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5th/6th year study log

c_f_p99

So I've decided to create a study log. Not sure how long this'll last, hopefully until the end of 6th year. Just wanted to give a personal account on my "war" with the LC. The ups and the downs, all that sheesh:rolleyes:The subjects are:

English
Irish
Maths
French
Physics
App. Maths
Music
Economics

All HL.

I've only really just started so it's nice and easy for now. Doing homework, looking over stuff if necessary, but for the most part, surfing the internet, watching Netflix and playing the PS4.

(I probably won't post very often btw, perhaps every couple of months? Anything interesting, really.)

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sirboby

Good luck mate, hope you keep it up

c_f_p99

First post! (I know, it's only been a day) Got my first English assignment last Friday, some QB on an open letter (don't even know what that is) on unwanted advice. Smashed it with no less than three drafts, but it took up SO much time! Like, I've always viewed myself as being bad at English, but I sort of realised that I can write amazingly well if I just put a lot of time into it. The only problem is is that I have to put a LOT of time into it. Really, don't know how it'll fare when my social life comes bouncing back and when the work in my other subjects piles on.

Seriously, though people blaming HL Maths for being time consuming is kind of laughable. I spend at least TWICE as much time on English than I do on Maths. Even HL Irish is worse. Maybe I'm blessed with the god-given gift of doing Maths quickly or something

I never realised it until how much other people seem to struggle with the homework. To each to their own, I suppose.

c_f_p99

French is crazy. The teacher teaches entirely through French and I have a three-page essay on the family due for Monday's oral exam and a 180 word piece on what I did during the summer also due next week. What can I do? I can't fill it three pages of information just on the family and I have lost some French from last year (though quickly catching up). Could anyone send me some fancy phrases that I could just implement?

c_f_p99

Here's my first piece of advice regarding maths that I discovered today. DO NOT RELY ON THE TEXTBOOKS FOR EXPLAINATIONS. They are utter *****. I only realised this when I compared how the so-called "best mathematics book in the market" (New Concise Project Maths 4&5) explains quadratic inequalities to how Khan Academy does them. They are not even comparable: the book has this nonsense approach about "changing the inequality sign to an equality sign" and this "testing for 0" that is completely unexplained. I had DONE inequalities before in TY using my teacher's method and had a firm understanding of what is happening and it took me a good 40 minutes to figure out what the hell any of this means. It only showed examples where the inequality sign was less than equals too! And only examples of where the "testing for 0" actually was true, making it that much more confusing. And all that for a method that tries to completely disregard the properties of an inequality by "making" it an equality. Whereas Khan's approach was much more simple, it actually tells you that when the two multiples must be both positive or both negative if it is greater than 0 and the converse.

Seriously, though, how did this come out of testing? I've already encountered many problems with book regarding inaccurate answer keys and I never used the textbook for EXPLAINATIONS until now. Thank God I haven't! Is this really supposed to be the best maths book on the market? If that's the case, I'd be surprised if the others even taught the content on the course, let alone in a coherent manner.

Anyway, wow, what a rant. I normally don't get this passionate or anylatical over these kinds of things. But I just had to put it out there, I mean, could abysmal textbooks be one of the reasons why so many people find

jeonahr

c_f_p99 wrote: »

Here's my first piece of advice regarding maths that I discovered today. DO NOT RELY ON THE TEXTBOOKS FOR EXPLAINATIONS. They are utter *****. I only realised this when I compared how the so-called "best mathematics book in the market" (New Concise Project Maths 4&5) explains quadratic inequalities to how Khan Academy does them. They are not even comparable: the book has this nonsense approach about "changing the inequality sign to an equality sign" and this "testing for 0" that is completely unexplained. I had DONE inequalities before in TY using my teacher's method and had a firm understanding of what is happening and it took me a good 40 minutes to figure out what the hell any of this means. It only showed examples where the inequality sign was less than equals too! And only examples of where the "testing for 0" actually was true, making it that much more confusing. And all that for a method that tries to completely disregard the properties of an inequality by "making" it an equality. Whereas Khan's approach was much more simple, it actually tells you that when the two multiples must be both positive or both negative if it is greater than 0 and the converse.

