English Paper 1 in May?

MaltEagle

Is it true or definately happening that next year's leaving cert English Paper 1 will be happening on some Saturday in May?

ryanairzer

It has not been confirmed.

I'm guessing we will be sitting our paper 1 in June 2008.

Slippin Jimmy

MaltEagle wrote:

Is it true or definately happening that next year's leaving cert English Paper 1 will be happening on some Saturday in May?

First I heard of this??? Any info appriciated. Sure we will probably be just doing it in June anyway same as all other years, don't see any need to change it tbh.

SligoBrewer

Duffff-Man wrote:

First I heard of this??? Any info appriciated. Sure we will probably be just doing it in June anyway same as all other years, don't see any need to change it tbh.

it just spreads out the pressure..
i hope my paper 1 is in june 09.
why should we change it?

to have people stressing themselves needlessly in may as well as june

JSK 252

SligoBrewer wrote:

it just spreads out the pressure..
i hope my paper 1 is in june 09.
why should we change it?

to have people stressing themselves needlessly in may as well as june

Because students would only be under half the pressure as they would have paper 1 out of the way and would have the time and energy to concentrate on Paper 2 which requires loads of writing compared to Paper 1. English teachers in my school would love this arrangement as when Paper 1 is out of the way, all attention can be put on Paper 2 for the last month of school.

The exam timetable would also be made very flexible with Paper 1 in English and Irish being done in May. However the point could also be made that why not extend the exams in June by a couple of days so that students are doing Paper 1 and 2 on different days instead of doing Paper 1 in May and Paper 2 in June.

My teachers have said it that money and resources have nothing what so ever to do as a factor of putting the exams on in May. The government for christ sake raked out millions on the electronic voting system which has been discovered to have glitches. The government CAN afford it.

Slippin Jimmy

JSK 252 wrote:

Because students would only be under half the pressure as they would have paper 1 out of the way and would have the time and energy to concentrate on Paper 2 which requires loads of writing compared to Paper 1. English teachers in my school would love this arrangement as when Paper 1 is out of the way, all attention can be put on Paper 2 for the last month of school.

To be honest I would find it a lot more stressful doing it in May and then another in June. The way I look at it is, if I sit down and spend a lot of time studying for paper one in may, I will be only focusing on that paper and not on any of my other subjects till I got it over with. Then when it was over only have a short space of time to study for other subjects.

Mars Bar

If its all talk now i don't its going to be ready in time for may, adminstration changes and stuff(?) according to one of our teachers. Being a repeat, i'd find it odd to change this year, i hope its left the way it is.

lemansky

It is ridiculous having both papers on the same day, and to change that situation would only do good regardless of when they put paper 1 on.

From a student's point of view there are no downsides to having it in May.

ryanairzer

Christ go get real problems. 6 hours of writing in one day isn't torture.

lemansky

Well for some people it might in fact be a real problem.

If it isn't so bad then we wouldn't be discussing this proposal as nobody would be complaining.

ryanairzer

People complain about everything tho. The trick is to weed out that actual problems from the bullsh1t, and having to write for 6 hours - not a problem tbh.

Quite frankly, I can't help but feel jealous of people that consider two exams in one day to be something worth twisting their knickers over.

lemansky

Within the exam system, 6 hours of English is a big problem.

Give me 3 hours of accounting and 3 hours of physics on one day and I'm fine, give me 6 hours of English and that just becomes a pain.The only problem I had personally was the fact that my hand was amazingly sore, but you work through that pain barrier. Then when you get home you're pissed off after all the writing and just really aren't bothered to study. It doesn't set you up well for the rest of the exams, so it would psychologically be better for many who can't cope that well for paper 1 to be on a different day, and for those who can cope it would be a nice break as well.

Xhristy

This post has been deleted.

spurious

Xhristy wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Nobody had been told because nothing has been agreed.

AFAIK there are to be meetings in October about it. As others have said, it's unlikely to go ahead (if at all) in 2008 - possibly 2009 if arrangements can be made.

Should the English correctors take time off in May to correct these early exams? Should the papers just sit the extra month in Athlone? It may not seem it, but there are a number of security implications if papers are released early. It either means the exams sitting in various Principal's offices for a whole month before being used (as they are currently sent out in one or two large cases per centre) or should there be a second box delivered after the English, containing all the other papers. This in itself will double costs for that action. Financial costs are always a major factor with DES/SEC.

