Junior Certificate CSPE - Civic, Social & Political Education

Art - Common Level

The relaxed attitudes of students across the school, coming up from a lunch time game of football spoke wonders in itself. ''Oh sure it's only CSPE...''. The exam paper itself reflected this I believe. Four pictures of buildings; Áras an Úachtairáin, The Four Courts, The Central Bank and Leinster house appeared and students were to match them to the provided images. Very handy I thought. The short questions were also a bit too manageable. The Document Questions included a piece on recycling and the water charges which was naturally was a bit of fun to argue out on the page. UN Peacekeeping, The Nobel Peace Prize and European Elections also came up. For my long question I decided to write about the Ombudsman for Children. Two pages in I had just finished the six mark letter question. With time to burn I managed another two pages on the extra sheet provided.The second part was on reasons why it is important for children to take part in appointing the ombudsman. Finally, you had to give 3 ideas on promoting Children's Rights. Easy! Was very happy with it I must say. Though I am a little concerned about the reputation of the subject and lack of challenge behind it for the most part!

Helen - Common Level

I like it when you can walk into an exam and know that you have 60 per cent of it completed already. The short questions were a mix between organisations and your European studies along with a few others. I did questions 1,2 and 3 which were about Malala, Aid etc. For the long questions, I choose to go with Question 1, which was centered around the Special Olympics. I felt happy with how this paper went.

Jane - Common Level

Ahhhh, CSPE. After getting full marks in my pre I wasn't too stressed about my junior cert, and we already had 60% of the exam done so I was pretty happy going in. I love CSPE, due to my involvement with student politics and Comhairle na nÓg, so when most other people had left the exam centre an hour in, I was on my sixth A4 page of my long question! (Yes I wrote eight A4 pages on the ombudsman for children).It might sound totally ridiculous, but I am really passionate about children's rights and really value the presence of the ombudsman, so I enjoyed talking about my feelings towards the role. I'm very happy with how the exam went, and looking forward to receiving my result in September. All I'm hoping is that my examiner is equally passionate about the ombudsman, and doesn't mind reading eight pages of my scrawled handwriting on a hot summers day!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Certificate Maths Paper 2

Art - Higher Level

I have to say, I don't want to dwell on this in case the State Examination Commission change the marking scheme, but I was delighted with the paper! Though I must say that paper two is my favourite of the two by a long shot and I found paper one tricky, so don't panic if you disagree with me. The trigonometry questions seemed pretty straight forward, bar one or two where they weren't right angled triangles and you had to use measurements which I found strange. Both geometry and co-ordinate geometry seemed to be very doable. No theorem was needed to be proved, just mention it was a cyclic quadrilateral (proud of my spelling). The very very last part of the paper however I couldn't calculate for the life of me. It was getting the radius but in a weird fraction. Other than the odd narky part here and there I overall was really happy with how it went.Hopefully if I aced paper two it might balanced me up to a B :/ Please God...

Helen - Higher Level

I was feeling calm whilst going into this exam as I knew I had prepared all I could for it, of course I was nervous but I think that adds to the momentum of the whole day. Once I got the paper I scanned through the questions to see if there was any major bit that I needed to digest in my head before attempting it. I was surprised to see that there were no formal proofs on the paper, which I had learned off but hey it won't go to waste! The construction was quite straight forward being that we only had to bisect the shape. Overall I felt that it was a fair paper with the odd blimp of a question here and there but I was fairly happy with how it went.

