French - #JC - Diego Brule
Diego Alonso Brule Galleguillos - Coláiste EindeIf there's one thing I love more than learning sciences, it's learning languages. There's something about it, that makes learning languages so interesting. Maybe it's because of the culture they carry, maybe it's the fact of being able to speak more than one language, or maybe because you think flirting will be easier in other languages.Anyways, French for me was quite simple. Grammar and vocabulary wise it's very similar to Spanish, which made the reading comprehension and written section very simple. But, Listening to it, always has been my nightmare. And of course, the exam has to start with this.Luckily though, this year's listenings were probably the easiest listenings that have come up so far (I've done all the exam papers for this too). Or maybe it's because I stayed up late last night listening to Emmanuel Macron's speeches in French?The rest of the exam was a breeze. Reading comprehension, and written. There was only one question that I can remember that asked for a word that I had absolutely no idea what it meant. But apart from that, the rest of the test went pretty good.I have to point a funny thing about this exam though, our exam centre has around 35 students, but only 6 of us did French. It's safe to say the examiner was disappointed, as she is a French teacher in her school.For the JC I'll be doing Spanish and French, hopefully for the LC I'm able to sit Italian as well! #StateExams2017
History - #LC2017 - Gabriele Grudyte
Gabriele Grudyte - St. Mary's Holy Faith Secondary School, KillesterSo the long awaited history exam paper is finally over. My hand is throbbing, feels like it's going to fall off. But it was all worth it. The cramming the night before, will hopefully pay off. The minute the examiner gives out the the papers my heart started racing hoping US foreign policy comes up but just my look it didn't, it's very disappointing when your favourite topic doesn't come up on any exam but on this exam it was heartbreaking. It was an easy enough paper as girls in my year would say "That was a lovely paper" . Apart from us foreign policy and the harrow match everything that I expected to come up came up. The thing about history is you can't squish information in that you've forgotten about no matter how hard you try. So you have to write everything down straight away. I suggest you write out the points your going to talk about on the exam paper so you don't forget to mention it. I know it may be time consuming but it proved to be very useful for me today. Today before the exam my class got together and brainstormed the essay which was surprisingly very helpful. Later in the exam y saw some girls leave early, which is something you want to avoid in the history exam. But overall I found the exam easy as in the topics that came up were manageable it's just the timing and the fact that your hand will most likely fall off after the exam. Feeling good about history.#StateExams2017
French - #JC2017 - Maria Hayes
Maria Hayes - Scoil RuainToday's French exam began with the listening comprehension. I am very happy with how this section of the exam went! I could understand the speakers much more easily than in the mocks, thankfully!Next I began the comprehensions which put me in the French 'zone'. I was happy with most of these questions with the exception of some of the questions in question 9. However I am happy with how I answered the questions!Last but not least I did the "written expression"! As I had thought, a note appeared as the first part of the question. I was well prepared for both a note or postcard so I didn't mind what the turnout was. I'm happy with how I wrote my note.The letter was the best part of the exam!! I love writing letters usually so this was my best section! I was delighted in the way that I could use "better late than never" in my letter. I learned this from the section 'Idioms and Proverbs' on the website/app "Duolingo". I had also prepared paragraphs for things I could be asked to write about in my letter. Thankfully nothing out of the blue appeared, except when I had to ask my pen pal if they had gone to the cinema recently. I think I handled that topic fairly well!I am delighted with how this exam went. I hope that the results won't disappoint me! Check out more exam blogs here: http://issu.ie/the-issu-exam-blogs-2017/#StateExams2017
Biology - #LC2017 - Sarah Connolly
Sarah Connolly - Ratoath CollegeWhile I had a great morning sitting Irish sweet lord I didn't know what was coming when I got my biology paper, I'm kidding but it was definitely a more challenging paper than other papers but I got it done! There was a minimal choice on it but I'm happy enough with the options that I had! There was a nice question on ecology and I found that very nice tbh!I did find the short questions tough but that's the nature of the exam really!#StateExams2017
Irish P2 - #LC2017 - Sarah Connolly
Sarah Connolly - Ratoath CollegeChun an fhírinne a rá, bhí an scrúdú seo go breá, Ní raibh ionadh orm nuair a chonaic mé hurlamaboc air mar bhí gach duine cinnte go mbeadh gnáthrud ag teacht suas, agus mar atá soléir sa scrúdaithe seo, Ní chuireann an SEC aon rud "obvious" ar na pháipéair! Bhí léamhthuicint álainn ann faoi TG4 agus bhí ceann spéisiúil ar Siria agus bhí siad go breá! Táim an sasta leis an pháipéar seo!#StateExams2017
Business - #JC2017 - Diego Brule
Diego Brule - Colaiste Einde Salthill GalwayBusiness P1 & P2If there was a single exam that scared the soul out of me, it was Business. Business was never my strong subject, strongly because of the high amount of memorisation that had to be done. The only topic I ever liked about business was economics on the bigger scale, but this is only 3 chapters out of about 30 chapters on the JC course.As I opened the exam in the short questions part, I felt delighted to see simple question after simple question. But I kept telling myself, don't be too happy, section 2 is coming. But in Paper 1, Section 2 wasn't actually that bad. I knew how to answer the 4 questions quite well, and when I got out of the exam I felt that went way better than expected, definitely better than in the mocks at least.Paper 2 was a nightmare though. Upon flicking through the pages to pick out which 4 questions I would answer out of the 6, I found that there were 2 questions in which I was confident in, and I knew the rest of the questions would ruin all my marks. But I hung on to it, I picked the lesser of the evils to answer, and wrote a lot, one of my pens even ran out on me!I finished it and I couldn't help but saying to myself: 'Huh, that wasn't too bad'. Of course, my expectations for business had hit rock bottom after the mocks, so that's probably why I felt better during this exam.Now I only have French, History, TG and Spanish left. I'm so glad the toughest are done.Check out more exam blogs here: http://issu.ie/the-issu-exam-blogs-2017/issu-exam-blogs-leaving-cert-2017/#StateExams2017