ISSU 20/06/2012 ISSU 20/06/2012

Junior Cert Music

Shahed - Higher Level

I walked into this exam feeling like I had walking into most of my other exams; nervous, but confident. We had 5 minutes to read through the full paper at the start, and, after flicking through it quickly, I was instantly put at ease. The exam was divided into three sections. Section I (Listening) had questions 1-5, Section II (Composing) had questions 6-9 and Section III had question 10.The first six question were all listening. The first two were about Set Songs and Set Works. These were both very straightforward, almost predictable. The next question was all about Irish Music. The final part of it was a written question about collectors of Irish music and harpers, both of whom had been involved in the Belfast Harp Festival. The only part that threw me off was that the harper had to have been involved with the Festival, as I don't recall there had been a Festival harper in my book, but I managed. The next question was Dictation, when a short piece is played on the piano and you have to write it out. This is probably the hardest and most dreaded question in any music exam, but I felt like it wasn't too difficult this time. (Practice makes perfect!) The next question was Choice Songs and Works, bringing Section I to an end. This, again, was quite easy. They even played the Harry Potter theme for one part of it!There were a choice of questions in Section II. You could either do questions 6-8 or just question 9, which was Free Composition. Here, you were given a choice between three verses and you picked one and wrote for voice(s) with accompanying instrument(s) or wrote for instrument(s) which would illustrate the mood of the verse. Question 6 was a Triads question.This is where you study a short piece and answer questions on it. Question 7 was melody writing. Again, there was a wide choice here, but I chose to compose a phrase set to a given opening. Question 8 was all about Chord Progressions. There was also a wide choice here, but I chose to do the Backing Chords question (adding suitable chords to a piece of music).The third and final section/question was all about your General Study. You could take any genre, artist or group and research and write about it/them. I chose to write about The Beatles. In general, I'm very pleased with how this exam went. Best of luck to anyone doing exams this afternoon or tomorrow, you're almost free!

Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union. Blogs are updated daily by 6.30 pm on scheduled examination dates.

ISSU 18/06/2012 ISSU 18/06/2012

Junior Cert - Materials Technology (Wood)

David - Higher Level

My last exam!I wasn't nervous, at all, going into this exam despite doing very little study for it!This exam has 20 short questions (do 15) and 6 long questions (do 3)Short Question's -These were easy, nothing hard, and you could make ''educated guesses'' for a lot of them, having the choice of being allowed to not do 4, or get 4 wrong, is comforting as well! I got on well here!Long Questions's - I found them very fair this year.. despite me only being able to answer, well, 3. :L You see, I knew Question 1 and 2 are the same every year, and I can do them, easily and I then studied, manufactured boards, veneering, finishes and tress, hoping one of them would come up.. and they did! :D :PQ1. Technical Graphics question... SOOOOOOO easy.. for anyone who does TG it's practically giving you marks! It was just an elevation and end view, at a scale, nothing hard :DQ2. Design and stages of production, this was easy! Before I made my JC project though, I would have found this hard but after making it, I could basically answer the questions just from experience! :PQ3. Manufactured boards! Yay, easy question! I did this one realllllyyy quickly too! Nothing hard here, just know which board is which, and how they're made, advantages and disadvantages and you're sorted!Well, that was an easy exam in my opinion! And I did a decent project too.. so fingers crossed! :DFor those of you with Metalwork, music, spanish, latin etc.. while i'm enjoying my Summer, just Keep on truckin' it will be over soon! :D

ISSU 18/06/2012 ISSU 18/06/2012

Junior Cert - Technical Graphics

David - Higher Level

My last morning of my Junior cycle! :O .. I'm getting old!Anyway, I did the bare minimum amount of study for TG as I've always done well in it. I got 72% in the mocks from doing no study, and having done very few short questions and having revised the whole course and short questions in class, I saw little need.Short Question's - These were easy enough, no surprises. There are only 15 and you pick 10 to do, I attempted them all, but feel I only got 11 right, but that's full marks!Long Questions - No surprises here, all the same questions came up and I did questions 1,3,5 and 6.Q1 - Orthagraphic .. this was easy, plan, elevation, end view, surface s.. the same thing over and over again! I got on well in this one!Q3. This was axonametric view, which is easy enough, it takes a while though! >< Oh well.. the complicated image didn't help either. I didn't do fantastic in this one.Q4. Transformation Geomatry, my old pal, I got 69/70 on this in the mocks, the only thing that changes every year is the actual image. I got on well enough here, but I had some trouble with the rotation part :/Q6. Ellipse and porabola.. this was a VERY fair question, my mind just decided to say ''hehe, let's not work properly for him, it'll be funny'' . I messed up on this question.. and god am I pissed off! :/ Oh well as Noah and the whale said '' l i f e g o e s o n ''Anyway, this exam was fair! And I got on well enough despite having the Mexican song from the doritos ad stuck in my head for the duration!

