Starting 5th Year - Where to start???

I didn't do accounting or spanish and i did Irish at ordinary level so i can't really advise on those.

English: POETRY. find out from your teacher which poets you'll likely be doing and when you get the chance read through all the poems. Don't rush them, do one a night. After reading each one a few times just right down your general ideas on them, themes, linguistic/stylistic tools etc. when you finish all the poems, do a final sheet which summarises the most important four or five recurring techniques that come up. Just know the poetry inside out and read as many different 'explanations' as possible

COMPARATIVE: just read through all the comparatives, and if possible do them all at least twice. Once again, jot down general themes and then see where they differ/where they're similar.

SINGLETEXT: know this one inside out, seriously. Know all the motivations of each character and try to get in their mindsets.

Paper 1: every second week spend an hour doing different things; comprehension Question A, diary entries, articles, short stories, discursive essays etc etc)

Of course it goes without saying that your teacher will without do all these as well, this is just for yourself to get the leg up over time. (ALSO this is an odd one but mark down quotes that can be used at the start or at the end of an essay, it's always impressive to start/end with a quote)

Maths: not much I can see here besides just constantly revise. After you finish a chapter just take an hour or two to do a couple of questions of each exercise just to remain fresh on each topic. At long holidays it would be worth doing exam questions/sample papers

Chem: from day one of 1st year our teacher taught us to basically rewrite the book in our own language, in concise and neat manner. I personally colour coded and used little book marks to separate definitions/examples/chapters etc. however this often ended up being a headache if i didn't stay on top of things.

Because it'll be in your own words, keep reading iver the previous topics and stay fresh. Also, do LOADS of questions from the book AND exam questions (and use the marking scheme liberally!!) Although i really hate this technique, you'd be a fool not to in chemistry when the marking scheme never changes.

(i used hardback A4 copies for my notes instead of flashcards btw, and i went through 2 and a half. I basically wrote out the whole book!)

Biology: first of all, just make sure you actually understand everything you cover as it comes up! Too many people in bio just shrug off when they don't get things because they rationalise "ah sure i'll come back to it" when in reality 99% of the time you won't be able to get it on your own.

Keep notes (as opposed to chem I used flashcards for this (though i got lazy and ended up missing a bunch of chapters)) and also just read through the book and pay attention to examples.

For the key topics like respiration/photosynthesis/genetics/protein synthesis etc make sure to summarise them in your own simplistic terms and use diagrams (especially for respiration I found). Do exam questions, but don't rely on marking schemes too much as they seem to change sometimes in the depth of answer needed.

This is pretty brief, and you'll find you'll settle into your own patterns quickly (might end up being nothing like mine), but remember that you have a huge amount of time. Just stay organised and on top of things in fifth year (like homework, projects etc) and you'll be ahead of 95% of the country. Best of luck and just take it easy, you don't wanna burn out

Accounting- just keep doing questions. There is no other way of studying than practicing questions. A lot of the questions are very similar year after year so you just need to do a load of exam papers.

Maths- much like accounting it's all about practice, practice, practice. I would advise you to concentrate on algebra for fifth year. You'll find that most questions on the paper involve algebra at some point so you need to be very comfortable with it.

Just regarding maths, I would definitely familiarise yourself with the exam questions as early as you can. I left it till 6th year, maybe even the middle of 6th year to try get to used to them. I definitely believe I could have been so much better at Maths if I had just given more time to the exam questions. Also foor some, it will take a lot longer for things to click in maths so do be practising questions when you have some material covered. In 5th year. Honestly just stay on-top of everything for 5th year. I found 5th year workload at the start much harder then 6th year at the start, because it was really such a giant leap from TY..

Regarding biology, keep up the learning every day. Your teacher will probably drill this notion into your brain anyway from the first day. Very important cause the course it far too big to leave until the last minute.

As others say, get your own work area. Depending on your subjects, I did use the internet to help me in my research e.g art history essays so you might need a computer/laptop. Make timetable, e.g I'll start at 5.30 and finish at around 8.30, list subjects and how much time for each. Over the two years you'll discover exactly what methods work best for you, how you learn quicker. I found colouring terms really helpful! Though I only figured this out at the last minute so !:P

I'd focus on 6 HL subjects. Stick with them all for 5th year, but at the end of the year I'd drop one to OL, or sooner if you make your mind up.

I did 8 subjects this year, 6 HL and 2 OL, and I think that doing 7HL would be more difficult. Drop your worst, or the one you're least interested in

Yeah, if you're a good student you'll probably have to insist on dropping. One of my friends was A1 standard in Irish but hated the language , pretty sure he had to go to the principal to be allowed drop, as his HL teacher kept delaying him. You've to talk to the OL teacher too obviously