Hi My internet has been down for the past few days so I couldn’t blog. In the aftermath of Maths Paper 1, I eventually calmed myself down enough to have another look at the paper. I think i may have been a bit hard on myself in the exam. I did a lot better than I thought in the exam, so I’ve just forgotten about it now

So heres how the rest of the exams went

Maths Paper 2- I thought it was a lovely Paper. A few difficult c parts but nothing I shouldn’t have been able to do. That doesn’t mean it went perfectly, far from it. But I hope I managed a nice C grade

Irish I do pass so after 5 years of honours I found it a bit of a doddle. I was finished both papers after an hour so I’m not too worried about the outcome of them

French Je l’ai adoré Moi, j’adore francais donc je ne pense pas que cette examen est trop difficle. Maleheuresement je sais que ma production ecrit est faible. J’espére que j’ai gagné une b

History- Even typing this has me in tears. I cannot describe to you my disappointment in that exam. I had worked so hard all year. And not one of the essays I had prepared came up. I was just distraught. I started to panic and had to leave the exam hall. Anyone who does history knows how challenged we are for time but if I’d stayed I would have passed out. I managed to do two and a half pages on each question but it just wasn’t enough. I hopefully passed but I really cannot expect anything more than that. It was just heartbreaking. It was like Maths only 10 times worse. God, even thinking about it sends me into the depths of depression. So I’m not going to

Biology- What a weird paper? Like none of the usual things came up. In saying that, I thought it was pretty good There was alot of “from your knowledge of biology” type questions which is not how we’re trained to think. Couldn’t believe it when I seen plants in question 11 as well?

Just one more left; Physics on Monday. Overall the whole “Leaving Cert Experience” feels like its lasted forever. It seems like a year ago since we sat English paper two but we were actually in it this time last week! Crazy really. I’m just ready for it to be  over now and to start my summer I’ll blog again Monday after my LAST LC EXAM (I refuse to repeat )

Till then,

Niamh

The world is a beautiful place.

This may be because I’ve just FINISHED THE LEAVING CERT but I suddenly truly understand what William Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Louis Armstrong have been talking about. On my way home, I took delight in the heat, the seaside and even a piece of rubbish floating around. This view may diminish over time but once I put down the pen after History, it’s like the sun came out. Poetic, I know. Too bad English is over.

It hasn’t quite sunk in that I’M DONE (but if I keep saying it, it’s bound to stick) because I’m one of two in my school to finish today. I’m even finished before the Junior Certs. As a result, celebrations will be confined to my house tonight (wild, I know) but tomorrow I can go crazy with some friends. I know how much I’m rubbing it in but hopefully this will spur people on who have another while to go. Well, I really just want to keep bragging.

I suppose I better backtrack to the exams for a moment so I don’t get ahead of myself. Irish Paper 2 yesterday was nice and there were no major shocks, although I was a little surprised that an Cearrbhach came up as the compulsory story again. Being the only person I know that likes Lig Sinn i gCathú, I was sad to say goodbye to the Púca and the secretary, the mad gits. As for Business, I wrote at lightning speed for the whole three hours and all my hard work paid off in the sense that I knew all the answers bar some short questions but despite emerging with bruises on my hand, I could not get it done. I was gutted because I know I could have gotten the A I studied so much for otherwise. I was even talking in my sleep about how much of a tragedy it all was!

French today was lovely. As someone who is quite weak at the language, I was delighted with the written pieces in particular. I did the independence one, the diary entry and the one on social networking websites. Almost all of my material was what I had learned for the Orals, so it was great that things I didn’t mention then could be used now. I liked the listening too but have to admit I’m a bit worried about the couple who were too busy mushroom picking to notice their son was missing… I haven’t had time to dissect History in my head with all the excitement.

Oh wait, I just remembered Coleraine didn’t come up. That was a bit of a shock and the contextualisation question on the Apprentice Boys was a bit iffy, I thought. As for the Irish section, I can’t believe the economies didn’t come up! Anyway, I went for the consolidating democracy, an old reliable. The European was okay, although I hadn’t put in much work for it so I went for Mussolini. What was with the US questions? I laughed at how random it was that the moon landing and Vietnam were in the same question! None of my predictions came up but I tweaked my bus boycott essay to suit the Martin Luther King question. Of course, I didn’t get anything done but that’s a given with me and History. To be honest, my hand wasn’t able for it after yesterday. I jotted down some points in the last minute in the hope that the examiner will have pity on me. I don’t really mind with History because I never get very high marks but I hope I at least get a C3.

