Summer ::: -> What to revise/study

Jimmyie

Hello,

Next year will be my last year, and I would like to catch up. What can I do this summer to help revise?. Anything specific please?.

Thank you.

typicalstudent

What subjects do you do?

Jimmyie

typicalstudent wrote: »

What subjects do you do?

English,Maths,Geography,Business,Biology and a couple of others.

May I please ask, what exactly should I dig deep into?. Such as just reading the text books, or are there other certain activities I should be doing.

Thank you very very much.

chatterboxxx95

Honestly; nothing!! Go and enjoy your summer, believe me Leaving Cert Year is difficult enough without starting early, you'll have yourself burnt out by Christmas. If you know something well going into 6th year I personally think its harder to keep that standard up and you dont have enough time to constantly revise everything in 6th year. the leaving cert is a marathon, you can't study/ retain knowledge at the rate of a sprint all year, you have to build, so dont start the sprint part too early, it'll do far more harm than good.
if you really feel that you must do something then maybe read over your english texts or something

bb1234567

Dont do anything over the summer just enjoy it. Youll have more than enough time during 6th year and youll already be sick of studying by september if you start now. dont do anything trust me. well maybe you could practise your language (french,german) that would be an advantage but apart from that dont do study!!

Jimmyie

bb1234567 wrote: »

Dont do anything over the summer just enjoy it. Youll have more than enough time during 6th year and youll already be sick of studying by september if you start now. dont do anything trust me. well maybe you could practise your language (french,german) that would be an advantage but apart from that dont do study!!

no thank you.

chatterboxxx95 wrote: »

Honestly; nothing!! Go and enjoy your summer, believe me Leaving Cert Year is difficult enough without starting early, you'll have yourself burnt out by Christmas. If you know something well going into 6th year I personally think its harder to keep that standard up and you dont have enough time to constantly revise everything in 6th year. the leaving cert is a marathon, you can't study/ retain knowledge at the rate of a sprint all year, you have to build, so dont start the sprint part too early, it'll do far more harm than good.
if you really feel that you must do something then maybe read over your english texts or something

I would like to study this year please.

but if that's the case of leaving cert, why is it really done like that?. (education wise). ???? if the people at the top (in charge of this) are so "educated" then why don't they use their "educated" brain to come improve the system ???

jamo2oo9

As the above posters have said, do nothing.

5th Year Summer holidays is the time where you do absolutely sweet fúck all. I'm mean, nothing. Lie in till 3pm, go out for a few drinks with friends, do something mad or something like that because there isn't going to be much room for activities from January onwards.

If you want, you could practise your language speaking skills in French and Irish. Those will come handy when it comes to your orals. But for others, do nothing. Forget about it and wait till September and start small like 1hr of study each night after homework.

bb1234567

Jimmyie wrote: »

no thank you.

Look I was an over zealous fifth year too I thought I would study all summer long and get 625 points but it doesnt work like that youll get more benefit from starting studying in september and just work hard during the year not this summer. 9 months from september to june goes by slower than you think you can get a lot done in that time. 5th year summer is for enjoyment

Badwulf

Lets put it this way, this is your last summer before you start really hunkering down and basically throw your life away, enjoy it while it last. Even if your going for 625 points, starting in fooking January of next year studying will get you that. Don't waste your last summer holidays bro

Solid_Shepard

Given that you wish to start revising this summer, the first clear area of potential improvement is, as another user has mentioned, your oral skills in Irish and, if you do another language, your third language. These will be of substantial benefit come the time of your oral, and has the benefit of being something you can integrate with your socialising, even if it's only for ten or fifteen minutes of joking around in Irish and French/German/Spanish.

Ignoring your orals, aural is another area which can be improved gradually. If you want to tear into the exam papers it's your prerogative, but given that you'll be doing these anyway, you'll want to expand your vocabularies as leisurely as possible, to avoid burning yourself out. Listening to radio broadcasts in Irish, or in French/German/Spanish, seeking foreign language films and watching them with subtitles (admittedly you should be doing this anyway, rather than watching a dubbed item), and reading material in the language will all assist in improving your vocabulary, improving your aural, and improving your structure in general. The best way to learn a language is by immersing yourself in the language, and while going to a Gaeltacht and France/Germany/Spain isn't going to be possible for most people, this is something that you absolutely can do.

