LC English Paper 1 was racist & biased

Chris_533976

Yes, I think it was. I had to do it, and probobly screwed it badly too. A theme of "Irishness" is not what we need in this day and age. Ireland is trying to promote itself as a country accepting all races, and then something like this comes out of the Department of Education.

All 4 texts were biased towards Ireland.

1 - Being Irish
2 - A new Ireland
3 - An Irish sense of humour
4 - Images of Ireland

Grand for someone living in Ireland, but for anyone who was born/who has lived outside Ireland, a disaster.

And all the essay titles were pure pants and couldnt be done unless you were a genius. Only one was doable for most people, well anyone Irish anyway.

"Write a personal essay in which you explore your sense of what it means to be Irish"

For anyone not brought up in the Irish mentality, this is an absolute disaster.

So - Department of Education, you have disgraced yourself by putting up such a blatently racist and biased Paper 1 for your "brilliant" new English course.

Anyone agree with me? People from outside Ireland??

Dont delete this! Everyone needs to see this.

--Chris--

RasTa

was it????
i done ordinary lev and it was pretty easy..... paper 2 was fukin sweet
but me m8's who done higher lev were happy with what came up
ord theme on paper one was the future.....

Lump

Hate to be racist...... but FÚCK OFF...... It was brill, its the Irish Leaving Cert not the ****ing Spainish Leaving Cert. So There's nothing wrong with them asking about the Country you're sitting in


John


BTW SW££T!!!


John

Lump

What about Essay Seven. Right a short story on one or more of the pictures given on TEXT 4. Any one with half a brain could have bull****ted that. The pics were fairly easy. So Bítch out shopping, A woman on a horse, two hurlers, a man on a mobile phone in a car, A man sitting infront of a computer, two auld wans standing in a shop door way. oh and a picture of the coors.


Not to taxing methinks. Oh and paper two WAS SW££T


John

Chris_533976

Essay 7 was very broad, but for various reasons, we were advised to steer clear of that sort.

Paper 2 was sweet though, I agree. Hamlet, easy, Comparative, simple, unseen poem, clueless, but only 5% overall, and Keats came up in the poetry so I was happy.

All Im saying is that I think it stupid that with all the different cultures that are in Ireland - all of which we are supposed to respect - that the Department would put in such a blatently Irish orientated paper and leave a certain proportion of the students totally clueless about the paper. Unless you were born, bred and taught everything Irish you were screwed.

Im not the only one that feels this way, two South Africans that sat the LC today also made an utter balls of Paper 1.

--Chris--

SheroN

Ah kids....god be with the days when i was doing my LC...god be with the days

whitetrash

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Chris_533976:
Essay 7 was very broad, but for various reasons, we were advised to steer clear of that sort.

Paper 2 was sweet though, I agree. Hamlet, easy, Comparative, simple, unseen poem, clueless, but only 5% overall, and Keats came up in the poetry so I was happy.

</font>

Agree, except for Bishop in my case, I just learned the 3 women knowing that one would come up.

And for essay 7 I did the same essay as in the mocks and changed it around to get that bird on the horse into it. I got an A1 for that essay.

Piece O' p1ss. 25 pages written.

---

The present is indefinite, the future has no reality other than as a present hope, the past has no reality other than as a present memory.

spag

I agree that the ****er was biased, but it was also **** easy for us irish. this would usually anger me, but antything that makes the leaving cert easier is fine by me.

But if you feel so strongly about it, why not write a letter to the department. I would......i'd also help your english skills!

---

She's a waitress, and she's got style
Sunday bathtime will take a while

Stephen

For those of you who aren't doing the leaving cert this year, here's the paper that's causing such a fuss: http://munch0r.port5.com/english/paper1/

Excuse the artwork

---

- Munch

ChRoMe

It was biased because it concentrated on Ireland WTF?!?!?!

See the .ie prefix at the end of that url in your browser, thats coz your in Ireland. How on earth is it unreasonable for the IRISH department of education which caters for IRISH students to create a paper about being irish.