So that’s it. Wow, how odd. No more navy nylon, no more Hitler or Gealt or Algebra. It’s strange. Now what do I do with my life? I’ve just spent the first few minutes of freedom writing a long blog post about exams. In my defence, none of my friends are finished yet, okay! I’ll post again in August when results and offers come out and whatnot…but that’s a worry for another time! I’ll say a proper goodbye then because I’m too happy right now to be sentimental. For now I’m going to throw out all my notes, sleep for hours on end, go to the beach and tan. Oh who am I kidding, I just go red and then back to pale white again! If anyone wants to keep up with the trivial events of my life, you can catch me on Twitter here. I might as well give myself a plug.

To everyone who still has exams, good luck! Finishing is fantastic so enjoy it, be safe and have a good summer.

I know this was supposed to be a continuation of the Orals but I’ve been advised by a friend (after a year and a half of blogging on this, I’ve finally entrusted two friends with my URL. Who knows, by June I may have told three more!) to stop dwelling on the past. I agree with her-if you thought I had a lot to say about the French, the Irish would have been akin to a postdoctoral thesis in length.

To summarise though, the Irish Oral was a low-key affair. I wore navy, as I am obligated to do in keeping with the school’s dress code. I made the mistake of dragging myself out of bed at six in the morning to look over notes on the economy and this was my downfall. By nine a.m., I was too sleepy to be nervous about the exam. By twelve noon, when some Second Years walked down the off-limits corridor that was being used for the Orals, I was too tired to shoot them with a disapproving look. By the time the examiner called me in, I was exhausted. She was nice but made a lot of notes rather than eye contact, which put me off a little. In my fatigue, I kept forgetting simple words and used “deas” three times in one sentence. Grabbing at straws, I shared my poor French Oral joke with her about my lack of exercise but she merely replied with a “I suppose that’s how it is”. I know my consumption levels have increased twofold since the start of Sixth Year but even that was uncalled for, surely! I’m not going to sugarcoat it (even though the examiner seems to think I enjoy sugar quite a bit)-I’m disappointed with the way this Oral went. However, the eternal optimist in me knows that things could have gone worse. I could have fallen asleep.

Before we got the holidays, I finally completed my History RSR. Anyone who does History will understand the rush of emotions involved in handing up the project for good. Having worked on it since the start of Fifth Year, I no longer felt like I was submitting a simple project for a State Exam. I was giving my baby up for adoption. Hopefully the Department of Education can give it the care it needs, and the examiner the grade it deserves, whatever that may be. Sadly, I didn’t get my Geography Field Study completed yet but there are still three days to finish my graphs when we go back to school.

I’m not sure if anyone noticed but there seems to have been some form of a royal wedding taking place. Of course I’m joking, one look at the internet on Friday was enough to inform me that seventy-eight of my Facebook friends are going to marry Prince Harry. Should I start looking for a hat? What made me laugh was the fact that prior to the wedding, when criticising it was the fashionable thing to, most of these people sounded like they were going to resurrect the ghost of Thomas Clarke to ruin the occassion. Then come Friday afternoon, suddenly they were in love with the dress, the bridesmaids, the happy couple and the British public in general. It was hypocrisy at its finest but at least it was a break from the “passed my theory test” statuses!

I watched a few minutes of the ceremony in the morning and some highlights later on (together with the live commentary it makes it sound like a soccer match) but I was reaching a breakthrough with a History essay at the time so I returned to it after hearing “I do”. Kate Middleton wisely completed her education before settling down with William, after all. Although they first met at university, I highly doubt there’ll be any royalty attending NUIG this autumn.

That reminds me, the CAO Change of Mind form is opening soon (5th May for all those who lost the handbook) and indeed, I have had a change of mind. I couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for my first choice and after a long think about it, I’m almost sure I now want to do Public and Social Policy instead. It seems to be a combination of all the courses I’ve considered in the past, although I’m a bit wary of the Economics element. That being said, I always would have liked to have studied Economics for the Leaving Cert if my school offered it. I guess I won’t know until I’ve tried it! My problem is that I know the career I want and have a list of others that I would thoroughly enjoy, yet I’m finding it hard to pick the course that suits me. Most of the girls in my school are the other way around, as in they know a lot of courses they would like to do but don’t have a clue where to go from there. Sometimes I don’t know which is worse.

