Joanna - Higher Level

I was very anxious when we were handed the exam paper. My teacher gave us so many essays to prepare and I had so many coloured cards with all sorts of vocabulary for the exam, I knew it was all too much and reading over it was driving me crazy. I wanted to get the exam out of the way. As much as I tried to relax, I couldn't help but tremble a bit as I could finally turn over the exam paper to start the tape exam. The CD was already playing, and there was little time to read the questions. On top of that, the recordings only played twice. Thankfully, most were easy enough to get, and some of the answers were repeated two or three times within the one recording, so we had many opportunities to listen back to try and figure out the right spelling. I'm not good with accents, so I'm not sure if it was Donegal Irish or something else, but the whole middle section was definitely more difficult to understand. However, I left no blanks and think I did okay. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself to stay calm ahead of the big essay.I was relieved when we could finally look at the essay titles. I went ahead with the one about new technologies since I was looking over cyber bullying just before the exam and could only really talk about drugs and alcohol in terms of sport, which I didn't feel would be enough. Anyway, I think the amount of time given to write that one essay (compared to how tightly packed the second paper is) is ridiculous and although almost everyone was finished long before the exam, the extra time that I had left made me particularly anxious. I finished and had almost an hour to look over. On the one hand, it was nice to have time to read over my work for once during these exams, but on the other, the longer time meant that I wrote more and I'm worried that I made more grammar mistakes than I would have made if I had tried to be more concise.Caithfidh mé admháil, tá mé ar mhuin na muice anois agus an chead páipéir críochnaithe, ach tá imní orm mar i mo bharúil, tá an dara páipéir níos deacra. Beidh an scrúdu bitheolaíocht ann amarach freisin, cinnte go mbeadh sé an lá is measa de na scrúidaithe! Ach tar éis amarach, tá dhá scrúidaithe níos éasca agam, agus níl aon scrúdu agam dé hAoine. Tá plean agam dul go dtí oifig an ISSU chun dearmad a dhéanamh ar na scrúdaithe ar feadh lá amhain agus béidir dul go dtí Stephens Green ag am lón le mo chara. Ansin, caithfidh mé a lán obair a dhéanamh ar feadh deireadh seachtaine, ach beidh mé beagnach críochnaithe, mar sin, tá mé ag súil go mór leis an seachtain seo chugain! :)

Rob - Higher Level

I was apprehensive going into Irish, I had really being focusing on maths over the weekend and only knew a few main phrases for the essay. We had prepared an essay on córas oideachais as well as timpilleacht, and I had written out a piece on the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean a few weeks ago.I'm quite happy with how the listening went, the accents were overall easy to understand and where I didn't know a word I just wrote what I heard. On opening the page with the essay titles I couldn't believe that Córas Oideachais had turned up again as it did in the mocks. The other essay titles were also very broad and what my friends had been preparing for, táillií uisce fit in nicely to one title I remember. There was loads of choice, I think everyone was happy with what they received.As today was my only double day of exams, I'm glad its over. It feels good to be happy with a paper, especially compared to last Friday after maths. Now for Paper 2, hoping the Prós and Dánta that are expected to come up make an appearance!

Isabelle - Higher Level

After the most horrible start to the morning with Maths 2 I found this Irish paper such a treat!The listening was by far one of the easiest I have ever done (please god don’t let it affect the marking scheme!), and the essay topics were so broad that you could nearly fit anything you had prepared in! I panicked a bit when I saw córas oideachais had appeared in the debate section as I have never written a debate before but I was banking on that education system question! However it was quite a relief to have seen that in fact it wasn’t looking for a debate as such but a “píosa caint” for a radio station! Feel slightly better about probably not counting maths now!

Leah - Higher Level

Hello and welcome one and all. Wow, I must say, Irish Paper I was extremely generous! Almost too generous, some may say... Did anyone else get a sense that Paper I was a little bit too easy? Honestly, Paper I for Irish was extremely very kind.Of course, the paper began with a good old fashioned listening - which I, for one, am grateful for. It spoke at a slightly faster than moderate pace and the different accents weren't too hard to decipher. I found part C the most difficult but it wasn't all too bad at all.The Aiste titles though! Oh my god, Question B made my day. Since Fifth Year, my Irish class had a running joke that we were all too focused on the negatives in today's society. One of those negatives that we spoke about at length were alcohol and drugs. You can imagine how happy I was to see "Alcol agus Drugaí: na fadhbanna..." come up as a topic. My one problem with it though was the fact I had so much too say that I crammed it into my first few paragraphs, leaving my conclusion somewhat dry rushed.I thought that Paper was quite a nice on to get, I'm just praying Seal i Neipeal won't come up now. I suspect it will though, seen as the first paper was so broad and nice.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.