Leaving cert advice

Gf13

I'm sure it's been asked many times before!

I'm a 5th year student in a DEIS school.
I f**ked my junior cert up!

How much study should I do this year if I'm looking for 400+ points?


Subjects I do :
Ordinary irish (only want a d1)
Ordinary maths
Higher english
Higher history
Higher geography
Higher biology
Higher art

Any notes on any subjects would be brilliant !
Or
Websites etc.

What are the best revision books for the leaving cert subjects?

And any stories of your leaving cert experience?

Student007

A lot of extra work during the summer could get you up to speed. But the difficulty is to be motivated to study when you can be doing so many other things...

Gf13

Best revision books?
Any notes?
And any tips for studying?

decisions

Exam Papers, Exam Papers and Exam Papers. Be totally exam focused from the start.

Kerrileydon

I'm doing my leaving cert in June and if you want advice, start learning poets and Macbeth this year (quotes,characters etc) i have completly abbandoned English and am regretting it big time now!

Personally I feel them revision books are a complete waste of time! Try and learn a chapter in biology (eg cell division) and then go to the begining of your exam papers and see all the years that cell division has came up! Have a hardback for each subject and start doing exam questions, it's the only way you know what comes up! Once you've done the question, look up the answers on examinations.ie and see if your right!

I've just finished my oral also! Irish is 40% now, so if you want advice for them get a seperate paperback copy and dedicate a page to each differnt topic (family,home town,school etc). It will make your life so much easier next year as you'll know where to start learning!!

jessiblah

For Irish I'd recommend having answers written out for questions, but not learning them. Have a seperate list of all the possible questions, and just practice answering them.

I wasn't stressed at all with either of my orals as I just practiced answering questions naturally, rather than having set out answers. I got like 95% in my October oral and like 83% in my mock oral from doing that. If you learn the answers, you won't come across as natural, and you will be freaked out that you might forget something as there's so much to learn. It's easy to forget a word and have your whole sentence ruined. So just even get together with a friend and ask each other the questions. You'll improve with fluency over time, and it leaves you better ready to answer any unprepared questions.

By the way, my point of having a written out answer but not learning it, is to have an idea of what you should say. For example, for "where do you live?" in English you would say "I live in ___," but in Irish you should go into the area, facilities etc. By having answers written out, it'll remind you of different things you should bring up.

biohaiid

Thats kinda like the 'How long is a piece of string?' question - it can't really be answered.
Everyone learns at different rates and in different ways, so I dont think anyone can reccommend you a certain amount of time to study to achieve a certain grade.
I wouldn't sit the LC in that mindset anyway - you know, going in there with the idea of only wanting to achieve a certain grade.
If a course requirement is, say a B1 in English, I wouldnt try and just get a B1. You could be robbing yourself of valuable points by studying a few extra hours. Study as much as possible, do focus on your strong points, but dont limit yourself either.

Gf13

But any revsion books worth it?

jessiblah

I recommend Keynotes for English for the poetry and play.
Revise Wise for Biology is great, but I really like it as it's written by the same guy as my actual book. It's just a condensed version of my book.
For the rest of your subjects I've no idea though!

Gf13

jessiblah wrote: »

I recommend Keynotes for English for the poetry and play.
Revise Wise for Biology is great, but I really like it as it's written by the same guy as my actual book. It's just a condensed version of my book.
For the rest of your subjects I've no idea though!

Yeah I was thinking of keynotes for English and revise wise for biology.
Has the rw biology helped you much?

Gf13

Does anyone think I should do light study during August before 6th year?

jessiblah

The biology is very helpful to carry around, for babysitting and stuff. It's also helpful in that it cuts out a lot of the uncessary details, so yeah it's been quite helpful.

I'd recommend you get started studying as early as possible, but I was super motivated, studied throughout fifth year and all that, and yet I couldn't bring myself to study after June until mid-September. Do as much as you can, but just don't demotivate yourself or burn yourself out.

Gf13

Well I'm definitely getting the revise wise.
I got the key notes today and it looks good

My teachers say revision books aren't needed but I think they're just saying that because they don't want people to spend their money.

Yeah I've only started to study for the summer exams in the past week so hopefully theses will help!

Another question. I bought exam skills for geography, it covers 2012 but I'm just curious if I should return it and wait for the one that covers 2013?

randylonghorn

"How much study?" is fair enough, but the quality of the study is much more important. Sitting down "studying" for 4 hours and spending half of it day-dreaming or on facebook or staring blankly at the page isn't much good ... you'll feel just as tired at the end as if you had actually done 4 hours, but with little enough achieved and what's more without the sense of accomplishment which will give you a bit of energy and motivation to face into it the next evening.

Whether it's homework or actual study, tackle it in blocks or slots of 25-30 minutes each, give it your full attention, and take a 5 minute break in between each block. Get up and move around, get a breath of fresh air, cuddle the dog, whatever. You'll achieve more in 4 or 5 blocks like that than by sitting in your room "studying" from 6 until bedtime!

Gf13

randylonghorn wrote: »

"How much study?" is fair enough, but the quality of the study is much more important. Sitting down "studying" for 4 hours and spending half of it day-dreaming or on facebook or staring blankly at the page isn't much good ... you'll feel just as tired at the end as if you had actually done 4 hours, but with little enough achieved and what's more without the sense of accomplishment which will give you a bit of energy and motivation to face into it the next evening.

Whether it's homework or actual study, tackle it in blocks or slots of 25-30 minutes each, give it your full attention, and take a 5 minute break in between each block. Get up and move around, get a breath of fresh air, cuddle the dog, whatever. You'll achieve more in 4 or 5 blocks like that than by sitting in your room "studying" from 6 until bedtime!

I don't study by time...
But i always end up doing hour blocks because I find it hard to stop half way trough a chapter
I use a study time timetable but don't but times on it. Like say on a Monday, ill study macbeth quotes etc. then do a chapter in biology. But I always end up doung hour blocks+

I think I've gotten all the advice I need on studying so can people recommend revsion books md their experience of them! Cheers.