Monsieur Folie's Study Log

Monsieur Folie

I suppose it's time I make one of these, might help to focus myself!

I'm John, 18, looking to do Science in Trinity in September. Have to get through the leaving first though! I'd be aiming for 550+, though I'll be happy so long as I get my course. Would be looking to score as highly as possible though, as money is a concern so a scholarship of some sort would really help me on way to third level.

My subjects & aims:
(ideal grade first, expected grade second!)
HL English - A1 - B1
HL Maths - A1 - B1
HL Biology - A1 - A1
HL Chemistry - A1 - A1
HL Physics - A1 - B1
HL Geography - A1 - A1
HL Music - B1 - B2
HL Applied Maths - B1 - C1
OL Irish - B1 - B1

So, fairly ambitious as you can see, and I haven't even started applied maths yet.

I know school tests aren't much of a benchmark and that it'll be the mocks that'll reveal where I truly am, but my points so far:

Christmas '11 - 565
Summer '12 - 545
October '12 - 595

I haven't really prepared adequately for the mocks, so I'm expecting a bit of a drop, but hopefully nothing I can't make back up!

I haven't done a whole lot today, but hopefully this thread will compel me to study so I'll have reason to post here. In fact, I might just go do a bit right now!

Monsieur Folie

Chemistry and Irish P1 mocks tomorrow so here is my prioritised and very optimistic list to try and run through tonight:

- Chemistry experiments (quick look over each, just to keep them fresh) (took longer than I envisioned!)
- Chemistry definitions
- Radioactivity
- History & Trends of Periodic Table
- Organic Reaction Schemes
- Oxidation/Reduction
- Equilibrium
- Irish essay phrases (Lá brea samhraidh a bhí ann! :P )
- Irish verbs

No time for any in depth study, just going to glance over as much as I can and try to soak it up!

Monsieur Folie

Feckin' Radioactivity came up! I should have looked over it.. Still think I managed an A though, we'll see.

Today I'm not going to do too much, since I've Saturday Study in the morning and I'll be studying all day Sunday. My Applied Maths book came in today so I'm going to have a look at it, see what I've gotten myself into!

- Physics Derivations
- Vectors

And if I get really into it I'll make a start on:
- Physics Experiments

Monsieur Folie

Physics cramming session today! Going to skim as many chapters as possible and do loads of exam questions.

Monsieur Folie

Did a good bit of Geography today and feeling fairly confident about it. Have English paper 2 tomorrow as well though, not quite as confident about that to be honest!

Monsieur Folie

I got my first result today. 98% in Chemistry, I was delighted! =D

aarond280

Which Physics mocks did you have ? Did you have the one with the experiment with the accleration due to gravity and if so what did you think of the exam

Monsieur Folie

aarond280 wrote: »

Which Physics mocks did you have ? Did you have the one with the experiment with the accleration due to gravity and if so what did you think of the exam

Yeah that was it! To be honest I found it fairly challenging but I put that partly down to being unprepared. I tackled the modern physics questions well but struggled with the stuff I haven't looked at since fifth year. Experiments were grand but the rest was tough! My whole class seemed to find it hard, and I'd say I might have gotten a B out of it, but I highly doubt I got an A, unless some of the stuff I wrote down was right by sheer luck.

aarond280

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

Yeah that was it! To be honest I found it fairly challenging but I put that partly down to being unprepared. I tackled the modern physics questions well but struggled with the stuff I haven't looked at since fifth year. Experiments were grand but the rest was tough! My whole class seemed to find it hard, and I'd say I might have gotten a B out of it, but I highly doubt I got an A, unless some of the stuff I wrote down was right by sheer luck.

The experiments weren't too bad, but section B was challenging, few people in the class found it hard, just making sure :P

Monsieur Folie

aarond280 wrote: »

The experiments weren't too bad, but section B was challenging, few people in the class found it hard, just making sure :P

Yeah it was definitely a tough test. Enough the resident maths/physics/applied maths whizz kid in my class found it tough so when I heard that I was relieved! I'm not sure what I'll get though. Our teachers mark mine and he's weirdly inconsistent with his marks. He could give you marks for something you shouldn't really be getting them for and at the same time you write out a perfectly good answer and get nothing. He's odd.

aarond280

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

Yeah it was definitely a tough test. Enough the resident maths/physics/applied maths whizz kid in my class found it tough so when I heard that I was relieved! I'm not sure what I'll get though. Our teachers mark mine and he's weirdly inconsistent with his marks. He could give you marks for something you shouldn't really be getting them for and at the same time you write out a perfectly good answer and get nothing. He's odd.