I hope everyone had a good Easter and took the chance to take a rest as well as get some revision done. My better teachers set some work to do, which was great because it prevented me falling back into lazy habits. I’ve also noticed how considerably relaxed I’ve been without the company of a hundred stressed students the past two weeks! I would generally deem myself a laid-back person but I’m sure you all know how capable exam stress is of having a domino effect. One person gets upset about a Maths result and by the end of the day, we’re all pulling our hair out and swinging from the lampshades. Well, it hasn’t gone that far yet but with three weeks until graduation, it’s only a matter of time!

Hello

Hope everyone’s enjoying the break. I know we have to study but as my year head said, we still have another 6 weeks of this, so take the break while we can. To people getting up at 6 to study, 1) Fair play yo you but 2) take at least one lie in before we go back. Personally, I don’t like getting up early, so I haven’t set an alarm so far. Sleep is to important, or so I’m told.

So the orals. French and Irish. They went reasonably okay. French firstly. Well our examiner was so nice Thankfully. Some people were annoyed she didn’t push them enough but I felt that I was able to show off what I knew. The hardest question she asked me was on my document. I changed it from the mock oral because there was too much scope. Now, it was a picture of my grandad playing the uillean pipes. She asked me how do you promote the making of uillean pipes. Turns out, there had been a report on the radio that morning about how uillean pipes were being shipped in from abroad. Just my luck, eh? I stumbled around it so I hope she was a nice marker.

Irish was pretty good too At the beginning of the week the examiner asked loads of really tough questions and had no difference in questions for honours and pass. Queue panic. People were crying, hyperventalating, learning of spiels about the floods two years ago, the differences between Fianna Fail and Fianna Gael (I didn’t even know there were any) and any other random question he asked. Well as it happened, he settled after Monday. I was on Wednesday and got to spend most of it talking about Science I got Sliocht 10, which is the shortest, I think?

43 days, 0 hours, 12 mins and 26 secs left.http://LCTimer.com #LeavingCert

Got that tweet this morning. Any time someone tweets the word “Leaving Cert”  this bot tweets you and tells you how long you have left. When you retweet it, it’s usually met with “OH MY GOD FML” or something along those lines.

Anyone here use boards.ie? I was on it the other day looking at the Easter plan thread. So much BS in my opinion. People studying 10 hours a day with 1 half hour break. If it is true they’ll be burnt out by the end of May.

Oh yeah, I handed up my History Research Topic as well. I did like  my topic, but my god I was never so happy to see someone die, for the simple reason I knew it was coming to an end. I did it on William Joyce – “Lord Haw-Haw”. Really interesting. It was so hard to get it down for the word count. Thankfully, I did. Now just to write a gazillion essays over the break. I have 6 done so far so maybe 4 more by Wednesday?

Good luck to everyone doing the LCVP exam next week

I’ll blog more often now, because for the next 6 weeks my whole life will be about the LC. :p

Bring it on :L

Hey everyone

Mid-Term is finally here and I hope everyone reading this is finished their Mocks, and if not I pity you, I truly do. I remember thinking when we found out when our Mocks were that I would have preferred them after the mid-term. But now I couldn’t be happier to have them finished

Here’s a quick breakdown of how they went

Irish Paper One After doing Honours for 5 years, it was a bit of a doddle. That’s no disrespect to anyone doing Pass but its just how I feel.

History Oh Dear Lord. My hand after that exam was in bits. Everything I wanted came up but it didn’t make it any less difficult. The timing in it was just impossible.

Irish Paper 2 Again, quite easy.  Probably should have studied a little but meh.

Physics Could have went better. Could have went a hell of a lot worse. Tricky but nothing I shouldn’t have been able to handle.

Applied Maths Bahahahaha. Ha. That’s all I could do during this exam. It was impossible. I almost certainly failed. Better now than in June tho.

Hope everyone enjoys their mid-term
Next stop, Orals

Niamh xx

Hello

Once again it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged but getting my thoughts out is just not happening lately :L Such a busy month. Finally, I fully realise why people in Leaving Cert always gave out about the Leaving Cert. It’s awful. And for all you people out there who are like “It can’t be that bad” I mean this from the bottom of my heart, it is. And for anyone who tells you otherwise, they’re either lying or superhuman. Everything you do, you feel like you should either be studying or sleeping. But when you’re studying you want to sleep, and when you actually go to bed, your brain is too jumbled with information to calm down. It’s a never ending cycle. Just crap. Thank God It’s only one year. And for anyone who repeats, you’re a better person than I. Under no circumstances will I be doing this again next year. I’m actually lucky that the things i genuinely want to do aren’t the most popular. Physics FTW

Speaking of courses, what did everyone put on the aul CAO?