Slippin Jimmy

lemansky wrote:

Within the exam system, 6 hours of English is a big problem.

Give me 3 hours of accounting and 3 hours of physics on one day and I'm fine, give me 6 hours of English and that just becomes a pain.The only problem I had personally was the fact that my hand was amazingly sore, but you work through that pain barrier. Then when you get home you're pissed off after all the writing and just really aren't bothered to study. It doesn't set you up well for the rest of the exams, so it would psychologically be better for many who can't cope that well for paper 1 to be on a different day, and for those who can cope it would be a nice break as well.

You have made good points there. I can see it being a pain writing for six hours, but yeah we do have a bit of a break in between. But still six hours of the one subject just gets boaring so to speak. It doesn't really bother me when we do it, if it's all in the one day or if it's split over two days.

Im sure we would have been told about it by now if anything was going to change. The first I heard of it waqs on this thread, and im sure that not all students are members of boards:D , so the school would definetly have to inform us of what is happening. The school term is very long this year, so we would get a good bit more revision done instead of doing the paper in May. Maybe in future years this could be a good idea, there are pros and cons to it I guess.

Naikon

spurious wrote:

Nobody had been told because nothing has been agreed.

AFAIK there are to be meetings in October about it. As others have said, it's unlikely to go ahead (if at all) in 2008 - possibly 2009 if arrangements can be made.

Knowing the SEC, these "arrangements" will be endlessly discussed but probably never implemented in practice.
Same crap every year about negotiation's relating to students, timetables and assessment every year:mad:

mahamageehad

TBH i think doing the english paper in may would be an absolute disaster. :eek: I can see the point of not actualy having english 1 and 2 on the same day but in fairness the main thing with english is the sheer amount you have to write not the actual study because you can't really cram or study much for english.

Why cant the english irish and maths be way spread out through the exams which stops the whole problem of people being so tired after the first 3 days that everything is downhill after there

E92

May I give ye a little bit of advice as someone who just did the LC this year: it will make no difference whether they are all on in June or not. You're going to be stressed out when the time coimes.

Ye're gonna be knackered after day 1. So will everybody else. The Leaving Cert IS stressful, life is stressful. So what? You're all in the same boat.

Those who will be the most stressed out will be those do did SFA all the year, and all of a sudden realise in May that they have a leaving Cert to do and will belatedly decide they have to do something.

Start now, revise EVERY subject for just 20 mins a week every week. Don't do it every week, take 1 week off for Christmas, and another at Easter. Study Saturday morning, go out Saturday night, enjoy the weekends and make the most of them. The main thing is to make sure that for 1 day of the week, you do nothing whatsoever related to school be it revision or homework etc.

DON'T cram, and DON'T panic. I know everyone says it, but you acually do learn nothing by cramming. I know, I've done it and it hasn't worked! Anyone who says it does is a liar IMO. If you do a bit now, you can enjoy the summer weather and just do a bit of revision every day while the fools who did nothing will be sweating it out in May when you can be relaxed because you know you know the stuff. What you've learned over the year won't suddenly disappear under the nerves! If you've revised well enough, you won't be thrown by anything, and you will be surprised at how calm you will be on the day of the exam.

If you've the work put in, you won't care in the slightest whether the exam is in May or in August, the examiners will see your ability when they get your paper and you will get the much deserved reward.

Anyway, I can honestly say that if/when you go to college, the first thing they will all tell you is that your leaving counts for absolutely nothing. It is merely your admission ticket to getting in.

After the euphoria of getting your LC results, you won't care after a few days about oh I should have gotten this in this subject and that in the other subject.

If you get what you want then that is all that will count. People have gotten 600 points in the LC and failed college exams!

What you get from your degree is far more important on your CV than your LC results.

JSK 252

E92 wrote:

May I give ye a little bit of advice as someone who just did the LC this year: it will make no difference whether they are all on in June or not. You're going to be stressed out when the time coimes.

Ye're gonna be knackered after day 1. So will everybody else. The Leaving Cert IS stressful, life is stressful. So what? You're all in the same boat.