I do Applied maths and the mechanics questions were different than usuall, but sure I suppose better now than June

Monsieur Folie

aarond280 wrote: »

I do Applied maths and the mechanics questions were different than usuall, but sure I suppose better now than June

How do you find Applied Maths? I just started. I've a long road ahead of me!

aarond280

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

How do you find Applied Maths? I just started. I've a long road ahead of me!

I find it alright, I enjoy the subject. How are you settling into it, what questions do you plan to do ?

Monsieur Folie

aarond280 wrote: »

I find it alright, I enjoy the subject. How are you settling into it, what questions do you plan to do ?

So far I've only been doing vectors so I've yet to get into the juicy stuff! :P I have a friend helping me out and he suggested I go for 1,2,3,4,8,10 but if I get into it and find I have a preference for different questions I'll see. I need to get a move on though, I'm going to get into it over the mid term.

aarond280

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

So far I've only been doing vectors so I've yet to get into the juicy stuff! :P I have a friend helping me out and he suggested I go for 1,2,3,4,8,10 but if I get into it and find I have a preference for different questions I'll see. I need to get a move on though, I'm going to get into it over the mid term.

Well fair play for taking it up so late, I know its late but question 5 isn't bad its a similar question each year.

Monsieur Folie

aarond280 wrote: »

Well fair play for taking it up so late, I know its late but question 5 isn't bad its a similar question each year.

Yeah I'm going to look at them all and then pick the 6 ones I think I'd be best at. I don't think I'll have time to prepare a back up! I'd be delighted if I could come out of it with a B, but in reality I'm probably looking at a C starting so late!

aarond280

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

Yeah I'm going to look at them all and then pick the 6 ones I think I'd be best at. I don't think I'll have time to prepare a back up! I'd be delighted if I could come out of it with a B, but in reality I'm robably looking at a C starting so late!

Fair play

Monsieur Folie

Quite frighteningly this has not being updated all midterm on account of the fact I did no work all midterm. I did one Applied Maths Q1 question which is hardly substantial, and that's it. Hopefully some of my mocks are dismal, it might kick me up a gear.

Monsieur Folie

Getting back into the swing of things now. Have gotten a good few of my mocks back and so far I'm delighted with how I did. I was expecting worse!

Irish - 84% (OL) - 50 pts
Maths - 80% - 110 pts
Bio - 96% - 100 pts
Chem - 98% - 100 pts
Phy - 75% (my worst result so far but I can already see places that I can improve on so would be hoping to drag this up to an A) - 80 pts
Geog - 93% - 100 pts

Still waiting on English and Music and I didn't sit an Applied Maths mock as I would have catastrophically failed it so there was no point. So far, I believe, my points are 540 but that's using Irish, I'd be hoping that English and Music will be worth more than Irish and potentially Physics, which will bring me right up to my Leaving Cert target of 550+!

Now I just have to keep going, can't slack off. =P

Monsieur Folie

Spent the weekend doing a lot of Maths, Applied Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Realised that I've been doing very little English this year, and it's a subject I should be able to do well in. I'll wait for my mock to see what areas I need to focus in on, but I'm guessing it'll be comparative and poetry that need most work.

Monsieur Folie

Haven't had time to update this during the weekdays due to being bogged down with homework and study. Which I believe is probably a good thing. :P

I'm going to push my goal to 600+ purely to give me something to work towards. I don't think I'll get it, and I don't need it, but it's the only way to avoid complacency considering that I've been consistently hitting my 550+ target.

aarond280

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

Haven't had time to update this during the weekdays due to being bogged down with homework and study. Which I believe is probably a good thing. :P

I'm going to push my goal to 600+ purely to give me something to work towards. I don't think I'll get it, and I don't need it, but it's the only way to avoid complacency considering that I've been consistently hitting my 550+ target.