Very very happy with mine. Number 1 is Science in Galway and 2 is Science in Maynooth After that it’s just random Physics and Biotechnology Courses around the country But I really want to get Galway. I love the city. I love the College, the course. Everything. So excited. Just to get through this flipping LC first.

Mocks start Monday. I’m nervous. Today was so stressful because the more teacher’s wished us luck, the more nervous I got. Still it’ll be an experience.

Anyone who does history will understand the serious lack of time in the exam. Why we get 3 hrs for science subjects where answers are rarely more than a paragraph and in history we have to write 3 full essays and 1 half essay in 10 minutes less is beyond me. Even that extra 10 minutes would make such a difference. Ridiculous.

Anyways Good luck to everyone doing their mocks

Niamh

Hello:)

I’ve officially signed up for CAO. Things just got real. Something about clicking that apply button has made me think “Oh wait. This is actually gonna happen” Scared me silly. But in a good way if that’s possible? I’ve also come to realize that I am my worst enemy. After great intentions of studying all last week and this week a huge part of it has been spent on Facebook/Twitter/Watching Season One of Skins. But today it hit me hard. I’ve only myself to blame. Its only me I’m lying to when I say I’m gonna be off the computer in 5 minutes and am still online half an hour later. It’s me who changes my study timetable to accommodate an extra hour in bed. And with 4 and a half weeks till the mocks it’s gone beyond a joke.

Me and my friend Ali are kidnapping each other’s twitter for the weekdays. Almost willingly. We did say it to each other so technically it was our own idea.

How was everyone’s Christmas? Mine was lovely Few nights out. Since when is it okay to not accept passports into nightclubs though? Grrrrrrr >:( Hope Santy brought ye lovely things. I got Glee tickets!! XD Verrrrry Excited

Anyone else find that their Christmas report meant nothing to them though? I got mine and was like Oh. Even the comments which would have usually got my attention, I just couldn’t care. Because at the end of the day, as much as they try, teachers don’t know everything. They say you have no interest when really you do, but they have just pushed you past the point of trying to communicate with them. I really do like Applied Maths. The subject is really interesting and engaging but I’ve just lost my confidence, I guess. Not the interest tho.

So only 4 and a half weeks to the mocks. Scary stuff. Dates differ from school to school but I think I’d prefer it our way. At least we have an actual mid-term. Where we can sleep/go out/ de-stress after the mocks. I’m terrified for Maths. I love love love love love Maths atm but I don’t think I’m ready to sit a full paper. Everything else should be okayish. Actually no, wait. History. Eeeek. How I’m gonna cram all that into my head in 4 weeks is beyond me.

And this History project. Oh my god. Even thinking about it sends me into a cold sweat. I’ve left Friday and Monday (We have Monday off because of a parent-teacher meeting) to the project and hopefully I can get some sort of rough draft drawn up. Hopefully.I’m doing mine on Lord Haw- Haw. He was a Nazi propagandist from Galway Also worked with the Black and Tans so he really interested me. That’s why I’m doing it on him.

Sorry I’m not blogging as much as I should. I do sit down to blog and then I never really know what to say

But after Christmas they say the s**t really hits the fan so I suppose I’ll have loads to talk about (LC related) then

A bientot,

Niamh

xx

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

Sorry for my absence on this for the past few…I don’t even want to check how long it’s been since my last post! But really, as a Fifth Year student on a website mostly visited by Sixth Years, I felt that as exams are approaching, the last thing they want to read are my minor complaints! I’m just after reading the others’ recounts of the orals and now all I want to do is go study for them! I’m going to the Gaeltacht this summer so that should be a help but as for French… I have never put on a French accent once in class because I can’t take myself seriously with it. It’s a bit unfair, expecting us with our rural Irish accents to suddenly become Audrey Tatou for twelve minutes!

Okay, so I’m going to jump right into this. I’m sure like most of you, I’ve had this thought for years but it was only when I changed my Facebook language from English to Gaeilge (after a pretty hilarious/confusing period of using Pirate language) that I thought to myself:

If methods of learning were a little bit more fun, I think I’d do a lot better in school!