Seriously, though, how did this come out of testing? I've already encountered many problems with book regarding inaccurate answer keys and I never used the textbook for EXPLAINATIONS until now. Thank God I haven't! Is this really supposed to be the best maths book on the market? If that's the case, I'd be surprised if the others even taught the content on the course, let alone in a coherent manner.

Anyway, wow, what a rant. I normally don't get this passionate or anylatical over these kinds of things. But I just had to put it out there, I mean, could abysmal textbooks be one of the reasons why so many people find

I find that the maths book Effective Maths does explanations really well.

wheresmahbombs

c_f_p99 wrote: »

Here's my first piece of advice regarding maths that I discovered today. DO NOT RELY ON THE TEXTBOOKS FOR EXPLAINATIONS. They are utter *****. I only realised this when I compared how the so-called "best mathematics book in the market" (New Concise Project Maths 4&5) explains quadratic inequalities to how Khan Academy does them. They are not even comparable: the book has this nonsense approach about "changing the inequality sign to an equality sign" and this "testing for 0" that is completely unexplained. I had DONE inequalities before in TY using my teacher's method and had a firm understanding of what is happening and it took me a good 40 minutes to figure out what the hell any of this means. It only showed examples where the inequality sign was less than equals too! And only examples of where the "testing for 0" actually was true, making it that much more confusing. And all that for a method that tries to completely disregard the properties of an inequality by "making" it an equality. Whereas Khan's approach was much more simple, it actually tells you that when the two multiples must be both positive or both negative if it is greater than 0 and the converse.

Seriously, though, how did this come out of testing? I've already encountered many problems with book regarding inaccurate answer keys and I never used the textbook for EXPLAINATIONS until now. Thank God I haven't! Is this really supposed to be the best maths book on the market? If that's the case, I'd be surprised if the others even taught the content on the course, let alone in a coherent manner.

Anyway, wow, what a rant. I normally don't get this passionate or anylatical over these kinds of things. But I just had to put it out there, I mean, could abysmal textbooks be one of the reasons why so many people find

My Text & Tests books seem to lack examples. Might be a good idea to get a revision book, if that will help.

c_f_p99

I know,I should have stated that I have no experience with the other texts and am really making sweeping generalisations on things I don't know that well. I'll try and cut down on the ranting in other posts, but sometimes I just can't help it, I'm that kind of guy.

As for the subjects, nothing is at all difficult yet. Applied Maths is definitely the hardest when comes to sheer thinking and problem solving. Maths and Physics have been pieces of cake so far, don't know how much worse they'd get. Even still, I have some kind of affinity for Maths and can be very passionate about it. I'd only be willing to keep up with the workload. English was amazing, actually, I got a H1 in my first assignment and it was the subject I wanted to drop to ordinary level in all along. Probably shouldn't drop after that, but still, I'd be very cautious of it. Irish is fine, Music unbelievably simple, French having a lot of work (in terms of homework), but perfectly manageable difficulty-wise, Economics quite simple (but marked harshly so I really need to be on my game in terms of accuracy).

And that's all for now!

c_f_p99

btw, is it too early to start learning Irish essays now? I don't personally like it, but it does help to know how to write a proper prose essay. We've done Hurlamaboc now and it's actually pretty easy, in spite of the amount of new vocabulary to learn. Would it be better to learn just the vocab and know the main points of the story? I'm good enough at the grammar, although the plural-adjective endings are doing my head in a little. Just need to look over the rules, I guess.

c_f_p99

Alright subjects so far:

Maths: Very easy so far. Easiest subject bar music (although I still shouldn't get too cocky about it).

Physics: Harder than Maths, but only because the questions have very wonky phrasing in them. Still not problematic at all.

Applied Maths: Much harder than Maths, but my 2nd favourite subject bar Maths. Although quite challenging, I enjoy it immensely and would be willing to work on it.