ISSU 18/06/2012 ISSU 18/06/2012

Junior Cert Review

Jack

Well, now that Science is done it's... SUMMER!I have now finished my Junior Certificate! Hurray! Six and a half days. Thirty plus (I think!) hours of non-stop writing, to examine three years' of work. What a week.To be honest, the Mocks were a lot more nerve wrecking than the real thing! The Junior Cert felt just like the Mocks; it was quite familiar and just a little more official.I am so glad that it is over, now. I am also glad I don't do Music or some subject along those lines that will take me in to an extra week!I think my best subject was Business. I answered every question, so here's hoping! I feel I did worst in either Irish, French or Maths! Oh dear. Anyways, we'll find out in September.The Junior Cert was a great experience. Each break time, my friends and I would always have a great laugh - I thought we'd be stressing out and cramming last minute! Doing blogs with the ISSU has been a great experience, also!Now, roll on Summer! I live in Galway, so I have the Volvo Ocean Race to look forward to!So, I wish everyone an awesome (and safe) Summer!

Lorraine

Hi all!Wow this feels weird, I AM FINISHED :DI can honestly say the Junior Cert wasn't what I expected! I thought I was going to be a nervous wreck and I wasn't. I thought it would be really formal and stuffy and it wasn't! Some people were so laid back about it! I can honestly tell anyone reading this is that if they have exams next year, study hard! It all pays off and September isn't too far off for me with my results!! :) Good luck everyone!

ISSU 15/06/2012 ISSU 15/06/2012

Junior Cert Home Economics

Lorraine - Higher Level

Hello All!Lorraine here and this is the last ever blog I'll be writing about my Junior Cert :O Today I had Home Ec! Im honours :)The exam started at 2pm so I had all morning to study! It finished at 4:30pm! I went into my area at around 20 to 2 and It was all girls studying and gossiping!! I sat down with some friends and My home ec teacher came up to us and just asked us how we were feeling, any questions we had for her etc etc :)I can honestly say My home ec teacher is the best in our school, she genuinely cares about her students and she reminds me of a second mammy!I walked into the exam at 2pm and I was raring to go! I had studyed all morning andI just wanted to get it over and done with. The short answer questions were brilliant! For the first time ever, I looked at them and thought 'I know how to do you!' - They were really handy and bar the last 4 queestions which were on sewing skills which I have to be honest, I hardly looked at.Then I was onto the long questions and my god they were brilliant!! Q1 was the nutritional information of a fruit smoothie and I have to say I found it very easy to do. Then Q2 was on breakfasts and in one part ofit we had to do out 3 different breakfast menus for a school going teenager so I did 1 coeliac breakfast menu, 1 normal teenager brekfast menu and a low fat brekfast teenager menu. Q3 was all on consumer studies and Q4 was on the Family which I was delighted with!Overall, I found the exam very doable! I just worried that I'd run out of time. I was writing literally til the last minute and I was the only one left in the room with my examiner. Im very happy with the paper and Im happy to be finished!Good luck to everyone with more exams to do and thanks for reading all my boring blogs on the exams! :)

ISSU 14/06/2012 ISSU 14/06/2012

Junior Cert Religion

Lorraine - Higher Level

Hey guys!Lorraine here and I'm just home from my Religion Exam which started today at 2pm and finished at 4pm!I was feeling positive going into the exam and the minute I got the paper I got myself stuck into it! :)I felt the Short Answer Q's were very much based on Christianity which is grand :) I did 18 of the 20 short answer questions and we were told to spend 15 minutes on that question but to I was done within 10 minutes!The next bit I thought was handy! It was all about forgiveness and how it can be seen within a world religion youve studied so I was delighted with that! I know youll kill me for this but I cant remember much of the questions I did! We were told to do 4 out of 6 but I did 5 out of 6 because I felt Id messed up on an image of God question.I think the questions were very easy to answer - alot better than science this morning!!Finally I was onto my last question which is worth 70 marks So I knew I had to do a good job on this question. I picked a question on abortion in my mocks and I was really hoping it would come up for the JC but it didnt! I done a question about how things affect our questions of meanings and gave a great example!Im very happy with Honours Religion and Im delighted that tomorrows my last exam!! :)Roll on summer! Good luck to everybody in the exams and COYBIG!!