Jane - Higher Level

First of all shout out to the SEC for the prettiest and loveliest paper 2 I have ever laid my eyes on. I throughly enjoyed this paper, all the questions that I wanted to come up, came up! Even the hated question where we were given a picture of a water tank, I could get my head around and I really liked it. It was so rewarding when I got my answer at the end! Everything went swimmingly, including the question on the swimming pool which was the most gorgeous area and volume question I'd seen! Hopefully though, my answers were actually right and I'm not blissfully ignorant of the fact that I hadn't read the questions properly or anything!I feel very fulfilled after finishing my junior cert Maths course. I really felt great when I opened my paper and loved the feeling of solving problems and applying the knowledge which my amazing Maths teacher had taught me. I'm really looking forward to leaving cert math! (does that sound weird...??)Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Certificate Geography

Gearóid - Higher Level

I started with the short questions as I often find that they give me confidence. I didn't find these particularly hard, as they were not that different from other years.Onto the long questions, I started with question 5, the map one. I didn't find this particularly hard, nothing too difficult. I was only surprised that they asked us to draw an aerial map rather than an OS map. I went to question 4 next on Economic Activities next. I done a lot of work on these topics so I thought it was easy enough. Finishing with question 1, I understood volcanoes and earthquakes, I wrote about flood plains on the rivers section, which I should of wrote on waterfalls in my opinion. However overall I thought that this paper was not too difficult and no major surprises came up.

Helen - Higher Level

I was a bit apprehensive before the geography exam as the course is so expansive with great detail. However, I went in with an open mind! I found that the short questions were quite straight forward. I think it helps that most are multiple choice answers and an optional question here and there. The short questions featured topics such as, limestone rock and carbonation, climates, rivers, population density and features of coastal erosion. Overall I was happy with the short questions.Whilst doing my long questions, I'd thought I'd be stuck for time but fortunately I wasn't! I decided to do questions 2, 3A/B/D and 4. Question 2 was all about the atmosphere such as, relief rainfall, global warming and acid rain. Acid rain coincides with chemical weathering to a certain extent so I was able to write all about it. Question 3A was about Fold Mountains and I had to draw, label and explain the diagram. Unfortunately, I was blissfully unaware that I had written all about mid-Atlantic ridges but I'm confident that I got the next part of it correct!3B was about Population and 3D was about Traffic Congestion, so I felt that section went well. Question 4 included topics such as Farming, Tourism and Fishing. All parts were looking for either 2 reasons, measures, inputs, etc.Overall I was happy with the geography paper.

Art - Higher Level

After two endless days of major exams, in English and Irish, and a two and a half hour long maths exam in the evening, I was almost looking forward to geography... Beginning with the short questions, they seemed to be slightly more narky than usual. For example, my class hadn't covered the named river's location. There also seemed to be one or two new styles of asking questions, like with the ordnance survey early on, they printed the graph in it. Other than that they weren't too challenging. At least I hope they weren't!On to the long questions. Personally, I believe the combinations fell nicely. I answered questions 1, 2 and 3. I normally do the ordnance survey but I couldn't resist the geographical mix when I read it. They were very nice to allow us to write about any river feature in question one. What else was there; explaining fold mountains, traffic congestion, relief rainfall and a few other handy ones. Overall, I seemed very happy with it.

Jane - Higher Level

I was crazy nervous before this exam! I have a really great geography track record, and because I did very well in my pre I had kind of neglected it, that is, until five o clock on the morning of my paper! I crammed loads of information into my head (always a bad idea guys) and was ready to word vomit all of my answers I had learnt on weather, climate, and population, only to see they hadn't come up in the long questions!!! I was distraught, and opted to do Q1 Q2 and Q3. I would have done Q4 but I hadn't revised first year geography before the exam (I've always hated 1st year geography). I completely finished my exam script paper with pages and pages of descriptions, and I left my diagrams until the end, as my teacher had told me to do if you're tight on time. I ended up not doing either of the two diagrams, but I'm not worried about it as they're only worth one out of ten marks, and if you get 9/10 in every long answer question, and do well in the shorts, you'll still get your A. I found though, I was stretching myself a little when I had to write copious amounts of information on acid rain, and ended up putting a lot of my knowledge about acid rain from science in there.Hopefully my examiner will be impressed with my effort, because I really put everything into that exam!!Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Certificate Maths Paper 1

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.