Those who will be the most stressed out will be those do did SFA all the year, and all of a sudden realise in May that they have a leaving Cert to do and will belatedly decide they have to do something.

Start now, revise EVERY subject for just 20 mins a week every week. Don't do it every week, take 1 week off for Christmas, and another at Easter. Study Saturday morning, go out Saturday night, enjoy the weekends and make the most of them. The main thing is to make sure that for 1 day of the week, you do nothing whatsoever related to school be it revision or homework etc.

DON'T cram, and DON'T panic. I know everyone says it, but you acually do learn nothing by cramming. I know, I've done it and it hasn't worked! Anyone who says it does is a liar IMO. If you do a bit now, you can enjoy the summer weather and just do a bit of revision every day while the fools who did nothing will be sweating it out in May when you can be relaxed because you know you know the stuff. What you've learned over the year won't suddenly disappear under the nerves! If you've revised well enough, you won't be thrown by anything, and you will be surprised at how calm you will be on the day of the exam.

If you've the work put in, you won't care in the slightest whether the exam is in May or in August, the examiners will see your ability when they get your paper and you will get the much deserved reward.

Anyway, I can honestly say that if/when you go to college, the first thing they will all tell you is that your leaving counts for absolutely nothing. It is merely your admission ticket to getting in.

After the euphoria of getting your LC results, you won't care after a few days about oh I should have gotten this in this subject and that in the other subject.

If you get what you want then that is all that will count. People have gotten 600 points in the LC and failed college exams!

What you get from your degree is far more important on your CV than your LC results.

I have never really thought of it that way but your kinda spot on. Will I do better in paper 1 if I do it in May or June? Im always thinking of the "what if" factor with regards exams but I must also remember that were all in the same boat in 2009 ( for me anyway) so nobody is singled out. The only reason that I thought that the exams in May would be a good idea is just the fact that it might increase my potential to do better overall in the exams. Its kind of a tough question.......

About the cramming and that rubbish your on the ball. As I have said on various occasions nobody does well in exams if they cram or do no work during the year. Its just not possible. Study is paramount and is the be of and END of. There isnt any other simple way. it really pisses me off when I see those thick stupid D4s who say "oh my good , I got the A1, with no study" and even down here in Cork when you see those Scoil Mhuire dunces and all those posh City schools with there egotistical, snobbish attitude to exams.

E92

JSK 252 wrote:

The only reason that I thought that the exams in May would be a good idea is just the fact that it might increase my potential to do better overall in the exams. Its kind of a tough question.......

Well it may increase the potential for everyone else too!

Thats the thing, people say that having an exam in May and having one of them out of the way will increase their ability to do better in English, but it does the same thing for everybody else too!

Its really of no benefit whatsoever to students whether they have them on in May or not, as the old saying goes: the cream will always rise to the top. In other words, as I said already, if you've put in the work, then you will do well.

Have a look at the Examiners Reports from the SEC. What you will notice is that the grades in practically every subject are verysimilar every single year. They only change when new courses are introduced as a rule.


If everyone does better, what they do is mark the papers tougher. Similarly if nobody does well, they mark it easy.

What would happen if the exam is in May is that people probably will go into the exam with a higher standard of English than the class of 07 but won't do any better results wise because the standard was better.

A case in point of this is the 07 LCHL Physics. Have a look at some of the threads on this board about it and how godawful the paper was and how they didn't understand the questions asked etc.

And then go to the threads where people gave their results and you will find that a lot of people said that they did a lot better than expected in Physics. Myself included, I got an A2. I took home the paper and added up the things I thought I got right, and I managed to come up with a C1 for myself.

I know this sounds like a weird thing to say, especially as I will never have to do the Leaving again, but if you're good at a subject, you should pray for a hard exam. If everyone finds it really hard, then they will mark it really easy, and they will literally throw away marks at times!

Have a look at the Honours Maths marking schemes.

It should be 10 for the a) part, 20 for the b) part and another 20 for the c) part.

If they don't follow this, then you can be sure that something was amiss in it.

Like some years they only give 15 for the c) part because people found it so difficult.
On the other hand, if students find a part too easy, they will do the same thing in reverse. So, if everybody gets an a) part right, they might very well reduce the a) part to 5 marks, assuming the rest of the question was ok.