Music: Don't like the vagueness in a couple of the listening questions, but that's it. Easiest subject by far (though considering prior experience, I well expected it to be)

English: Calm before the storm, really. And I'm not saying that in a pessimistic way, I'm saying it because we've done so little in the subject and having looked at the papers, I still have a long way to go-to reach a high standard and I have a feeling that the lack of time (or so it seems) may prove a big problem in 6th year. Look, to be fair, there really is a lot to like about the subject, it's just that I happen to do poorly in exams. My brain simply can't "do" English, if that makes sense.

c_f_p99

Also, one other thing, should I go back to HL Irish? I dropped three days ago and finding OL to be a complete joke, I didn't even find HL difficult in the first place! But I have seven other HL subjects and I despise the fact that we have to rote learn a gazillion points on the prose and poetry and LB. Does your standard of Irish have to be absolutely phenomenal in answering those sections? Because my teacher certainly says it must be. I mean, I could write a essay, with not many grammar errors (which I would be consistently working on over time), but absolutely not in the poetic-like way that is expected of LC HL students. I'm doing okay in the aural, very well in the comprehensions (full marks in some cases) and I got an A in JC HL. Should I move back up? I really like Economics and don't want to drop it (although it has a really tough marking scheme, but hopefully I can get around that).

c_f_p99

Okay, forget my previous post, I moved down to pass (after a JCHL A), so yeah, to say it's easy is a bit of an understatement. However, it is easing up a lot of my workload, meaning that I actually have a fair bit of fun time compared to the start of the year and can hang out more. More only worry is whether I'd be able to pass HL English and not let it consume much of my study time (so far it's been grand).

How is everyone else getting on now that the mid-term has arrived? I'm OK, certainly being pretty turbulent at times (I had a rough start with Physics). Yeah, speaking of which, is it weird that I'm finding HL Maths and HL App. Maths to be a good bit easier than HL Physics? I mean, the Maths is simple, no problem with that, but I can never feel comfortable with the calculations unlike with the other two. Maybe we're going too fast (we've all Mechanics done, and now a good bit on Waves). The concepts, definitions and experiments are all grand so it's not bad, just a bit harder than I thought.

c_f_p99

Got "Christmas Tests" back in a whopping three subjects:
Maths (97%) 93 in a first part and 100 in second (Ha Ha)
App. Maths (99%) (laughably easy test imo)
Music (87%) Didn't bother preparing for Aural Skills and Melody is just something to build over time so not annoyed or anything.

Exactly what I expected. Don't be too fooled about how smart I must be, these tests were complete jokes and I honestly would have ended up with less otherwise.

If we had a Christmas test in English, now. That would be tragic. (I only I could drop to pass, sigh)

c_f_p99

The rest of the Christmas Tests are back (and sorry to mislead you, I did have an English Christmas test)

Maths (H1)
App. Maths (H1)
Physics (H1)
Economics (H2)
Music (H2)
French (H2)
English (H3)
Irish (O2)

Happy enough. Just realised that my top 6 is worth 589 points, which is my "borderline" aim (601-613 would be a comfortable victory, 625 would be wonderful).

Economics was 88% too, so that can improve easily.

Music is just a building up of skills (melody writing was harshly marked). I didn't study anything for melody writing or Aural skills and I don't think that I even need to since I've learned from my corrections.

For French, I just have a very harsh teacher so I'm definitely happy with that. (Test was on Leaving Cert Higher Listenings, Comprehensions and a short story question Q1:b usually)

English I'm delighted with. It gives me an incentive to actually work on it, now that I know I'm capable of achieving this with barely any work.

Irish I'm indifferent with. Literally didn't do a tap since I dropped (and I mean doing NOTHING whatsoever for prose and poetry)

c_f_p99

Parent/teacher meetings are coming up. I must brace myself. Although the teachers seem to like me so I'm not overly worried overall.

School itself is fine, I guess. It's kind of funny how similar everything is to the JC, study patterns, subjects, everything. I know myself that I studied too much for the JC, but still.

