5th/6th year study log

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.

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

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.

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).

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)

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)?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.