Junior Cert Irish

Helen - Higher Level

I was quite comfortable with Irish Paper 1 as I had learned my list of phrases for my scéal/eachtra so I was ready! I find with the scéal section that no matter what the title is, you are able to twist it into a story about a fire. Quite handy! I found the listening quite alright as the places mentioned were ones that come up quite a lot. Time wise, I felt confident as I had at least ten minutes to spare to review what I had written. The comprehensions featured a lot of opinionated questions and carried on through to paper 2.I have to say, at first glance of Irish Paper 2, my heart dropped as themes such as grá, bás or brón didn't come up. I decided to go with 'misneach' and my chosen pros was Imithe by Ruaidhrí Ó Buaille Aagain I was a bit thrown when I saw the themes for the poems, I chose 'tuismitheoir' and wrote about Subh Milis by Séamas Ó Neill. Luckily I was able to slant both of my studied pieces to fit into the themes. I think I must have quickly scanned through the options for the letter as I realised after finishing the exam that I hadn't written it in the prescribed tense. However, I was pretty happy with the way the exam went.

Gearóid - Higher Level

Paper 1Firstly with the aural: it started off well with Cuid A however Cuid B didn't go so well. Cuid C went off "okay". The two comprehensions were doable. I knew about Lorde already so I knew one or two answers of the questions before. The grammar section went good. They put it up to us translating present to future tense! I finished off with 45 minutes for a story. I wrote about sitting outside the principals office and there were a few deaths in my story, a bit too morbid! Overall I liked this paper, nothing that surprised me. Thank be to God.Paper 2With the written exam, I started with the letter, which I usually find hard. I done the first choice (A) as I felt that going to the cinema was easy. I quickly went onto the seen poetry, which I wrote about a poem Faoiseamh a Gheobhadsa and the subject of country life. I swiftly went onto the seen pros. I felt the themes were extremely hard, not like other years (grá, brón etc.). I wrote about Gleann seo an nDeor, it fitted in with "cineáltas" or kindness. Onto the unseen pros, the comprehension was difficult in my opinion but I tried my best! The unseen poetry were the last thing I done and I only had 10 minutes left in the exam. They didn't go the best either but I may have got half marks. Overall I enjoyed the letter but the unseen literature let me down.

Art - Higher Level

Irish Paper One: Personally, I have to say I found this year's Listening to be easier than most in the exam papers. Fortunately, we were not hit with a harsh Donegal Gaeltach accent! On from there, section two began with the Comprehensions; one on Lorde and the other or Oireachtas. I found the first one easy but overall they both seemed relatively doable. As for the Grammar, I didn't find the transformation from present to future too difficult, though I'm not so sure about the other part. Finally, we were blessed to be given two reasonable options for the Scéal; outside the principal's office and unsure why or else something that happened when you went shopping with your friend. I chose the shopping one and sort of roped in pieces from a missing person and a robbery, mixed with phrases and hopefully it'll get me through. Overall, I was relatively happy with paper one, as Irish is not a strong for me.Irish Paper Two: I nearly had a heart attack when I opened the paper to find a pretty tricky selection for the Studied Prose. I ended up using a theme from the given prose to work for mine; ainmhithe. The unseen itself I found rather challenging and I don't think I answered it too well. I then moved on to the Studied Poem where I used 'tuismitheoir' for Teilifis and sort of improvised from there. You could get away with reading one given poem if you were caught for time (which I was). Giving an opinion on The News poem wasn't impossible, though again not for the fainthearted. Finally, the letter to a friend was on a trip to the cinema. Not too bad. Overall, I found paper two a struggle and I felt demoralized heading into the final half hour. Hopefully it won't drag the grade too far down!