Also, is my class really behind in Maths? We've only done the following:

Algebra
Function Theory
Logs and Indices
Inequalities
Numbers

That's it. I'm seriously worried now, since I'm finding the class so easy that I'm almost certain that we're not covering things quick enough. Should I continue to go ahead of the class (I'm almost done trigonometry, geometry, halfway through complex numbers, done bits of probability and statistics and plan on tackling calculus very soon), or should I just relax? If anyone else is in fifth year here, how far have any of you gotten in Maths (HL)?

c_f_p99

Two things today:

1/. CAO plans (TP, PM or MEMPHIS at TCD) (A&F studies, Science and Engineering at UCD)

2/. Going to show what work I did regularly (for motivation purposes)

Today:

App. Maths: Homework on whatever the hell you call the "bounce on surfaces" thing (Q5) Revised Q1-3

Economics: Homework on an Inflation Price Index Question (v. easy, would LOVE something like this on the LC, haha)

mhiggy09

c_f_p99 wrote: »

Parent/teacher meetings are coming up. I must brace myself. Although the teachers seem to like me so I'm not overly worried overall.

School itself is fine, I guess. It's kind of funny how similar everything is to the JC, study patterns, subjects, everything. I know myself that I studied too much for the JC, but still.

Also, is my class really behind in Maths? We've only done the following:

Algebra
Function Theory
Logs and Indices
Inequalities
Numbers

That's it. I'm seriously worried now, since I'm finding the class so easy that I'm almost certain that we're not covering things quick enough. Should I continue to go ahead of the class (I'm almost done trigonometry, geometry, halfway through complex numbers, done bits of probability and statistics and plan on tackling calculus very soon), or should I just relax? If anyone else is in fifth year here, how far have any of you gotten in Maths (HL)?

We only had algebra, trigonometry, complex numbers and some area and volume done this time last year when I was in 5th year. Now in 6th year we will have the course done a week or 2 after the mocks so I'd say you have nothing to worry about, and it seems you've gone a good bit ahead so yeah your grand.
I would probably advise to take it handy with study wise cause you'll just be fed up come next year. I know personally I'm sick of it already and in reality I havnt even started any study yet.
If you do continue to plow on though I'd advise you to work on exam questions and not book questions, much more beneficial.

c_f_p99

mhiggy09 wrote: »

We only had algebra, trigonometry, complex numbers and some area and volume done this time last year when I was in 5th year. Now in 6th year we will have the course done a week or 2 after the mocks so I'd say you have nothing to worry about, and it seems you've gone a good bit ahead so yeah your grand.
I would probably advise to take it handy with study wise cause you'll just be fed up come next year. I know personally I'm sick of it already and in reality I havnt even started any study yet.
If you do continue to plow on though I'd advise you to work on exam questions and not book questions, much more beneficial.

Thanks. Yeah, you're right, I'm just worried that I'm not taking the class seriously enough now and that the other content (which probably is much harder) would hit me like a brick wall. That hasn't happened yet now with the topics I have done, but I'm worried that there is much harder stuff that I haven't covered yet. Or is there?

c_f_p99

French: Mock Aurals I swear to god. Why are they so impossible compared to the real thing? They are practically a level above higher level (advanced higher level as I’d call it). I got 71/80 in the real aural before that, but only 45/80 in that 2017 DEB mock one. I’d even go as far to say that they’re so hard that they are not at all an indicator of where you stand for the actual leaving Cert in June. Should I be worried? I’m wanting a H1 in French and I’m worried that I was only practising easy aurals before that.

Maths: Yes, I admit, that “holy crap, this is hard” moment finally came. Geometry is a pain. I never really liked the unseen proofs in the JC, but some of them actually are genuinely difficult (especially the pre-2015 ones). I wouldn’t be too worried about it (had a test on it today and definitely got full marks in it after checking the answers), but all Maths class tests are hilariously easy and unfortunately, do not represent the difficulty of LC papers. I actually do like this chapter, I feel it’s more at the start where I’m panicking as to whether I’d be able to do this or not. So there you go, there are difficult things in HL Maths and it sure as hell shocked me when I first came across it. Would be more than willing to put in the work REALLY knowing and applying every single theorem on the course. There’s not a whole lot in it either, just continuous practice throughout the year and I’ll be sorted.

c_f_p99

A bit sick and tired of studying, but still got a decent amount done.