Fairly play

Monsieur Folie

All results back now (70% in music, not bad considering it felt like I royally messed up the listening paper).. Had a mock oral today too, asked at the end how I did, was told "ah you'd probably get about a C for that, few grammar mistakes that need to be worked on".. Not bad considering I hadn't prepared for it at all. It did show me that I will need to do a little bit of work on it before the real thing, to cement my pass. :P

I have made myself a 12 week program to take me from here to June. Every Sunday from now until the exams I'll be making a detailed plan of what to do the following week. Fell behind in the first week though due to feeling sick on Wednesday and Thursday though I'm recovered now and will catch up over the long weekend. What really struck me when I started to plan is that time just really isn't on our side here.

Funnily enough, my main motivation at the moment is a friend of mine who is about on equal ground with myself. He's now aiming for 600+ in his Leaving and I'm determined to match and/or beat him. It might be petty (okay, it is petty :P) but sure if it get's me studying it can't be a bad thing! He's better at the maths though so I could lose out there if I don't push for the A1...

Monsieur Folie

I definitely didn't repeat my mocks anyway. I have a knack for predicting my results after sitting a test and usually hitting them spot on. But a few of my papers were ambiguous and where usually I can predict my points to within a 10-15 point margin of error overall, this time my margin is a whopping 70 so my results will be a surprise this time, for better or for worse!

Either way, I will make my pessimistic & optimistic predictions here. (excluding Irish because it's OL and I couldn't care less how I did so long as I passed).

Optimistic
English - 80%+ - 85
Maths - 80%+ - 110
Biology - 90%+ - 100
Chemistry - 90%+ - 100
Physics - 80%+ - 85
Geography - 90%+ - 100
Music - [yet to sit, will edit when I do]
Applied Maths - [yet to sit, will edit when I do]
Running total: 580

Pessimistic
English - 70%+ - 75
Maths - 70%+ - 100
Biology - 80%+ - 85
Chemistry - 80%+ - 85
Physics - 70%+ - 75
Geography - 80%+ - 85
Music - [yet to sit, will edit when I do]
Applied Maths - [yet to sit, will edit when I do]
Running total: 510

So if I average the two I'm looking at about 545. Disappointed with that but I only have myself to blame, I didn't put in enough work when it needed to be done, and was relying too much on study I'd done for the mocks to get my by. I flew threw all of the straightforward stuff, but anything there was a quirk in a paper I struggled to recall finer details. If only the mocks had been the real thing I'd be set!

Then again, I may be pleasantly surprised come August, I would be delighted if I hit the 580 that my optimistic predictions say that I will. It's still 20 off my ultimate goal which was to hit 600, but sure, that was nothing but a personal goal and it won't affect my course choices or anything.

Stay tuned for my actual results, after which you can all laugh at me for getting my predictions so wrong, because I'm not confident in them this time at all. I'm predicting 545 btw, which is averaging my very worst case & very bast case scenario. :P

Note: This may change slightly if I hit a blinder of a music test, but that's unlikely. Even more unlikely is that I might do well in App. Maths (I won't) but I will make changes as appropriate. :P

Monsieur Folie

Alright, so my actual results:

English - HL - A1
Irish - OL - A2
Maths - HL - A2
Biology - HL - A1
Chemistry - HL - A2
Physics - HL - B1
Geography - HL - A2
Music - HL - B1
App Maths - HL - D1

Did better than my optimistic predictions in English (was shocked) and Maths, did worse in Chemistry and Geography (my two best subs, disappointed!) and did exactly as I expected to in Biology and Physics for a total of 580. Considering I predicted 545 in the end that's brilliant! Enough for my course but 20 off my personal goal of 600. Still, I'd be an ass if I complained. :P

Oh, and the thing that excited me most when I first glanced down on the paper (besides that shock A1 in the test I didn't prepare for) was that I passed Applied Maths! I only answered 3 and a half questions, so for me to get a D1 means that most nearly everything I wrote down was perfect, I just didn't write enough.