So after a week of exams, I’m officially completely tired out. Thankfully, after biology tomorrow I have a very long weekend until the next Tuesday for Spanish.

It all feels so surreal that I’m doing my Leaving Cert.

English Paper 2 was a hard pill to swallow, as my two favourites weren’t there, but Yeats made an appearance so I was happy enough.

Maths Paper 1 and 2 OL were a bit tricky in my opinion, I found some of the part C’s quite difficult. And Q3 b) and c) in Paper 2 was the one that caught me out the most.

Thankfully, Irish complied with the predictions! An essay that I could fit polaiteoiri into and fiche blian ag fas, cearrbhach mac caba and Jack came up, thank god

However, today I had my first exam that wasn’t Irish/English/Maths. All my option subjects seem to be waiting til later on in the LC to show their faces.

I did the early modern history course today at 2pm. All I could comfort myself with was a big mug of coffee this morning as I wondered what in the name of God I was going to do. I always liked history, but it had fallen by the way-side since I did my research topic and after promising to revise everything I wanted to do for European Topics last night, I failed. This morning I studied 6 topics that I actually enjoyed. And it’s either the candles lit for me back in Galway, the heavy amount of praying and promising to go to mass I did or just the luck of the Irish: women in Gaelic Ireland came up as a documents question, there was an essay on Shane AND Hugh O’Neill so I had a choice. In the European topics I had lovely choices too but chose to go with The Role of Calvin in the Reformation, which was such a lovely and broad essay and then a comparison essay between Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici to discuss which one was more successful in the tackling of the religious problems in their country. Clearly Elizabeth I, considering the chapter which Catherine de Medici features in is entitled “The French Wars of Religion”

I came out grinning and laughing, which was a first time ever because normally I am far too tired or disappointed to smile and be cheerful at everyone. My giddy excitedness could have had something to do with the coffee and the lucozade sweets I was eating before I went in. However, I am so satisfied with that paper, now I just have to wait for the results, and I’ll let you know how satisfied I am then hahaha

Anyhow, it is going to be a very, very long night with Biology. Thankfully, it is one of my favourite subjects and I have a few predictions for tomorrow:

Genetics/DNA, Ecology, Human Reproduction always feature in the Biology Paper

The first question in section A is usually in regard to food.

My teacher said to never ever leave a blank in section A, because it is definitely worth the guess.

Over the years: either photosynthesis or respiration or both have featured on the paper.

There is usually a question regarding micro-organisms. Some people are predicting viruses due to swine flu last year, and other people are predicting bacteria.

Of human reproduction, my teacher said that she reckoned the male reproductive system or the embryo, but I’d have a general knowledge of the female, just in case.

I also found a link to this man’s youtube page. He is doing predictions for every leaving cert subject. He has apparently been bang on for irish and home economics, and did a very good job with my history (pretty much everything he predicted came up on the paper )

http://www.youtube.com/user/LeavingCertificate

he’s predicted topics for biology and experiments that he feels will come up

Happy Studying and Good Luck to Everyone!

Aims

xoxox

So at half 9 this morning, all the leaving certs sat down to do their English Paper One.

I thought it was a really nice paper. The theme of the paper was “The Future”

Text 1 was an extract from an interview with Seamus Heaney. Nice text, but I didn’t attempt it because I was worried about the question about suggesting 3 appropriate images to go with the text. B part was pretend you have achieved great success and public recognition in your chosen career. Write the text of an interview about the experiences and influences in your youth that contributed to your later success.

Text 2 was a piece adpated from Al Gore’s nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. I didn’t read too much into this one, as I wanted to do the question B which was Write a letter intended to be read by future generations in which you express your hopes for the plant Earth by the year 2050.

Text 3 was an extract from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I did the question A from this piece.

I also did the essay on “Write an article for a popular magazine on being a good neighbour”

Overall I felt it was a very manageable paper. I hope everyone did well and good luck with Paper 2 tomorrow

Hi Everyone,

Been a very long time, but I thought it’d be good to post a day before the Leaving Cert, because I’m procrastinating, and this is writing practice for the big scary leaving cert tomorrow =P I did finally start studying.