Economics: Banking (hard enough chapter, would need a couple of days for it)

Maths: Geometry questions (I can never be completely sure of it, but I think I’m doing fine. The subject is becoming a bit drab now, I guess the Geometry is wearing me down. I can see now where people can hate the subject, it’s very hard to actually nail down the problems and to be completely sure whether you’re understanding something or not is harder than it seems. Once I nail this though, I don’t really think that I’ll find anything else as difficult since Geometry was always a weak spot for me.)

French: Some sentences, not doing as much oral work as I should. Definitely should work on it, it’s by far my biggest weakness and could actually demolish my chances of a high grade.)

English: Learned a lovely Wordsworth poem called “The Stolen Boat” from the “Prelude.” Will definitely be banking on him for the LC, I love his poetry!

c_f_p99

Economics: Money and Banking is an absolute pain. This is the first time that I'm properly screwed for an Economic's test. The chapter is such a pain, with NAMA, IMF and all that crap. The worst is easily the functions and tools of the Irish and European Central Banks. Unlike the other chapters where I only needed to learn off the headings for the points and explain it myself in my own words (since I understood it fully), this chapter, while understandable, is a lot harder to get to grips with, leaving me with no choice, but to learn off the explainations in the book (Postitive Economics, it's actually a great book). Looking back on it, I'll actually be fine with it, it's just that I had to change my study technique with it and I should definitely have studied more effectively (as opposed to literally just reading the book and be done with it).

Physics: Test on Friday on Current Electricity and Temperature/Heat. Don't know why people hate Electricity so much, it's honestly a lovely chapter that's quite easy to understand. Haven't done Electromagnetism yet though, so I'll try to prepare for the worst with that.

Applied Maths: Also have a test on it tomorrow, but honestly, the stuff we're doing is pretty easy (collisions, direct and oblique). Would easily be able to sing it tomorrow.

c_f_p99

Forgot to reply, but the Economics test was wonderful! I was actually gobsmacked by how lucky I was. None of this NAMA and NTMA and IMF crap came up neither did the functions or instruments of central banks. Instead, it was effects of inflation, creation of credit and M1 and M3 (ie all the easy stuff!). Anything else, though and I would have been screwed so I need to actually get down and study it properly. Physics was also great as always, managed to waffle a bit for the experiments too.

Was in London from Saturday till Monday night, so only started doing stuff on Tuesday. I just did about 40 mins of Maths (Geometry again, so sick of it by now), The consumer and substitution/price effects in Economics and some French vocab. Also did some piano practice too. So a pretty lazy day unfortunately.

Yesterday was a little better, revised the first half of Mechanics for Physics, Sergeant Pepper and She’s leaving alone as part of the Beatles for Music (don’t like this as much as Berlioz at all, find it impossible to dictate vocals! I just resorted to learning off the main melodies since they are very repetitive), did more Maths and more French.

Today, all I did so far was to type up and sort out all of my oral preparation notes (was very time consuming nonetheless). Will get onto more work later on.

c_f_p99

You know, a lot of the time I have these moments where I feel like I’m not understanding everything in a subject, particularly for Economics and to a lesser extent, Physics and Applied Maths. Yet it feels as if I don’t have to understand them fully nor are things properly explained in the leaving Cert courses in such a way that one can “properly” understand them even though I score in the high 90s/100 in most tests.

Anyways, summer tests have been announced along with timetables. Haven’t bothered to look at it yet. Have been doing a bit of revision over the past couple of weeks (like 3 hours a week) but have mostly focused on what I’m currently doing since it’s a lot harder than the previous stuff.

Is it just me or is the French written marked extremely generously? Like I completely winged my last reaction test, thought that I did unbelievably crap yet got 30/30 in spite of 12 mistakes. I knew no good vocab on the topic that came up so needless to say, I brought it up to the teacher wondered how on earth I did so well. She said that it’s because I had a good structure and none of my mistakes were serious. I did another one this week, actually did prepare lots of vocab for it, yet got 28/30 (still good imo) simply because I made four serious errors along with a similar amount of minor errors. So maybe the best approach is to literally be as simple as possible and knowing enough vocab to answer the question. Aurals and comps are grand (about a H2 average in each), but mock paper aurals are the bane of my existence.