Over the past few years attending secondary school, I’ve tried to make learning stuff as easy as possible. The methods varied from the common acronyms to composing a song about the rock cycle. Revision books are handy to concise facts and carry home instead of the 10-tonne Business book but are much the same as your actual textbook. Here are some of my ideas:

Irish- introduce newer and more modern stories and poems. Some of the ones on the course are good but others are quite pointless. A 21st century romance novel as Gaeilge? Yes please! Until the department takes my ideas on board, try some fun ways of enhancing your Irish. Foinse comes with the Irish Independent every Wednesday and there’s great articles to suit everyone. I love the fashion column personally. There are some great songs in Irish too that will get you in the right mindset. Des Bishop’s Léim Thart, The Corona’s Heroes or Ghosts, Mundy’s Mexico and Galway Girl can all be found on Youtube as Gaeilge, along with some others that may appear in the sidebar while you’re watching. And if all else fails, follow every muinteoir Gaeilge’s favourite tip: Watch TG4!

French- many of the same pointers here. Popular culture is the greatest learning aid for languages, I think. For music, I love Carla Bruni, especially Quelq’un M’a Dit. I don’t know much about French films or TV but I’ve seen Entre Les Murs and Les Choristes in class and loved them! Coco Avant Chanel is on my must-see list too.

English- seeing as we speak English all the time, that’s most of the work done. Reading and writing regularly will of course enhance your abilities for Paper 1 but as for Paper 2 all you can really do is study what’s in the books. I did find, however, that watching The Simpsons’ version of Hamlet many times in my youth helped me when we were doing it in class. You may laugh but I knew what was going to happen before anyone else and the teacher thought I was some sort of psychic!

Maths- there’s not much you can do here but even simple changes in the books could make a difference. For the Area and Volume chapter, Find the volume of a cylindrical rod is just plain boring. Find the volume of a cylindrical tube of Oreos, however, is more appealing!

Business- I don’t have too much of a problem with the Business course because the exam gives you room for creativity already. You know the questions that say ‘illustrate with a product of your choice‘? I love picking the craziest products for them because as long as you answer the question properly, you can waffle on about pooper-scoopers and tricycles all you like! Shows like The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den give you a basic knowledge of Business skills and we often discuss them in my class. I’d love to see a question such as Write 100 words on your favourite Apprentice character.

History- movies are great for this subject and of course documentaries. Michael Collins, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Downfall… there are ones to suit nearly every aspect of the course!

Geography- this is a tricky one. All I can really suggest is, go outdoors!

Hello there,

I haven’t blogged in quite a while but to be honest there weren’t many school-related topics to write about the past few weeks. We spent nearly all of January rehearsing and staging our school musical, which was a total hit! It also meant I didn’t have a lot of classes, which was brilliant at the time, although boy was it like a smack in the face with a raw fish when we got back to work! Then we had the mid-term and now things are getting stressful. However, I know these problems are minor in the eyes of all those dealing with Mocks at the moment. Hope everyone did/does well, even though I remember after the Junior Cert ones last year I thought to myself “these really didn’t matter at all”! They’re great practice though and people really shouldn’t be trying to find out what’s going to be asked because in the actual exams, it’s all about the element of surprise! We all complained about Thierry Henry for cheating in the Ireland-France match, so if you cheat for the mocks then you’re not much better than him!

So as my blog title suggests, I moved to pass maths yesterday. I really couldn’t stick higher level any more and since I don’t need it for any courses I want, I decided to cut the stress (or at least some of it) by moving down to ordinary level. Now I don’t dread trudging up to maths because ordinary level is very manageable for me. The thing is, they’ve actually gone past the sections we did in higher level so I’m behind at pass maths- oh the irony! You can’t blame me for thinking it was going to be easier, seeing as in Texts and Tests 3 for the differentiation equation they tell you how to pronounce it- ‘dee y, dee x’. Thank you maths book for giving me that pointless bit of information that’d only be handy if there was a Maths Oral! Imagine…

The only thing that really has me burdened at the moment is History. We’re starting work on our research topics already and after changing the topic a few times, I finally settled on my project title. By Friday we have to have roughly 20 pages of handwritten notes about our project from our sources, along with an essay. It’s Wednesday evening and I haven’t even started to read my sources.

I’m screwed.