Art - Higher Level

Oh where do I begin... Highly challenging paper across the board I thought. Being the first year to have studied three years of project maths, it seemed a given that we would be put on the frying pan. Beginning with the sets; they didn't seem to be overly difficult, though part ii) on page one where you had to equal two parts of it through a good few. After that, we were faced with a variety of traditional paper one topics, such as functions and factorising quadratic equations, hidden behind sneaky project maths language. A half an hour in, and me still trying to figure out what the hell was going on with the phone companies I must say I feared the worst. Fortunately as time progressed my luck picked up and I worked out as much as I could. Honestly though, I wasn't happy with it at all. I left several blanks and jotted in a couple of dumb answers to work with (because you can't be marked wrong twice).Please God paper two will go my way now. It's my preferred one to be honest. I didn't think it was possible to drop marks from the mocks!

Helen - Higher Level

You could cut the tension and nervousness in the air with a knife. The exam hall featured worriers, last minute panics and hyper attitudes of a Friday afternoon.When I opened the paper, I was quite happy with the questions. As I launched into them, I noticed that some questions were a lot more complicated than they appeared. However, I persevered and pushed through! I found the suggestive maximum time helpful as I was able to track my progress in the exam. There were a couple shaky questions but I put down something and hoped that I'd get at least some marks for attempting it. I was happy that a good bit of algebra came up as I really worked on it after the mocks. All in all, I was pretty happy with how Maths Paper 1 went.

Jane - Higher Level

Well guys, it was the one exam that I was completely dreading. The thing about math is that it either goes beautifully or dreadfully. I came out of the exam on the verge of tears, everyone was talking about how easy it was and my heart just sank. It took me until Sunday evening to sit up and say.. wait... it wasn't even that bad. I think a huge flaw in a student's mindset as they come out of an exam is that if everything didn't go exactly as planned, they did badly in the paper. Things didn't go exactly as planned, I'll tell you that! There were questions on that paper that I could only attempt, and had to squeeze my eyes shut as I dismissed the fact that I had got the wrong answer, and turned the page onto the next question. It nearly killed me!!!After a massive conversation with my friend who loved paper one, and after comparing some of our methods and answers on Sunday, I hopped into bed and didn't look at a book until opening paper 2 at 9:30 the next morning.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.