There is also a huge disparity in the standard of questions in LC HL Maths. Some of them are complete jokes that a JC student can do (imo a good JC student could easily get a H6 or so in the paper) paired with really hard ones that require lots of thought (though nothing too overbearing from what I find). I’d get probably most of them, but there’s is the odd few that I cannot simply be confident of. It’s a scary subject in that the paper really can define your performance. That being said, the generous marking does alleviate some of the stress and I always feel that I have the time to properly think the questions through so it’s not that bad.

c_f_p99

Giving this blog a quick update.

English: It's grand really. A lot of work and the quotes can do my head in (you forget them all the time!). Only subject (other than a bit of economics) that I need to properly do for the summer tests so it would be my focus for the coming week.

Economics: I find that it gets easier when you go over it a lot of times. I can get pretty confused with the subject sometimes since I feel the course doesn't explain some things properly (like why does the surplus/deficit of the Balance of Payments get taken out as net residual into the foreign reserves? How does that even work?). The very strict marking scheme negates a lot of the spoofiness of the subject, unfortunately. I just have exchange rates left to do. That doesn't mean that I know everything else backwards, but I do have a solid general grasp of the course (or so I hope).

Maths: Well, I'm a very weird person amn't I. Co-ordinate Geometry and the Circle have actually turned out to be my hardest topics (Calculus so far, Trig and Algebra are my easiest). I was actually struggling with some of the leaving cert questions on them. However, I realised that my big problem with the topic is that I never draw diagrams. I got overwhelmed by the variety of ways to approach a problem and ended up doing the much longer and more difficult algebraic approach to every problem. It works sometimes, but for some of them, diagrams are necessary. Thankfully, I've more or less mastered it by this stage so it should be fine.

Physics: We've practically the course done (bar bits of magnetism, semi-conductors and Particle Physics). It's honestly to me the easiest subject in the leaving cert. Like, nothing there is really hard to actually understand and there is very little learning and the maths is simple. Chemistry and Biology look ten times harder from speaking to others. That being said, the teacher is great so perhaps, it depends on the teacher. Modern Physics actually turned out to be the hardest part (with Mechanics and Sound and Waves being the easiest). Electricity is no where near as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it's dead simple, only just a bit of diagrams and experiments to learn off. Again, I may be missing something. What is it that is actually hard about Electricity? I'ma bit worried since I seem to be in the minority on this.

c_f_p99

Summer at last! All the exams are done. Here's what I thought of them:

Applied Maths: pure p*iss, easiest of the lot. The last part of collisions was a bit strange in that one of the slopes was a no slope. But I had so much time anyway (got it done in 30 of the 90 minutes) that I just did the remaining extra questions. Probs full marks, though I don't know.

Maths: Almost as easy as Applied Maths. Very easy overall, only that I made a slip in a log question which I completely understood the trick, but accidentally miscalculated the final answer. If only I had just used a calculator! Annoyed with that, but almost definitely full marks in everything else (I checked it really thoroughly other than that).

English: Way, way better than I had expected. Only one that was split into 2 papers for some reason. Paper 1 was actually easy, got that done to a high standard. Paper 2 was definitely tough, but fair, and considering how screwed I thought I was for it, it went amazing, especially poetry. Probably H3/H2.

French: exactly as expected, nothing else to say about it

Economics: Not a nice paper (got 3 section B questions and 5 section As to do in 1.5 hours, less than the real thing!). Included stuff that wasn't even covered beforehand in macro so avoided that section entirely. Thanks to the amazing choice, I only did the easy questions and nailed timing and exam technique so probably H2/H1.

Physics: like Economics, also nastier than expected. Light and Modern Physics were godawful so avoided them, but electricity was a dream and did very well in the ones that I did answer on. Likely a H1, thinking about now.

Irish(OL): was really scared about it since I did like no work on the literature (the whole exam is based on it), but my god it was so easy.

