Leaving Cert Economics

Emmet - Higher Level

The Economics Paper was quite difficult but none the less do-able. I mainly concentrated on the macroeconomics questions 5,6,8 and a microeconomics question 4. The economics on the government concentrated on emigration, push and pull factors, the reasons, advantages and disadvantages of emigration. The contribution of John Maynard Keynes was also asked in question 8. In question 5, we were asked about the reasons for recent global population growth, the benefits to LDC's experience economic growth and also how that growth would affect Irish firms. The economist Robert Thomas Malthus and his population theory was asked and we were asked if that theory was still relevant to today.Question 4 asked us on economic rent, supply price and transfer earnings and importance of entrepreneurship to the Irish economy. question 6 we were asked about whether3rd level students should contribute to 3rd level costs and benefits and disadvantages of that. Also the short questions had a greater variety of microeconomics questions to previous years. functions of the ECB, reasons for development of black economy and how it affects the exchequer.The short questions overall were quite nice. In retrospect, I found that the economics paper did en-devour to ask theory, it also managed to conjure up questions across the board that that required outside thinking to answer non theory based questions. the questions were articulated in such a definite and precise manner that there was no way to escape or bluff through a question. it focused on peoples knowledge of current affairs and managed to draw out their interest in the macroeconomics questions. I did find that there was a lot of sub questions which did make the paper a little more trickier and sometimes easier. I think that the exams commission did a splendid job in maintaining the integrity of the paper.

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LC French

Ailbhe (Higher Level French)

Oh la la, sacrebleu!!Le Français s'est bien passé, non?I think this is the one exam I'm actually kind of sad to have put behind me. I really enjoyed French- the people, the accent, the culture, the fashion, the cheese- was, comment-dit, extraordinaire!I was happy to find an illustration on "le fast food". I had pas mal d'informations about manger sainement from my oral, as I was anticipating questions about my future career (dietetics).The comprehensions posed des problémes, the first one about Permet de Conduire was a little difficult...there was no verb question on it either, something I was none too impressed to see!Le Journal Intime was a highly pleasant venture altogether. Going into the exam I had vocab to express sadness and happiness, any form of anger, love, confusion, fear, would have made me look un peu "retard".I choose the emigration Question 1. Nattered on about “C'est un problème primordial de nos jours, qui malgré la croissance économique a continué s'aggraver” ...basically any sentence I managed to crowbar into my head last night.The listening wasn't too bad but some parts were a bit hazy but that’s the French for you!Bonne chance pour demain!

Owen (Higher Level French)

Whoop finished all my languages now!! :DWe're nearly there... in the last stretch of it now and even though I have two exams left, I couldn't feel any better!French today was believe it or not, très bien! :DHave to say that I was absolutely dreading this exam as it’s one of my weaker subjects but only for the fact that the social topics can be so unpredictable and I usually find myself, which is unusual for me, stuck for words!The reading comprehensions were quite do-able, one about the new driving test scheme in France and another about a girl whose husband died and she had no money so reluctantly was being sent to France to find work. There were the odd few questions which required the art of guessing... hopefully with a bit of luck this method proved to be successful!Now on to the opinion questions, my most feared part of the French paper!EMIGRATION..... lovely just like in Irish - an open doorway to complain and moan (what us Irish people do best) about the recession and the effects it has on emigration.I next found myself doing the diary entry... “PARTY, PARTY, PARTY” ... oh wait no, the party got cancelled and I was left stuck in on New Year’s Eve in front of the television with my parents! Easy to sympathise with, the emotions came flooding out about how this was the worst thing that could have ever possibly happened in the world.... worse than starvation, worse than dying, dare I even say it worse than the recession!?! I made my point very clear...to my diary anyway!For my last opinion question, I answered the question on how fashion is just as important to boys as girls. I have to say my French teacher’s love for fashion and Tommy Hilfiger came in handy here! I had a wide variety of vocabulary and phrases to give a satisfactory answer! Let’s hope the examiner will agree! :DThe listening, never usually my strong point... but for today I did manage to give the Exams Commission a run for their money! Saying that, I also missed a few ones here and there which resorted to my fine art of guessing again, they were good educated guesses though so hopefully it works out!Now with Biology tomorrow I have a lot to revise and thankfully I have a half day, so I'm going to go and make the most of it!