Going into 5th year in 2012

ElizabethM

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to boards.ie. I'm going into 5th year this September and I was just wondering about subjects. I'm doing ...

Irish (higher)
English (higher)
Maths (ordinary)
History (higher)
Home Economics (higher)
Biology (higher)
French (higher)

Is anyone else doing similar subjects? I was wondering how these subjects were and what kind of things I would be doing in them.

Thanks

MegGustaa

ElizabethM wrote: »

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to boards.ie. I'm going into 5th year this September and I was just wondering about subjects. I'm doing ...

Irish (higher)
English (higher)
Maths (ordinary)
History (higher)
Home Economics (higher)
Biology (higher)
French (higher)

Is anyone else doing similar subjects? I was wondering how these subjects were and what kind of things I would be doing in them.

Thanks

I just finished 5th Year and of the subjects you're taking I do English, Irish, History, Biology and French (I do HL Maths)

The stuff you'll do in English will vary depending on your teacher and school. In 5th Year, you'll most likely study Macbeth, at least 2 poets (we did three), and probably at least one of your comparative texts (you do three in total, usually one is a film; we are studying Wuthering Heights, How Many Miles To Babylon? and The Constant Gardener (film)). We also did a fair amount of work on Paper 1, which is comprehension and composition. It's harder to quantify that work but like we were given an essay off exam papers every month in 5th Year. For us, 5th Year was about covering the texts and 6th Year will be more focused on exam questions and technique but your teacher may do something different. Whatever you do, spend time on English consistently through 5th Year, it'll stand to you later.

Irish is nice for the Leaving. We did mostly poetry and prose, An Triail, oral work (40% of the LC Grade!), comprehensions and essay writing in 5th Year. The new syllabus is rather manageable, but then again I'm not the worst at Irish either. Others might readily disagree with me :P

History is a lot of work. The Leaving Cert exam is mostly essay questions and I think I wrote in the region of 15 4-6 page essays for History in 5th Year. The biggest differences between JC and LC with History are that your topics are much more focused; you study a much shorter time period (eg Dictatorship and Democracy 1920-45) but in far greater detail. You're also expected to write in a lot of detail on the topics in the exam, and the questions are more specific. There's none of the 'write an account of a reformer' stuff - it's all the 'why's and 'how's and 'to what extent's. There's more analysis involved! You'll also have to do a special research essay on a chosen topic yourself (20% of the grade) at some point. Your teacher may introduce it in 5th Year, you might be expected to start it in 5th Year, but it doesn't need to be done until like April of 6th Year!

Biology is basically like the biology section of JC Science but in much greater detail. In 5th Year you'll probably do Ecology, Food, Cell Biology, and Genetics (which is a huge topic). There's experiments like in Junior Cert, and basically a lot of learning off! Not the worst subject by any means.

French is really the same as JC, just with longer written pieces and obviously more oral work. The topics are broader and in more detail, but in general it's just like learning topics and writing about them.

Enjoy 5th Year...it's a lot of work but if you can keep on top of it, not the worst year.

ElizabethM

Hey, thank you for all the tips! I really appreciate it. I'm a bit nervous, but I suppose its the same going into any year. I guess I'll just try and work to the best of my ability! Thank you! x

siobhanod93

Hi there!

I did the exact same subjects as you're planing on doing, (except I did HL Maths). Just finished my LC last week!

Seeing as English has been covered in good detail, I'll skip that one!

Irish is a lovely course! 40% for your oral is huge and the poems and prós that are given are short and simple. We did "A Thig Ná Tit Orm" for the book which was very entertaining

I can't really say much for the maths except that you'll be pretty much immersed in the project maths side of things, except by the time your LC comes around, I'm sure they will have it sorted out, instead of the mess that it is now! :rolleyes:

History - I was terrible at it, I had a rubbish teacher. I did a good project so hopefully that will stand to me in August

Home Ec is a great subject! It covers such a broad range from Food Science, Food Commodities (Meat, fish, eggs, dairy etc), Food Legislation, Food Law and Microbiology.
Then there is the resourse section which is consumer studies, resource management and appliances such as the microwave and the kettle.
You then have the Social section which is about marriage and the family.
The final section is the elective of either household, textiles or social studies. It varies from school to school but we did social elective and I personally hated it!
In 5th year you also do your food journals. Here you are given 'tasks' such as cook for the elderly or show the properties of eggs. You then have to write about them under certain headings. Do it well and its 20% done and a burden gone for 6th year as they are corrected in November 6th year

Biology is just a detailed JC Biology syllabus. Learn what you do in class well when yer doing it and it'll be a breeze when revising it

French is pretty much like the JC too with the Oral added to it

If you do your work in 5th year, life will be easier in 6th year! Trust me! You will be so thankful to yourself when you're revising! Good Luck!!

ElizabethM

siobhanod93 wrote: »

Hi there!

I did the exact same subjects as you're planing on doing, (except I did HL Maths). Just finished my LC last week!

Seeing as English has been covered in good detail, I'll skip that one!