Another key area that can be improved, and I don't mean to be condescending, is actually your English. Again, you don't want to burn out yourself, so watching films of a high standard (and I mean a critically high standard, rather than something that was particularly well received by the mass market), reading 'classic' novels, reading well-regarded poetry (yes, seriously), and watching high-quality television series will assist not only in increasing your vocabulary, but will be extremely important in allowing you to recognise aspects of story-telling which you can utilise in your own short stories; it will help you see what, precisely, seperates a technically good story, from a story which, while entertaining, is merely mediocre. Items such as crosswords, word searches (and researching any words you don't know), and typing games (such as "Typing of the Dead") may also be beneficial activities in expanding your vocabulary (and in "Typing of the Dead"'s case, improving your typing speed). By sticking rigidly to using correct syntax and spelling in Facebook Statuses, Tweets, and text messages, not only is it easier for those you're messaging to comprehend you, it has the added benefit of increasing your consistency with proper syntax/spelling/grammatical terms, a very important point if you're going to attempt to obtain a high mark which, given you're planning on studying for summer, I assume you are. Your ability to argue is one that you can also greatly improve in a rather leisurely way. In online forums, this one or otherwise, by attempting to respond properly to another individual, you can improve your persuasive techniques, your speech writing, and letter writing; by familiarising yourself with fallacies (both formal and informal), which you want to avoid, by utilising these techniques within your messages, and by a logical structure which references their viewpoint and others to convince them otherwise, you can greatly improve your English. You, for example, have fallen prey to one of these (informal) fallacies in this very thread, where you ask

why is it really done like that?. (education wise). ???? if the people at the top (in charge of this) are so "educated" then why don't they use their "educated" brain to come improve the system ???

which is an argumentum ab auctoritate (an appeal to authority) in which, by citing their position, you are asserting that they must be correct, something that is not a logical conclusion. These often are used in arguments, certainly, but if an examiner can see a clear fallacy in an argument you make, it will detract from the argument and lower your potential mark. An ability to be malleable is an absolutely essential skill, far better than rigidly learning off a variety of essays and being left scraping an answer in the examination. Similarly, write some short stories; while I don't know about this forum in particularly, one I regularly visit has two weekly creative writing tasks (one is a narrative, the other is poetry), and such things can allow you to become more familiar with composition. If you want to be more direct, learn your quotes, from poetry and your single text.


As far as Maths goes, it's somewhat difficult to make this leisurely unless you're passionate for the subject. The closest you could go, I suppose, is tackling logical puzzles such as Sudoku, Bridges, Calcudoku, and Killer Sudoku (my personal favourite). While the maths in these games won't be of a direct benefit, they may have the affect of cementing a logical approach to problems you may encounter in the course. Something that anybody can improve upon is their very, very basics, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. While yes, we do have calculators, mental arithmetic is of major benefit to you, allowing you to save time as you can 'see' the answer in seconds without the aid of a calculator. This may seem trivial, but it allows you to fly through questions. Similarly, learning off the Sin(a), Tan(a), and Cos(a), where "a" is one of the 'special angles' will also save you time; it won't be a huge amount in any one question, but it will gradually build up as you become less reliant upon a calculator, and it can allow you to quickly see whether or not something has gone wrong (for example, if you know that 10x10=100, yet you get 90 on the calculator, it's clear something has gone wrong; I also know this is overly simple and you wouldn't use a calculator for this anyway, but it's merely to serve as a demonstration). Khan Academy is also a very beneficial resource, elborating upon many areas and allowing you to delve as deeply as you wish into various topics, but this is a much more direct revision, and could aid in burning your work ethic. Solidifying your Algebra, Calculus (if you've done it), and Logarithms will be of untold benefit to you in any maths-heavy subject that you do.