Jane - Higher Level

Paper one:I was fairly happy with paper one. The listening comprehension was very easy in comparison to my pre, or other comprehensions for other years. The reading comp was good I think.... I can't really remember what it was about now though. The grammar sections were okay... I was freaking when I saw the future tense but it was actually grand once I got down to it. The heading of the eactra put me off definitely. Because Irish is not my strongest subject I like to get notes from my friends in other schools who have amazing teachers and just learn them off. It worked for me in the pre but today I hadn't prepared anything in that fit into the titles perfectly. However I managed to slot in a couple of the best parts from all the essays I had learnt off into one. I was pretty pleased at the end but thinking back now I think it might be all over the place... It was like three pages long and had about a million seanfhocals! I hope my examiner appreciates all my wise old words of wisdom.Paper twoAhhhh paper two. Well first of all I spent all of the two hour break cramming for this, but I did pretty well in the studied work. I thought the headings for studied stories were strange... Usually grá or brón will come up but they were more complex this year. Lots of the girls in my year didn't even attenmpt this question as they didn't have a clue what the words meant. I quite liked this question because it made me look at the story. I had studied, Calua, and see it in a different light. Shoutout to the SEC there! Unstudied fiction didn't go so beautifully, I found the passage to be pretty wordy and the questions seemed to require long answers when there wasn't that much information there in the first place. I didn't mind poetry too much, although I didn't comprehend the complete meaning of the entire poems I could decipher what the question wanted. The letter was pretty okay too!Thankfully I've already done my Irish oral, so I have forty per cent out of the way! In conclusion, I think after finishing my gaelige Junior Cert course, that I now regard continuous assessment to be even more imperative to the Irish education system than I did before. I spent a huge amount of time cramming for this exam so I could get a good mark, from studying late at night to get up early this morning. I've been studying for Irish like this for the last half year, but it's the nature of the long blocks of text to require constant review. I wish I had a teacher for Junior Cert who would have taught me to understand the language rather than speel out pages and pages of text which I didn't understand, but would get me an A.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Junior Cert English

Art - Higher Level

English Paper One: The exam began with the reading comprehension, as always. This year's was on Mary Bück, the Irish astronomer. Personally, I found this to be not overly challenging, though I spent a good forty five minutes answering questions on it. I thought the essay titles were very open ended and relatively easy to work with, though my friend found the speech difficult. I worked with the title Tremendous Silence and wrote about a wake. The Functional question was considered to be tricky by most. Guidelines for workers in a shop was a first for the exam commission to come out with. I did the report instead which I found to be the most challenging part of paper one. Finally, there was media studies. I chose to do the question on the editor and not the report on Rotten Tomatoes. Explaining the job of the editor was pretty main stream. Then we were to give our opinion on the ice bucket challenge which was fun. I went against the writer's alternative. Finally, a page of rambling about politics did the trick on the politics question, I think...English paper two: As always, paper two drains all the energy from junior cert students as you're writing till the end. The questions on the unseen drama weren't overly tricky if I remember correctly. However the studied was more difficult to work with than usual. A sense of place was asked on poetry which shocked many students I'm sure. We then worked with two poems on ocean birds which wasn't overly challenging. The studied novel gave students the option to talk about a character or alternatively pick two words from a list. I used inspiration and gripping for Roll of Thunder. At this stage I was utterly wrecked. The Book Thief was a short extract with two scenes. I found question two and three on this to be tricky. Fortunately we only had to do one of those. The first was pretty workable. Overall, a mediocre paper, which I thought was harder than paper one.

