Aoife Fitzpatrick is a Leaving Cert student in Scoil Chríost Rí in Portlaoise. From Cullenagh, near Ballyroan, she is hoping to study Global Media in the University of Galway. Her Leaving Cert subjects are English, Irish, Maths, Biology, History, Spanish and Economics.
Aoife will be penning a regular diary piece for LaoisToday over the coming weeks.
Week two done now, and what a busy week it was.
Monday was quite a busy day for students all over the country, with Maths paper two in the morning and Irish paper one in the afternoon.
Whether or not you enjoyed that ordinary level paper depended on whether trigonometry is your friend or your enemy.
Personally, I’m quite a fan of simply putting figures into a formula and working out your answer from there, but I’m happy as long as I don’t have to find the area of a prism!
Higher level students, however, were unanimous in their dislike of that paper.
One thing students found unusual was the amount definitions they had to give alongside the challenging questions (are the 25 extra points really worth all of this torture?).
The listening section of Irish paper one had students questioning if they were hearing actual Irish or some form of advanced gibberish.
As we are used to the Leinster dialect however, it is no wonder we found the Donegal accents difficult to understand.
Like nearly every student in the country, I chose to do the aiste on if Ireland is a good place to live or not, so I did get to jot down all my vocab on fadhbanna sosialta (thanks for your prayers!).
Tuesday was a long day for all those who study Biology, as we sat six hours and five minutes of exams between Irish paper two and Biology! Safe to say my arm was falling off by five o’clock!
Irish paper two was divisive; those, like me, who were hoping for “Colscaradh” and “Hurlamaboc”, or “An Spalpín Fanách” and “Oisín i dTír na nÓg”, were delighted with the paper (though I wasn’t 100% sure what the “Hurlamaboc” question was asking so I basically wrote a two-page homage to Lisín Albright!).
We were all well prepared for the questions on “A Thig ná Tit Orm” or “An Trial”, mainly because a question on whichever one of these you do in class is all you’re guaranteed to come up in the paper!
That afternoon, Biology students sat down to quite a lovely paper in my opinion.
I think the level of choice really takes the pressure off, as if you don’t know something, you can simply skip it.
All in all, I, like the majority of students, liked that paper, especially the question on the osmosis experiment!
The same cannot be said for the History paper. Most of the girls in my class and I, like many history students who sat that exam, did not leave it with smiles.
Some were unhappy with the document question, which was on the Jarrow March, though I have to say that was the only part of the paper I enjoyed!
The essay questions asked were asked in, and this is the only adjective I can think of using, an odd way.
My peers and I left that exam confused and hoping that we waffled enough in each essay to scrape the marks. I will say, however, that the question on the Coleraine University controversy was the highlight of an otherwise challenging exam.
We’re all at different stages now; some students are fully done, some only have to wait a week to do their final one or two exams and others are forced to wait nearly two weeks to finish!
I have to say, with only two exams myself left next Tuesday and Friday, a lot of the pressure has been taken off.
I can now solely focus on Spanish and Economics, and also start the process of going through my notes in other subjects to throw them out (or sell if anyone else can read my messy handwriting when I make notes!)
Congratulations to those who are done their Leaving Cert and best of luck to those with exams left to do, we’re nearly there now!
SEE ALSO – Leaving Cert Diary: ‘If I wasn’t tired enough after week one, week two may leave me in a coma’