Music: Set works were easy enough as always, aural skills was tough enough, melody I accidentally miscounted the number of beats in a bar😫 so that destroyed my otherwise perfect melody, harmony I messed up (blaming myself for never practising it). Practical was good. While my grade would end up being far from great (H3/H4), I'm actually happy with it. This is because the mistakes I made were very trivial stuff (melody and harmony) rather than it being like earlier in the year where I'd be struggling to cope with the demands of the composing tasks. I'm actually getting a lot better, I just need to be more careful and put in more work practising for both sections (they are really repetitive). Kinda like Accounting, I guess, very hard at first, but over time you get more used to what is expected.

So that's it. My French oral was very average (H4 standard) so that would have brought down the grade considerably. Yet in spite of how infuriating music composing was, I am very happy with how I got on. I'll take it easy over the summer, the only thing academically that I plan to do is to learn the music technology and perhaps extra questions for music composing (I'm planning on attempting Q3, 4 and 6 on my own, along with 1 and 5 in class). If anyone has any resources on these questions, feel free to tell me about them!

c_f_p99

Summer Exam results are out:

Maths: H1 (expected)

Applied Maths: H1 (expected)

Physics: H1 (overall expected)

Economics: H1 (but this took into account my slightly higher class average of 91%. The exam was 89%, just as expected)

Music: H2 (I know I totally messed up melody and harmony, but that just came down to me not doing any study for them. I knew it, I just couldn't translate that into practice. Nevertheless, the mistakes were so painfully trivial that there's no way something like that would ever happen again. Overall, expected)

French: H2 (expected, my oral brought me down)

English: H3 (while the overall grade was expected, the marks gotten in the components certainly weren't. Only scraped 60% in Poetry when I thought that it was my best answer ever while I almost scraped a H2 with Hamlet, a section where I thought I did dreadful in. I also didn't do as well in QB as I thought. Considering how nice the paper was, I still didn't do that well. Very tough marking in an already tough subject, imo)

Irish: O5 (WTF! Don't know what the hell happened there. I got an O2 in Christmas so there's no way I could have made such a drop)

Very predictable and nice results, overall. Don't need to work on too much other than exam technique for Composing and the French Oral. The toughest paper was obviously English, but Economics was also nasty at times. We also got 20 mins less time than the real LC Economics exam (though I still finished with 15 mins to go, just would have liked more time to fix/add to some answers).

So that's 601 for the summer exams.

c_f_p99

Have almost all the mocks done apart from Maths (which really shouldn’t be a problem, just have to learn the annoying theorems and constructions).

English: Fine. Was absolutely bricking it at the start of both papers, but eventually settled down and finished them in time. Paper 1 was a particularly nice paper for me (much nicer than recent papers for sure) and Paper 2 wasn’t too bad (Hamlet was lovely, but I messed up Comparative and only wrote on 3 poems in Poetry, although I didn’t really know anymore than that lol). Unseen poem was kinda crap, wrote such bull**** down, you wouldn’t believe it. In fact, the two papers really showcased how good I was at bull****ting my way through things that I don’t have a clue about. So while I felt good after the exams, I was happy to have them done, not because of what I wrote. Probably a H4.

Applied Maths: Biggest joke of a paper ever. I was there bricking it beforehand only to be met with an absolute doddle of an exam. Like I had it all done in 50 minutes. After a lot of checking over, I then managed to do all 10 questions. Way, way too easy: I’m actually thinking of doing a second mock. H1 obviously.

Physics: DEB paper and was mixed. While I actually performed pretty well, I had terrible technique in the exam. I didn’t read the paper at all so I ended up choosing terrible questions (light and sound had godawful questions). But the rest of the questions were much more manageable so I ended up doing all 8 of the Section B questions (giving up halfway on the Sound one). I ended up with no time to check over and guess what? I made silly mistakes. Surprise, surprise. Graph paper was also abysmal so that made things harder too. (H3/H2/H1 sadly, had I approached the paper properly, it would have been a H1 for sure. You can easily drop marks in Physics in spite of it being an easy subject).