Jane - Higher Level

Paper 1I was delighted with all of paper one. As most English Junior cert paper ones do, it followed a theme form section to the personal writing section, and this year is was astronomy. I found this a very interesting topic which insipred me to choose Stargazing as my personal writing heading. Even though I had planned beforehand to compose a speech, as soon as I saw the word a hundred things jumped out at me so I knew I had to do it!I chose the first option for function writing and I put a twist to it.. I wanted to make it jump out at my examiner for being different.. hopefully they will appreciate it!The media section was pretty nice this year, I chose the film question as reading the first part of the newspaper section nearly put me to sleep! (It was "write about the purpose of a news editor")Paper 2I decided to complete my studied works questions first, as during my pre I didnt get to finish any of my To Kill A Mockingbird question! Anyway I think this is a pretty good idea, all you second years listen up!Usually I opt for the Shakespearean Drama from section one, but today, whatever was in the air, I just couldn't handle reading Shakespeare and went for the other Drama. I have a lot of experience in Drama and so I usually love these questions, today however I found the scene quite mundane. I didnt think there was anything interesting about the passage or the dialouge and I was pretty disappointed about this!Actually, something I've noticed about this year was the use of bullet points in paper one, and having a few adjectives as part of a question and having to chose one and describe it... I found this pretty weird because they had nothing like it in past years.And now, for poetry.. I LOVED the poems! I thought both poems were fantastic and loved answering questions on them! However, even if you didnt like the poems, as a lot of my friends didn't don't be too hard on yourself because the entire question is only worth 30 marks!And now for unseen fiction...I'm not quite sure what was the matter with me today, but I had a feeling that I had a half an hour more than I actually did have (KILLER) and it was 25 past 4 and I still hadn't started the unseen fiction. I literally got no chance to even read the fiction so it was 30 marks completely gone!I was absolutely kicking myself. I have a very good English track record and have a achieved straight A's in the subject since first year, so you can imagine I was very distressed. However, I really did my best, and honestly, thats all I could do. I think if I do get a bad grade for it in September, that I should not take it to heart and not let it interrupt my enjoyment of the subject. At the end of the day, its just a little letter, so honestly, in case anyone else is on my boat... We'll be grand as long as we keep our head high!!

Helen - Higher Level

- English Paper 1 -I felt that English Paper 1 was quite straight forward as it's not a paper which you can study for. The Reading Section was centered around the theme of astronomy which later linked with an optional question later on in the paper, in Personal Writing which was "Stargazing".In Section 2 which was Personal Writing, there was an option of 8 topics. I chose (1) Breaking the mould. I centered this piece in a short story format. It was about a boy who lived in a small conservative town and he's gay. It features the obstacles he must overcome, which includes having to tell his parents about his sexuality. He then begins to campaign for the right to gay marriage in his state. I chose this theme as it is topical and modern with regard to the recent referendum.In Section 3 which was Functional Writing, there was an option between writing a set of customer service guidelines or to write a report based on a survey within your school. I decided to go with the first option which was writing a set of guidelines. Again, I felt this was quite straight forward, as it was mostly common sense with regard to good manners, cleanliness and etiquette.In Section 4 which was Media Studies, I found it was quite relevant as it featured such trends as the "Ice Bucket Challenge" The question for this was centered around the misuse of the social media phenomenon. Question 2 of this section was centered around "Rotten Tomatoes" website, which was all about movie reviews. All in all, Paper 1 went quite well.- Paper Two -The Unseen Drama was a choice between a Shakespearean piece or a more modern piece. I decided to go with the Shakespearean piece as it was the one I was most comfortable with. It was about two lovers who were about to be separated because the male lover was about to revolt against the king. The Other Drama was about a family picnicking on a sunny afternoon in June. Question Two in the Drama section featured your studied piece. I, like a lot of the country had studies Romeo and Juliet. It was interesting to see that within both questions, the staging and how you'd go about staging and performing the play were featured.The Unseen Poetry was a surprise as it featured 2 poems in which you had to answer. The studied poem featured questions such as imagery and setting or to note what the poet had to say about either People and Nature or Adults and Children. I chose imagery and setting and I decided to go with The Daffodils by William Wordsworth.The Unseen Fiction was based on the novel, 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak. This tied in with the World War 2 topic in my history course so this aided my understanding of the questions.The studied piece questions gave a choice between choosing two words to best describe the novel from a list of words. My chosen novel was, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde. I chose the words, 'Gripping' and 'Complex' to describe this piece. The other option was to describe the most interesting characters in your chosen novel which display both strengths and weaknesses.Furthermore, I was happy with how the English papers went.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.