Irish is a lovely course! 40% for your oral is huge and the poems and prós that are given are short and simple. We did "A Thig Ná Tit Orm" for the book which was very entertaining

I can't really say much for the maths except that you'll be pretty much immersed in the project maths side of things, except by the time your LC comes around, I'm sure they will have it sorted out, instead of the mess that it is now! :rolleyes:

History - I was terrible at it, I had a rubbish teacher. I did a good project so hopefully that will stand to me in August

Home Ec is a great subject! It covers such a broad range from Food Science, Food Commodities (Meat, fish, eggs, dairy etc), Food Legislation, Food Law and Microbiology.
Then there is the resourse section which is consumer studies, resource management and appliances such as the microwave and the kettle.
You then have the Social section which is about marriage and the family.
The final section is the elective of either household, textiles or social studies. It varies from school to school but we did social elective and I personally hated it!
In 5th year you also do your food journals. Here you are given 'tasks' such as cook for the elderly or show the properties of eggs. You then have to write about them under certain headings. Do it well and its 20% done and a burden gone for 6th year as they are corrected in November 6th year

Biology is just a detailed JC Biology syllabus. Learn what you do in class well when yer doing it and it'll be a breeze when revising it

French is pretty much like the JC too with the Oral added to it

If you do your work in 5th year, life will be easier in 6th year! Trust me! You will be so thankful to yourself when you're revising! Good Luck!!

Thank you so much for all your help! It is appreciated. I'm skipping TY and I was even a little overwhelmed trying to study for the Junior Cert and everything for that - so yes I will definitely try and keep ahead of things while I am in 5th year. Thanks for all the advice! Its nice to hear it from other students rather than teachers etc. x

amyleaving

I think everything has really been covered already :P but i did all those subjects in the leaving last week except history good choices :P so if you have any questions? home ec was my favourite subject! and i just started biology in fifth year i liked it too

ElizabethM

amyleaving wrote: »

I think everything has really been covered already :P but i did all those subjects in the leaving last week except history good choices :P so if you have any questions? home ec was my favourite subject! and i just started biology in fifth year i liked it too

Do you do alot of cooking in Home Economics? because I did Home Ec for my Junior Cert and I didn't enjoy all the cooking. Thanks x

silversky

ElizabethM wrote: »

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to boards.ie. I'm going into 5th year this September and I was just wondering about subjects. I'm doing ...

Irish (higher)
English (higher)
Maths (ordinary)
History (higher)
Home Economics (higher)
Biology (higher)
French (higher)

Is anyone else doing similar subjects? I was wondering how these subjects were and what kind of things I would be doing in them.

Thanks

Ha! Did all the same subjects as you. Thankfully finished now (just under a week ago with History as my last exam)

I'll skip to the choice subjects since all the core subjects are described relatively well.


The only choice subject I ended up being happy with choosing was biology. I love Biology and if you have a good, enthusiastic teacher you'll do fine. It's a broad course but everything isn't covered in too much detail so it'll be fine to learn off. Just remember to learn your notes every night, that is so important, especially revision wise for the LC (everything comes back so easily if you do it night by night). Oh experiments are easy enough too. Good revision book is the folens one.



I love history and I came out with an A in it in the junior cert but the difference is huge in comparison to LC history and JC history- be wary of that. There is a huge amount to learn on the course and the essays are difficult to condense especially at the start. The most difficult thing isn't even learning the essays off because the topics are interesting, it's the timing issue in the exam. I struggled with the 40 mins per essay at the start but I kept practising it and finally perfected it. Oh and the research topic is interesting if you pick a topic you like.:)

Home Ec- if there was ever a subject I would tell you to avoid, home ec would be it. I LOVED home ec in the JC- learnt everything off by heart and did a really good project but I couldn't believe how vast the course was in 5th year. There is SO much to learn and in detail too for eg. vitamins and minerals, laws etc. I would deem home ec as the most difficult subject. On top of the broad course, you have to do a project- I found it interesting enough, but get your teacher to complete it in 5th year, to lessen the load in 6th year. My advice: make notes out from the start in 5th year and keep revising them.

Hope that helps.:)

amyleaving

No.. you have to cook for the journal which you write up, which is worth 20 percent but there are only 6 assignments so thats cooking 6 times otherwise its up to your teacher you may cook once or twice for fun but thats it, a lot less cooking than junior cert so i'd say you will like that

lady365

hey just finished the leaving cert last week and I did Home Ec, Biology, French (O), Maths (O) Irish (H).
Home ec is a lot of learning so put your head down in 5th yr.... Also i have a lot of notes that I could type up and send it to u if you want?????

By far Biology was the easiest exam, learn the unit 1/2 really well and you will be fine.

Did a good oral in irish so hopefully it will pull up my grade as i think i did bad in paper 1/2

Was doing higher level french until a month before the exams, was good at the reading comprehension but couldnt write an essay. Kept getting low marks in them so decided to drop down the level. Pass french is simple hoping for an A+!

Maths project maths paper 2 was hard, its like doing an english paper!!! Paper 1 was fine....