French: (Examcraft) perfectly grand. Comprehensions were easily the trickiest part, the rest was cake. And even they weren’t that bad. (H2/H1)

Economics: (DEB) Nice paper. Lovely long questions, but the short questions were tricky enough (although everything predicted came up, it’s just that I hated a lot of what came up like goddamn currencies, I can never understand them!). Trade came up as a full long question as I hoped, but I opted out of it in the end as I don’t like Balance of Payments at all. Seeing how harshly the subject is marked, a H1 is unlikely, unfortunately, but a H2 is almost definitely what I got.

Music: Not the best. Set works we’re all nice, Irish essay was all nice, but the unseen were atrocious. Unbelievably difficult. I don’t even know how to get good at them, the dictation and the categories of vocals in Carmen was just taking the piss, like ridiculous. Composing was lovely at least, got it done in just 50 minutes so was very tempted to answer an extra question, but decided to check over the answers (which was far and away, the better choice to make) It seems like I’ve learnt my lesson from Physics. (H2 thanks to the terrible unseen).

Overall, I’m happy and quite relaxed too about them. Should have put more work into the unseen aurais for music though.

c_f_p99

Got (most) results back and I'm happy out:

Maths (H1) 96%. I haven't gotten back the script yet but I often wonder what happened to the 4%. Either way, very happy with that.

Applied Maths (H1) 99%. Again I did all 10 questions so how I didn't get 100 is beyond me.

Economics (H1) 92%. Wtf. Didn't expect that from one of the toughest subjects in the LC. Granted, it was a very easy paper, but the marking was very harsh as always.

English (H2) 83%. No way. I can't believe this. There must be a mistake, like, I need to see my script as I don't believe that I really got this. Like, seriously, I studied one poet, didn't even bother with Comparative and didn't go over any themes for the Single Text (though I knew a lot of quotes to be fair). I also completely winged paper 1. There's no way I could have gotten this.

French (H1) 92%. Also did nothing, but cramming the night before. I don't know whether the written pieces are marked really nicely, but I seriously can't believe how good I did in them. Comprehensions and Aural weren't as good though.

That's all I've gotten so far. Physics and Music did not go well so I'm not looking forward to receiving them. The rest are locked up in the school or idk. Still, that's 601. Unbelievable. If only the damn Leaving Cert weren't postponed. I kind of understand why as it would be a logistical nightmare to run predicted grades. But my god, I would have had such an edge had they used them.

Right now, the problem is not becoming complacent. Like some subjects are such a drag to study and the thought of having to continue this crap till September is ridiculous. I thought doing it till late June was bad!

c_f_p99

As I feel like I'm perfectly qualified to do so, I'm going to actually make up a list of my LC subjects from easiest to hardest:

Easiest (all honours except Irish)

Maths (by far my easiest. Especially the marking scheme, which is ridiculously generous)

Applied Maths (much tougher, but still easy)

Physics (course is very easy, but the exam can be occasionally very nasty)

French (very daunting subject when it comes to study, but the marking is quite nice perhaps aside from the comps. I get much higher grades in it then I expect)

Irish (OL) (Not that easy to be honest. The oral is very difficult for OL, although the aural, comps and essays are dead easy. Prose and Poetry is actually really challenging for OL too)

Music (used to be my easiest until I realised how annoying Irish Music and how hard Aural Skills are. Aside from those two things (which aren't even that bad), it's lovely)

Economics (hard course, but nice enough exam in terms of choice. Really nasty marking scheme though, easily the worst scheme out of all my subjects)

English (I can see why people may find it easy as in fairness, it's a very fair exam, but it just seems to require the most amount of work and understanding out of all my subjects. I wish I studyed more for it earlier)

I still can't believe that Maths is still my easiest. In fact, the subject seems to have actually gotten easier as I went through school, I found it harder for the JC. I really did think that I'll hit a wall with it soon, but that still hasn't happened yet. Although, College will probably be a massive jump.

c_f_p99

Did extremely well in the LC:

Maths H1
App. Maths H1
Physics H1
Economics H1
French H1
Music H1
English H3
Irish O3

Really happy.