English Paper 1 tomorrow is one exam I’m not completely dreading, because it’s an examination of your ability to write, and all that requires is practice. Just been going through each exam paper, and grabbing onto any good sample answers or mock papers.

Not that I’m not nervous. I’m usually asleep five minutes after my head touches the pillow. I was awake 4 hours trying to get to sleep last night. And I’m coming down with some cold, undoubtedly going to reach it’s peak on friday when I’m trying to pass my maths exam.

Anyhow, I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish all the other bloggers and all of the leaving cert and junior cert students the best of luck tomorrow. : )

I also wanted to say if anyone is really, really nervous about a certain subject (like I am with spanish) it is definitely well worth buying a rapid revision or revise wise for it. I bought a rapid revision for spanish it is really clear and concise and I’m feeling a bit more confident now.

Good Luck Everyone!

Love Aims

xxx

I’m really not sure if I should be excited or annoyed, but to be honest, I’m thrilled that the school’s are closed. I’m not so happy that my mocks are on the 2nd of February, but I’m sure I’ll get over it. So, my latest way of killing off the temptation of going outside, which is being tested today, is by putting on clothes I would never wear outside. I’ll let you all know how that goes .

I’d love my Christmas results back so I know what I need to study more for, but I probably won’t get them back until I get back to school, so at the moment I’m studying Biology. I’m painfully bad at making my own notes but hopefully some of it will stick in my head.

I still can’t look at my Irish or Spanish books, but I’m hoping it’ll get easier lol. Time will tell I guess.

One thing I love studying for English is the comparative. I watched Casablanca last night, and just made little notes on it, and it was actually fun, rather than boring. And Wuthering Heights is back on my beside table with Playboy of the Western World.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and new year

Love from

Aims

xxx

Omg. I don’t know what happened but once I saw the timetable I got really excited haha.

Maybe it’s because I’ve 4 days study before my evil Spanish exam .

I’ve the last of my christmas tests tomorrow, spanish and english.

Spanish is going to have an opinion piece, dialogue and comprehensions. I’m really not very into that language, but I’m learning off useful vocabulary so fingers crossed it comes in…useful!

English is just King Lear and a Vision and Viewpoint Question. A lot of people don’t seem to like Vision and Viewpoint, I don’t mind it, it’s more Cultural Context I can’t do.

Economics, Biology and History today and oh dear god. I studied 3 essays for history, hoping to god Spain came up as an essay instead of France. But no, French wars of religion was an essay, and not even the bit of the French Wars that I understood. The end of them, I haven’t the faintiest why they ended, but in the words of this leaving cert student: “The main figure heads for the Huguenot religion and Catholicism died. And the country was not in the finanical state to continue the wars,”

…attempt marks there somewhere…please? lol. Biology went much better, my crazy studying at 5 this morning must have helped. Ditto with Economics but I drew the wrong curve…hopefully I won’t lose too many marks cos I studied so hard over the weekend.

Anyways, I was only posting because I haven’t done so in so long. I’m about to go off and learn my opening paragraph for the Vision and Viewpoint question I’m doing tomorrow.

Love from

Aims

xxx (Merry Xmas to everyone if I don’t post again until after )

Thursday, free English, I decided to make a lovely little timetable where every topic on my xmas tests was completely covered, and therefore I should surely ace my tests.

Friday I sincerely tried. But we got the Christmas tree, up and standing, after a three hour long fight, because a) it’s too small and b) it naturally slants to the side. After the xmas tree battle (solved by balancing the stand on about 5 phone books) I decided to go to out instead of making notes on the lovely King Lear and Perfect Competition.

So I promised I’d make up for it today, deciding not to look back on yesterday because of the xmas tree debacle (the tree fell over this morning, so once again yours truly had to attempt to fix it) I had a surprise visit from my baby cousin, aunt and uncle, it seemed rude to try and steal off to learn of the centralised monarchy in Spain, French Wars of Religion and Ecology, so I postponed.

Too bad I forgot I was due in town at 3 for my friend Annie and mine’s joint birthday party for people from the CTY programme I went to this summer. So epic fail. Only home now. Simply am not able to study, I’m mentally exhausted. I won’t get anything done tomorrow either, because it’s my 17th birthday and my granddad’s coming to visit.