Best of Luck With the leaving cert and if you want to pick up an extra subject do Business -easy one!! plus ive loads of powerpoints for most chapters!! enjoy!!!!

ElizabethM

silversky wrote: »

Ha! Did all the same subjects as you. Thankfully finished now (just under a week ago with History as my last exam)

I'll skip to the choice subjects since all the core subjects are described relatively well.


The only choice subject I ended up being happy with choosing was biology. I love Biology and if you have a good, enthusiastic teacher you'll do fine. It's a broad course but everything isn't covered in too much detail so it'll be fine to learn off. Just remember to learn your notes every night, that is so important, especially revision wise for the LC (everything comes back so easily if you do it night by night). Oh experiments are easy enough too. Good revision book is the folens one.



I love history and I came out with an A in it in the junior cert but the difference is huge in comparison to LC history and JC history- be wary of that. There is a huge amount to learn on the course and the essays are difficult to condense especially at the start. The most difficult thing isn't even learning the essays off because the topics are interesting, it's the timing issue in the exam. I struggled with the 40 mins per essay at the start but I kept practising it and finally perfected it. Oh and the research topic is interesting if you pick a topic you like.:)

Home Ec- if there was ever a subject I would tell you to avoid, home ec would be it. I LOVED home ec in the JC- learnt everything off by heart and did a really good project but I couldn't believe how vast the course was in 5th year. There is SO much to learn and in detail too for eg. vitamins and minerals, laws etc. I would deem home ec as the most difficult subject. On top of the broad course, you have to do a project- I found it interesting enough, but get your teacher to complete it in 5th year, to lessen the load in 6th year. My advice: make notes out from the start in 5th year and keep revising them.

Hope that helps.:)

Thanks for your help! I will try my best to keep on top of Home Ec. The teachers in my school are quite good and friendly, so that should make it less of a pain. I knew next year would be hard, but I'm willing to try my best and learn as I go along. I learned from doing the JC that learning everything close to the exam is a bit too much, so I'm going to learn as I go along, even though I will probably hate it. Its worth it though. Thank you so much! x

ElizabethM

amyleaving wrote: »

No.. you have to cook for the journal which you write up, which is worth 20 percent but there are only 6 assignments so thats cooking 6 times otherwise its up to your teacher you may cook once or twice for fun but thats it, a lot less cooking than junior cert so i'd say you will like that

That's good to hear! I don't mind a bit of cooking. I actually love cooking, its just your under pressure in school, as you have a time limit and other classes to get to! Thanks for your help x

ElizabethM

lady365 wrote: »

hey just finished the leaving cert last week and I did Home Ec, Biology, French (O), Maths (O) Irish (H).
Home ec is a lot of learning so put your head down in 5th yr.... Also i have a lot of notes that I could type up and send it to u if you want?????

By far Biology was the easiest exam, learn the unit 1/2 really well and you will be fine.

Did a good oral in irish so hopefully it will pull up my grade as i think i did bad in paper 1/2

Was doing higher level french until a month before the exams, was good at the reading comprehension but couldnt write an essay. Kept getting low marks in them so decided to drop down the level. Pass french is simple hoping for an A+!

Maths project maths paper 2 was hard, its like doing an english paper!!! Paper 1 was fine....

Best of Luck With the leaving cert and if you want to pick up an extra subject do Business -easy one!! plus ive loads of powerpoints for most chapters!! enjoy!!!!

Thanks, but I wouldn't want to bother you with typing up the notes - I'll see how it goes in school, but thanks anyways. I've always loved French and found it to be ok. So hopefully I'll be ok next year! I really hate maths, always been bad at it. That's why I'm doing ordinary..I guess its just something you have to stick through haha. Thank you so much for you help! x

laylaax

Hi , Im new to boards also , and i am also going int fifth year and i am quite nervous , i get that you have to work and do your homework but what i don't understand is the note taking! i have talked to people who have taken notes and find them brilliant but i have no idea how to .. i no its probably stupid but i dont no if i should do it after each subject or where i should store them or like should i have them in a big folder .. if ya get me?! i was thinking of getting a large folder and dividing them up subject by subject but then i will be afraid that i will fall behind or write to much, i was also wondering whether i should get the revision books which would cut down a lot on note taking.. but i have been told that they are not great and aren't as detailed as the ones for jc(which i found to be great!)..it would be a great help if someone could reply as it would put my mind at ease and if anyone would like to give extra tips on note taking!
oh and btw my subjects are :
English H
Irish H
Maths H ( most likely gonna drop to pass though )
French H
Biology H
Geo H
Business H

Thanks somuch

lady365

ElizabethM wrote: »

Thanks, but I wouldn't want to bother you with typing up the notes - I'll see how it goes in school, but thanks anyways. I've always loved French and found it to be ok. So hopefully I'll be ok next year! I really hate maths, always been bad at it. That's why I'm doing ordinary..I guess its just something you have to stick through haha. Thank you so much for you help! x

let me know throughout the yr if u need any notes and il try my best for u!! x