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.
Well, that’s week one done. I only had three exams last week but by no means does that mean they were a handy three days.
Like any exam, there were highs and lows. There were questions I felt were written for me and ones specifically written to make me feel like I’ve never studied the course at all.
Wednesday morning, we started off with English paper one. Many of my peers and I enjoyed this year’s theme, which was perspectives.
It was a nice change of pace from trying to find hope in the most hopeless of poems, like many of us had to do for our Junior Cert all those years ago!
On my first read of the paper, I thought that none of the Question B’s I had wanted came up. So, like many others, I decided to do the motivational talk for an underdog team before the final, channeling my inner John Kiely.
It was pointed out to me, however, about five minutes after the exam, that the Question B for text three was, sickeningly, a podcast!
Though I was initially bitter, I think the short talk suited me better.
While many of the students I spoke to after the exam said they did the personal essay where they reflected on disappointments they had experienced and the impact they had on their lives, I chose the feature article on viewing contemporary Irish society through an optimistic lens.
All in all, the majority of us seemed happy with how it went. Some commended the way the personal essay questions were phrased, while others, myself included, were simply just happy to run out of there at twenty past twelve!
Thursday afternoon, all of us nervous Leaving Cert students made our way back into school to sit the longest paper on the course; English paper two. Students were less pleased with this one.
The way in which the “King Lear” and comparative questions were phrased stumped quite a few, but we all managed to answer them to the best of our ability. I enjoy any excuse to quote Morgan Freeman, so I was happy out!
As predicted, Boland, Mahon, Kavanagh, Eliot and Smith all appeared in the prescribed poetry.
Students were relieved that they got away with only revising one or two of the poets they studied (sorry to their English teachers!)
You may be asking yourselves “Did my prayers work? Did Hopkins come up?”. Unfortunately for me, some of you didn’t pray hard enough!
Hopkins was, once again, in his last year on the course, left off the exam paper. It honestly baffles me how, after 20 years of being on the syllabus, poor Hopkins has only appeared on mock papers and twice on the actual exam papers!
What is the point in having him on the course and just to rarely asking about his poetry in the actual exam?! It’s safe to say I was not happy about this but, thankfully, I had revised Boland and Mahon as well, so I could answer the question on Boland (reluctantly).
Friday afternoon came then, and saw us sit Maths paper one. Both ordinary and higher-level students came out of it quite happy with how it went.
This was a bit of a shock for us, given how hard paper one was at both levels for the mocks, but no complaints here (no impossible area or volume questions seen thank you very much!). Hopefully paper two is just as kind to us.
For me, I have three exams done and seven to go! This week is a busy one; I start off the week with Maths paper two, the Irish papers, Biology and History.
And if that didn’t sound tiring enough, that’s all before Wednesday! If I wasn’t tired enough after week one, week two may leave me in a coma!
Also, to whoever wrote the Home Economics paper, you may be receiving many angry emails from Leaving Cert students as they were “not at all” happy with the questions on that paper, particularly the question on polyunsaturated fatty acids.
You have been warned!
Best of luck to everyone with this week’s exams!