Other than those possibilities, you can always directly revise areas in the syllabus that you've covered, but as with previous users, I would be very, very wary that you would become fatigued late in sixth year, when you really need to be 'at the top of your game'; this is primarily the reason that almost everything I've suggested is loosely connected to your subjects, rather than directly approaching various essential topics. Seeking some form of employment, voluntary or paid, is a good option for you instead of studying as not only will it add to your CV but it may also provide some useful skills/areas of familiarity. Ultimately, however, what you're going to do is up to you, so hopefully you settle upon something that works for you in the long run.

typicalstudent

Jimmyie wrote: »

English,Maths,Geography,Business,Biology and a couple of others.

May I please ask, what exactly should I dig deep into?. Such as just reading the text books, or are there other certain activities I should be doing.

Thank you very very much.

I wouldn't spend all summer working but certainly wish I spent a bit..
For English I would layout all the quotes you need to learn for each topic and everything you would like to discuss. So in poetry or whatever just pick your 4 themes or motifs etc and lay them out backed up with quotes. So whenever it comes to writing an essay you have the spine. Do this with Shakespeare and comparative also.

Math I would get access to a studyclix account and work off a few of their questions once a week spend an hour or two at it!

Geography I would make a concise summary of all your notes. So for example the Paris Basin I would have one page saying key words eg: "Primary sector - agriculture - ile de France, Valois & Brie - escarpments - undulating landscape - med climate" etc. Concise is better, in the exam you will expand like you don't believe!

Business I would do similar to geography. Start analysing the trends in the papers now when you can plan what you'll do in the exam. Check out the notes from mocks.ie for a tenner definitely worth it. Write the whole thing out in your own words and then specialise. That's all I can help you with!
If you do accounting I would re do every question you can consistently as much as possible, easy A that way. Difficult subject otherwise.

Manco

Duolingo is a useful website if you want to revise languages, I did my Leaving five years ago and it's useful for refreshing all the French I've forgotten.

forevergold22

Trust me do not revise over the summer you'll be stuck inside for long enough over the next year so go out and enjoy yourself while you can!!

Aarong9224

My advice would be to do nothing over the summer , you will burn yourself out to early. Don't think you won't , you will.

Jimmyie

in fact thank you all.

any more advice please

BlueCat01

From a student who is sitting my leaving cert at the minute! (I only have one left on tues)
My advice is if you must do a bit keep it light! Maybe a little bit of biology as it's an extensive course! But my best friend does subjects very similar to yours and she covered the course in most subjects twice between Sept and June!
If you do higher level maths or find maths difficult hard maybe do a bit of that during the summer!
Business if you know what units your ABQ is on maybe you could get started on them if you have them covered

Honestly I would recommend that you choose all 20 courses for the CAO! Yea there'll be a few changes but most courses generally stay the same! I know there was a bit of stress involved for me in jan when I couldn't decide what courses to put in what order! You might think I'm crazy suggesting it now but you'll be surprised how relaxed it will leave you later.

Jimmyie

okay, thank you.

Nick_1494

I'd be inclined to agree with people here. Don't do it! Maybe make a study plan? If you make good plans now it'll save a lot of time next year because you'll know what you have to do.

plmko

Jimmyie wrote: »

Hello,

Next year will be my last year, and I would like to catch up. What can I do this summer to help revise?. Anything specific please?.

Thank you.

We all get these ideas into our heads at the end of fifth year that we shall revise over the summer break. I take my hat off to you if you achieve this intention. If you genuinely want to do something I would advise working on your three core subjects.

Goodluck!

Oh and mate - it is 100% possible to cover your leaving cert course extenisively at least five times between next September and your exams! No frets!

123corby

Jimmyie wrote: »

Hello,

Next year will be my last year, and I would like to catch up. What can I do this summer to help revise?. Anything specific please?.

Thank you.

My advice would be forget about study your only after your summer tests take a break and relax like. Maybe get a job and save up for college but dont be worrying about the lc yet you'll be doin enough come september! Have the crack now while ya can, go out drinking with the lads and worry the lc when ya go back to school! Peace out