maslow's hierarchy of needs but the other questions like like 5(B) we're all different and different always relate to the previous questions. Overall, I thought we got a good paper and hopefully a good result. Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

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Leaving Cert French

Brendan - Higher Level

Tablets and tattoos were probably not on the minds of many candidates this morning as they entered their exam hall, but they certainly were by this afternoon.The comprehensions were as to be expected. One related to a family circus and the other to strict parents. Question 1 was about whether parents give too much freedom to young people in Ireland. The diary entry is a favorite of many, but who would have though it would be a dilemma about whether or not to get a tattoo with a friend? So unpredictable.The question about banning smoking was interesting and a real test. It was not merely smoking, but a question about whether you agree with a total ban; two very different things and it would have been easy to dive in and forget about the question. I decided to take an alternative approach that although smoking damages ones health we live in a democracy and such a measure would be akin to a dictatorship. A bit of a stretch one might say, and in a way it was, but it was also a different thesis to an agreement to ban smoking totally. I did the question on tablets as an extra.French is not an exam where time constraints are a pressing concern. As a whole, I thought it was a fairly reasonable paper.


Declan - Ordinary Level

The ordinary level French paper was a very good paper. I thought the comprehensions were the finest. I did both the CV and close test (so, they can take my best one for the marks). I did the postcard about going away to Switzerland skiing with my family. It was great, didn't mind it. Although, I did forget some minor words and nearly wrote it in Irish. I did the diary entry about moving to a new house and school etc. It was pretty easy. All in all, it was a handy enough paper.


 

Sarah - Ordinary Level

 I wasn't at all nervous for French for some strange reason.. When we got the paper I flicked straight to the back to see what the message and postcard was like, which is the ones that we chose to do. This and the fill in the blanks and CV question. I did the English comprehensions first but I thought they were a bit difficult to get the answers... I gave up after these two and went straight for the A question. The fill in the blanks was pretty straight forward. The words given were easy words and it was easy to work out the answers. The CV questions were pretty good too although one question threw me back a little cause I didn't know exactly what it meant. But I answered it and went onto the next thing. The message I thought was a bit tricky because I didn't know some of the vocab for it but other than that it was grand. Then I did the postcard and thought it was pretty simple, but one part got me. I could not for the life of me think of Monday in French... I was trying to figure it out and all I could think of was Irish... What a shame haha but it doesn't matter now! The finally I did the French comprehensions. I thought they were easier than the English ones and did them no problem! The listening was good as well. The questions given were good and it was easily understood in most parts. Overall, I thought the French paper was pretty decent and I'm quite happy with it! :)Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

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Leaving Cert History

Aoife - Higher Level

Well, where do we start.  I was happy enough with the documents, they are always the easier question and I do enjoy the Belfast Blitz. It was a nice question.I was a lot less pleased to see Sunningdale show up with the Anglo-Irish treaty, considering I only studied the first one in school in detail, but I still tried my best. For dictatorship and democracy, I was heart broken to see I had the choice between Jarrow Crusade (a short topic) or Hitler and Mussolini's relationship with the church... That one was just bizarre.I was happy to end the paper seeing my old friend Lyndon Johnson come up at the end of my paper. Overall, I have very mixed emotions over this paper and will have to wait til August to see how it went.


Brendan - Higher Level

This is definitely one of the toughest exams. 2 hours and 50 minutes of non-stop writing to such an extent that you can barely afford to take a drink of water. Belfast during World War II appeared as the document question and was reasonable enough, although I like many, would have preferred to have seen the Treaty or the Eucharistic Congress.For dictatorship and democracy I answered on church-state relations which was a nice question. LBJ, the moon landing and race relations appeared for US and the world, however I answered on the development of the economy from the end of the war until 1989, an incredibly long and varied period of time. It was a very broad, but approachable question.My final question was on Northern Ireland and I chose the question on the Sunningdale and Anglo Irish Agreement's. It asked which was more successful and although I would have preferred a stand alone question on Sunningdale, it seemed approachable. Unfortunately, due to a combination of poor eye sight and miscalculation of time I ran out of time when 10 more minutes would have allowed me to really complete the essay. Overall it was a challenging paper. In parts essays which were predicted came up, others were impossible to call, In reality, I believe, it is such a broad course that it isn't really possible to cover every aspect.More time should be allocated for a subject that takes up a very considerable amount of students time. Students who had worked very hard would have found the paper fine, otherwise it would have been very difficult.


 

Declan - Higher Level

History paper was actually quite decent. When I first opened it I was praying the Anglo- Irish treaty would be there. Belfast during world war 2 came up in the documents. I felt it went fine.For my first essay, I did the topic of "Movements for  Political and Social reform, 1870-1914", the question "What did Parnell contribute to the movements for Home Rule and Land Reform. I was delighted with this question, as I had it covered really well. I got over 5 pages on it, so i hope it is fine. I was glad this question came up, because I would of been badly stuck with the other questions.My second essay went well. It was Europe and the wider world; Topic 2. It was the section Nation States and International tensions, 1871-1920. I felt there were two nice questions on this section. German Foreign policy development under Bismarck and Wilhelm II and the social & economic developments in Europe during the period 1871-1914. I did the German Foreign policy, I was really happy with this question.My third section was "Dictatorship and Democracy in Europe, 1920-1945". I was banking on a good Mussolini question. I did the question on church state relations develop under Mussolini and Hitler. I felt this went only ok. I didn't really revise Hitler went (I know, how stupid), but knew a lot on Mussolini. I probably didn't write enough with this essay though.It's pretty reassuring that you have a project done with this project. I did mine on the Belski Brother, jews defying the Nazi occupied Belorussia, they created a jewish settlement in the middle of the forest. It's a quite interesting and inspirational story. They saved hundreds of lives.


Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union. 

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