JC irish

NewHolland_53

I am doing my junior cert in June and I was wondering had anyone any advice or notes for the Irish short story or essay as I find it particularly hard ,I got a C in the honours paper in the mock

emersyn

Well first of all I would forget about the essay, they're too unpredictable and they're pretty difficult unless you're fluent. The short stories are much easier so I would focus on them completely.

The thing about the short story is that the titles are generally very broad and allow you to write about a large variety of topics, so you should pick a couple of topics and learn vocabulary and phrases for them. The three that you are almost guaranteed to be able to write about every year are an accident (a car crash is a nice malleable one), a funny incident, and a holiday. Your textbook might have a section on short stories including a list of vocab, and if not, the Revise Wise book (and I would imagine most other revision books) have a very good section on it.

Once you learn your vocab, go through previous exam papers and look at the story titles, and write out a couple of stories that you could bend to fit most of those titles. Get your teacher to correct them to iron out any mistakes, and then learn the skeleton of them (learning them off word for word isn't a good idea as it's unlikely that your story will perfectly fit whatever title comes up) and you're set!

For my exam the only thing I learned off was a car crash as that's supposedly the easiest topic to bend to fit titles, and of course the title that came up was "Eachtra ghreannmhar a tharla i mo scoilse." So what happened in my story is that I played an April Fool's joke on my teacher, she got angry and sent me home, and then I got hit by a car on my way home. I still got a B so the examiner must have pitied me, but don't make my mistake, learn more than one topic!

NewHolland_53

Thanks emersyn ,I will definitely do the short story now as it appears the easier option

koolis02

One word of advice is that the short stories are marked really hard in the exam. Your level of irish needs to be pretty much impeccable, all irish teachers in my tell students to avoid them and focus on the debate or essay.

NewHolland_53

Thanks koolis02 but like emersyn said they are unpredictable and you need to be nearly fluent irish to write a good essay on a title

catb

You'll usually find at least one easy topic for essays, like "my favourite holiday" for example. Short stories are marked very hard but if you look back through some exam papers you'll get an idea of what the ask for both essays and short stories, and just practice them, not only will it improve your essay writing skills but also your range of vocabulary, which is great for read comp, listening comp, all of the paper really.

It's strange because it's usually said to avoid debates and short stories, I got an A in my JC higher level Irish last year and I picked the my favourite holiday essay, the most basic one.

Just learn some good vocab for either you choose and all your verb tenses and you'll fly it. Good luck

spurious

One HUGE mistake people make in writing Irish answers (or stories or essays) is they try to directly translate from English - in most cases this is either an impossible task, or one which will result in terrible Irish with lots of mistakes.

Keep it simple. Say what you want simply. Make as few errors as possible. By all means learn off a few sentences to set a scene, or describe how someone felt about something, but overall, keep it simple.

NewHolland_53

Thanks carb I will look over my papers soon at the essays and have a think about it .And I'll try learn some phrases that would suit one

Thanks spurious too for ur advice Ill try keep it simple like you said .

Mr Rhode Island Red

Also note for the ceapadóireacht section that the marks are awarded as follows:

Stíl (style) = 2 mharc
Ábhar (relevance to chosen title) = 8 marc
Gaeilge (correctness of Irish) = 40 marc

So even if you choose a topic on, say, "The influence of the media on young people" for example, and go on to write a completely irrelevant piece on your favourite varieties of potatoes, as long as it is grammatically and otherwise correct, it is still fully possible to get 40/50 marks or so for this question.

But this is only a technical observation of mine on the exam, as already said the variety of topics presented in the question each year is broad and different that you should be able to find something you can write about.

NewHolland_53

Thanks Mr Rhode Island for your advice on the essay/story so do you think it's easier to score well in the essay ..

Mr Rhode Island Red

I did the short story for my JC last year, but overall it was a 50/50 split in my year roughly between the short story and the essay. It's much of a muchness when it comes to difficulty...I could have just as easily gone with the essay instead had the short story titles been unsuitable.

NewHolland_53

Okay thanks ,do you have any advice for the letter in p2

smiles_1998

NewHolland_53 wrote: »

Okay thanks ,do you have any advice for the letter in p2

First of all, decide if you want to focus on the formal/informal letter- I found the formal letters a lot harder (as do most people I think) and the informal letter has a better choice in terms of variety, vocabulary etc.

Learn off an opening and closing paragraph with nice phrases such as"I m sorry I didn't write to you sooner" and "Tell your family I was asking for them" etc.

Ensure you know the correct format for a letter eg where to write your address, how to greet the other person, how to sign off etc.

Other than that, just practice all the letters you can in the exam papers.

Hope this helps

pizzamad

I got an A last year in Irish and I think it was mainly down to my study! The oral deifinitley helped me get an A but I would have definitley got a B without the oral!

I would definitley focus between now and the exam practicing aural questions - they will become so much more easier and will be a guaranteed 10%! I loved the aural in the Junior Cert..one of my favorite parts!

I would also focus on getting basic grammar skills right thats your sheimhius, urus, aimsir caite, fhaisteanach etc... this will help in your essay and also in the grammar question! The essay, personally I focused on a timpiste and was hoping to put it in on the short story but last year they changed the whole question and made a "funny" event! I ended up doing an essay on a crazy dream which perfectly fit my timpiste! I would definitley give that advice and even on the day check the essay titles to see if your prepared topics might fit in!!

For paper 2, honestly focus on where you can pick up most of your marks!! This is in the studied prose and poetry - learn off a sumary and make relevant evidence of each time your chosen theme comes up! I learned one prose ('cause I was lazy and was praying for uaigneas to come up and it did) and five poems...the poems made up for my one prose hahahaha!! The unseen and prose is only 30 marks and even if you get 5/30 its still something!! I honestly couldn't prepare for it, I just practiced a few for homework.

For the letter I would definitley do the informal and learn off an opening and closing paragraph and for each point have a seperate paragraph this will make it much easier and clearer for the examiner to see where to give you your marks!!

And remember not many people know (my teacher did..god bless!) that if you miss a point in your abhar (10/10 is full) so just say you got 8/10 your abhar of 17 will be marked down to 14 and if you miss another it will go to 11...this is the same in the essay on P1. So the main point is to stay relevant and answer all the questions you've been asked!!

Sorry for my big long rant. Hope this helped, if you want anymore advice you can PM me! Slán

NewHolland_53

Thanks pizzamad for your advice .i am very good at the seen stuff but find the listening fairly difficult even though we do a few from staighre each day in school the acents (Donegal ..etc) catch me out and words such as scor which is fiche .I am okay at the short story I know a timpiste like yourself .I was wondering do you have any advice for French or any notes for the letter ,thanks again

pizzamad

NewHolland_53 wrote: »

Thanks pizzamad for your advice .i am very good at the seen stuff but find the listening fairly difficult even though we do a few from staighre each day in school the acents (Donegal ..etc) catch me out and words such as scor which is fiche .I am okay at the short story I know a timpiste like yourself .I was wondering do you have any advice for French or any notes for the letter ,thanks again

I don't have any notes as I never used them! I always learned out of a book but I did find an opening and closing paragraph for a letter on here and used it all the time. For french I also got an A...the listening in French, like Irish with practice (from exam papers) is easy! I got full marks in my mocks! I also found the comprehensions easy enough but you just need key vocab that comes up most years and just pracitce exam papers really!! For the letter and postcard, I learned an opening and closing but just planned to use my level of french to expand on the points on the day and it worked. You've only learned this sibject for three years so the test won't be advanced level french!