So, I’m gonna have to condense my 6 day study programme into a 3 day study programme, wish me luck.

As I said earlier as I bought a new pair of over the knee, studded suede boots to console myself. “Damnity Damn Damn Damn!”

On the bright side, I get my pressies tomorrow, be jealous .

Hey everyone

Hope everyone had a good weekend, and hopefully Monday wasn’t too bad either

Well the finale of America’s Next Top Model is tonight, and hopefully this time next Monday I will be studying instead of watching Tyra Banks and the Top Model hopefuls. I really want Aminat (but she just got voted out, so now I’m backing Allison, the blonde one) to win…okay, sorry, I know most people won’t care lol.

Had to start studying for the christmas exams really badly today, so I took on Economics and Biology and Maths in after school study. Sorry, I’ve no horror stories, it actually went okay. I got annoyed when I opened my Biology book on genetics and couldn’t remember half of it, but I just calmed myself and read over it. It’s annoying, because it was one of my best tests this year at 97% so I really don’t want to mess up on it for xmas.

I’ve had to make a timetable though, because I’ve a tendency to just study what I like, more than what I need. Irish has fallen completely by the wayside. Ditto Spanish.

My birthday is coming up this weekend so I’m extremely excited, even though it’s only my 17th. It fell unfortunately very near my exams though.

I was wondering, just reading a few posts, how does everyone study? I did a test while I was attending CTYI at DCU this summer, and I found out I was an aural listener. So I learn better if I can hear myself say it. So basically my new method of study, is time-consuming, but it works so I’m not going to complain.

Basically, I read something a few times aloud. Then I close the thing I’m reading from and say it again. Check if I’m right. Then I write it out three times. I’ve been told I’m insane, but it seems to be the only thing that works for me.

I’m also looking forward to the Trinity Open Day on Wednesday. Is anyone else going? I just want to take a look around, before I decide what courses I want from there on my CAO.

Anyhow, I know I’m getting distracted, but this is the last Monday it’s happening, so I’m going to treat myself to Extreme: Skinny Celebrities.

I’ll start tomorrow

Night all, have a good rest of week

Love from,

Aims

x.x.x.

Hi everyone, I’m Amy, but everyone calls me Aims. I’m 16, very nearly 17 and, yes, I’m a 6^th year student. Of course, I’m hearing from various people who are at university: “Aims, relax, I didn’t study much and look at me!” It’s very easy for them to say, they’ve sat their leaving cert, got their points and are now, hopefully, happy with their course. However, for the Leaving Cert students of 2010 it’s a completely different story, we’re still preparing, we’re stressing over points and we’re praying we get that course we desperately want or wishing to god we could decide which course we want the most.

Psychology is what I want, preferably in NUIM because it isn’t that far from home, and I went to the open day and loved it; however at 500 points I’m probably going to have to work very hard, school doesn’t exactly come naturally to me unfortunately. For some crazy reason, I took the early modern history course, which not only doesn’t have a book, doesn’t have a set of papers you can buy either. That is not even the best part, my research topic just smacked into a big brick wall and the thought of re-writing my first draft makes me want to cry.

The first few weeks, I was full-steam ahead, and used to study for three hours after school, determined to get my points but as time wore on, and my parents signed me up for after-school study, it became this horrible chore I had to do. Facebook has become my distraction, which is sad considering I promised I’d never ever get addicted to it. Yeah, hypocritical I know, but I need something to occupy myself when I’m avoiding learning off the functions of taxation for economics.

Also I’m increasingly distracted by my first, baby cousin Ronan, who just learned to crawl. So instead of researching my research topic during my history computer class, I’m doting over photographs in my e-mail of the child prodigy crawl around the kitchen of his new house. And to add to that, my granddad is getting married sometime next summer, and his fiancée is allowing me, the fashion addict, to help out with the wedding. So internet access at school is generally abused for sending emails to my aunt about the baby or to Caroline in regards to how lovely Malta will be for a wedding.

However, Xmas exams are just 4 days after my birthday, and they’re actually kicking me into gear. My economics is completely revised. I’m studying like crazy for history. And the others will hopefully follow suit…

I’m going to make an attempt at my history research topic re-write, so I’ll have to sign off.

Aims

x.x.x