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

Leaving Cert Polish

Katarzyna - Higher Level

My final exam was probably the most enjoyable of all. Everything on the paper was written and had to be answered though polish. The questions were really nice and the main topic of the paper was quite interesting and I was able to write about it.The paper began with a comprehension and six follow up questions. This year the comprehension dealt with the problem of the increase in the numbers of people in Poland who do not read. According to a study, about 65% of people in Poland did not have a book in their hands for a whole year. The comprehension explored the causes and the possible consequences of this trend. The second part involved writing a response to a quote taken out of the comprehension.Lastly, there are two essay titles and you had to choose one and write an essay on it. The two titles were "Read, to live!" and "In today's society everything revolves around "the here and now" ". I chose the second title because I was a bit fed up with writing about the importance of reading in previous questions. Generally it was an easy paper and I was really happy with it.I hope that other Polish students in Ireland also found it as good as I did!

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 13/06/2012 ISSU 13/06/2012

Leaving Cert French

Aoife - Higher Level

After 6 years of studying French it all came down to today. When I got the written paper and I first looked through it I was happy enough with the paper overall.The first comprehension was about a young man from Paris. It was relatively understandable and the questions weren’t too bad on it. The literary comprehension was a bit more difficult as usual, there was a bit of “je ne sais pas” going on in my head.When I then came to the first written question I was happy that I could have attempted both parts, the first part was about how Irish young people have plenty of reasons to be happy and to discuss this. The second part was that you had just gotten a surprising call from your friend; write what was surprising and what you did after that. I chose to do the first part as I had a bit more to say about that topic.I then read carefully through the other 6 options, there were reactions, journal intime and an email. I chose to do the journal intime about how your first day on a part time job went badly and I also chose to do my reaction on how holidays in Ireland and their price. I liked the range of options that they gave within the paper and how they gave them, they were understandable for the most part.It was then our 10 minute break to prepare ourselves for the last “read the instructions carefully”. I find this part of the exam more difficult than the written or comprehensions. The tape covered a wide range of topics, it covered school, and speeding while driving excuses, parent-child relationships. It was an ok tape there were a few guesses but I was happy after it. This leaves me with just one more exam left until the end of all this madness! I hope that everyone is getting on ok, best of luck in the rest of your exams. Aoife :)

ISSU Commentary

Pupils and teachers today described the Leaving Cert higher-level French paper as "very positive". Many students could have been perplexed by the composition question explaining why young people in Ireland have many reasons to be happy. Many students were thankful for the choice element here! The essay about the shiny happy Irish youth was part of well received written expression section on the paper. Variety was a major positive overall. Many students who had learned off essays were left bitterly disappointed. The themes were straightforward, but were not predicted. Rote learning is fast becoming a thing of the past. There were plenty of interesting topics such as an email from a French friend inquiring about the reasoning of learning the Irish language, as well as a discussion topic about street protests and their importance in fighting against bad political decisions and injustice. Many sports enthusiasts would have been overjoyed to see Euro 2012, but this turned out to be about the level of sports programmes on television. The comprehensions that start the paper were challenging but not impossible. The first one was highlighted by many as being very topical and realistic. It was about a young male, living in the suburbs who can’t afford to move out of his parent’s house. Parts of the vocabulary in the listening section were difficult according to many. Ordinary level students sat a ‘typical’ paper which had ‘well practised and predictable topics’, in the opinion of some teachers. The integration of French culture was emphasised by many as a major positive. Overall there were few complaints.

ISSU 12/06/2012 ISSU 12/06/2012

Leaving Cert Irish Paper 2

Aoife - Higher Level

Well that’s it, the last written Irish exam most of us will ever do, an end to the love/hate relationship. After a night full of revising every pros and filíocht, and an Triail I wasn’t too disappointed when I got the paper. It was grand was the general reaction in my school. The comprehensions were manageable; the new format where you can just take the words out of the text makes it a lot easier. However I was slightly surprised to see that they had changed the marking scheme even though they hadn’t mentioned it. Question 6 is now worth 15 marks and questions 1-5 are worth 7 marks. I was delighted to see that Hurlamaboc came up as it’s an easy text to write about. I didn’t feel much the same about an tEarrach Thiar, the questions were still alright. An lastly the an Triail question was good and suited the material that I had. Overall it wasn’t a bad paper it was a long paper however as it’s a lot to write about in the space of time that’s given. I hope it went ok for everyone, Aoife

Hugh - Higher Level

Right, Irish paper 2. Very quick overview:First Comprehension featured an element of the much-anticipated Olympic Games mixed with biographical material. The 6b question asked for your impression of the attitudes of certain segments of American society and the Olympic organisation body towards "people like" the sportsman Jim Thorpe who was of mixed European-Native American ancestry. These were given in the piece so just required re-phrasing. Verdict = Grand!Second comprehension was a piece by an Irish journalist on life in the favelas in Brasil. Featured personal experiences, reflections and historical information, 6b asked which genre did the piece belong to and to identify two traits of this genre evident in the piece. Verdict = Grand.Both comprehensions featured grammar questions, nothing too exhausting, it asked students to pick out examples of certain tenses etc.Prose question featured Hurlamaboc, this was widely anticipated and the question focused on the central character of Lisín and the insights we get from the extract into modern life.Poetry was in a slightly different format to the sample papers, but only slightly. It featured An tEarrach Thiar - by Mairtín Ó Direáin and we were asked about 1. The effectiveness of sounds and images in the poem. 2. To write a short biography of the poet, and 3. The effectiveness of repetition in the poem. So no big surprises on that section.The An Trial question went down well with most students.......except for me....who managed to wrongly translate a word I've come across hundreds of times "fimíneacht" which means hypocrisy, in my exam addled brain it meant feminism! Oh well, on to history!

ISSU Commentary

There were some new and ‘tricky’ elements in the higher level Irish paper two this morning; with the much-maligned Stair na Gaeilge consigned to ancient history, the new look Irish paper 2 held no major shocks, although it was challenging. The paper opened reasonably well with a comprehension piece about an Irish American Jim Thorpe Olympian who won two gold medals at the 1923 Olympics. Many described this as interesting.Overall, the questions based on the piece were, “fairly typical,” The final question on the piece was a new addition to the exam this year. Broken into two parts, a grammar question and an opinion piece, the question drew a varied feedback, it was broken into two parts. The grammar segment was “reasonable”, according to many, adding the opinion piece was too taxing. Some raised questions about the amount of time spent learning proportionate to the amount of marks attainable for the ’poetry and prose’ sections. There was a similar line of thought about a ten mark question from the comprehension section Gaeilgeoir Alex Hijmans, a Dutchman appeared in the subsequent comprehension piece which was an excerpt from his book, Favela. Some highlighted that a glossary might have been helpful for some of the more unusual and unfamiliar terms used. Some had problems with question 6, as asking students about the literary genre of the piece was described as ‘”unfair” by some. The prose question, on Hurlamboc, presented no great challenge and the poem, An tEarrach Thiar was anticipated. There were few complaints about the additional literature question.Ordinary level students had a good start with two “very interesting,” comprehension passages. One featured sports presenter Evanne Ní Chuillin and the other presented tennis player Daithí Ó hEithir. The questions on both pieces were typcal. The prose questions on Hurlamboc were uncommon. Students were asked 6 short questions rather than a ‘summary’ type question.The second prose question about Oisín í dTír na nÓg was more like what we have previously seen.The two poems given were Géibheann and An tEarrach Thiar. These were accompanied by short questions and questions on emotions and imagery. There were little or no complaints about these.