There are approx 58,000 students doing the LC this year. How many would you say are not Irish? Furthermore if anyone is doing the LC this year they will have at least spent 2 years in the Irish education system. Cop on.

DeV I heard that story as well am I right in thinking that happened in a school near sutton?!

Ivan

I gotta agree - It was racist.
I'm Irish, born and bred in Ireland. I still think its racist, if the rest of ye dont...ye should probably ask why. It sucked, Irishness - is that even a fcuking word!?
70 million ppl round the world who claim Irish descent, give me a fcuking break!!

Loada propaganda bs. We can do without - Maths 1 and Irish - Argh....

Paladin

Paper 1 was unfair boll0x. My Ive a few english friends and it was totally unfair.
That said, there was nothing massively difficult about it. It could have been little less biased though (and it WAS definately biased, but managable).

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">And for essay 7 I did the same essay as in the mocks and changed it around to get that bird on the horse into it. I got an A1 for that essay.</font>

I did the same, except I got 60 in the pre's for one that I got an A1 for in class
The *******s didnt even read it in the pre's I rekon.
s

Shinji

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I think it stupid that with all the different cultures that are in Ireland - all of which we are supposed to respect - that the Department would put in such a blatently Irish orientated paper and leave a certain proportion of the students totally clueless about the paper</font>

It's a couple of years since I did the leaving cert, but I doubt that much has changed, so let's pretend my opinion is valid

You're way off the mark here. The titles you have quoted are not racist, or unfair to people who have lived outside Ireland, in the slightest. What they are asking you to write about is what YOU think it means to be Irish, what the concept of being Irish, of Irishness, means to YOU. If you were writing this as an American who has never visited Ireland but has seen Far and Away, you could still answer it - your answer would be a particularly interesting one to read, but no less valid than the answers of a sheep farmers son from the wilds of Connemara.

As an Irish person living in England, I could probably give a fairly good account of what it means to be English for the people I meet and work with every day. I don't see how the reverse would be untrue. After all, one of the great things about a subjective area like English is that your opinion is not what counts, it's how you express and back up that opinion.

Greenbean

Grrrr, thank god your post was at the bottom there Shinji, I was being to wonder if everyone was going insane. Stop moaning, it won't get you any more marks - its far from biased. What sort of hair-trigger sensitive bleeding fVcking hearts (and in the completely wrong place) are we educating?

Stephen

I uploaded paper 2 as well... why you ask? To be honest, I dunno ... avoidance of study?

http://munch0r.port5.com/english

You may have to refresh the page before it works... some people think its knackered.

astrofool

tbh I think the new course is f'd up and way too easy, much less room for creativeness, I wonder how many identikit answers there were out there, and that really saddens and annoys me

let ppl doing english be creative and actually GOOD at english

I was able to get a B1 in the old course (not great), and that was without knowing the poetry section, and not knowing any quotes, I loved the essay bit, gave me a chance to try my literary skills, but alas I do CS nowadays, is there any hope for me

My brother who's doing it's first reaction was to give out about it, but I'm sure the parents will love it, as will the country folk, and those of strong political disposition, english at school does not teach you english (a problem inherent in most subjects)

Lenny

does Stephen's page load for *anyone* ?

Shiminay

Gentlemen - you are talking through anus.

Questions like that can only make it easier for a non-national! Think about it...

"What does it mean to be Irish"
Non-National's Answer:
Being from *wherever* I can speak as an outsider looking in at the Irish peopl. I can talk about how it's changed me and my life. I can tell you about how I've been accepted/rejected as a result of my being foreign.
Easy! Unique in a bunch of similar answers. Stands out. More points!

Stop talking through your pie holes folks.

---

All the best!
Dav
@B^)
We were all set for a game of Ice Hockey when Frank Williams says "Sorry lads, I've forgotten my skates!"
[honey i] violated [the kids]
Tribes 2 Goodness
The Dawn of the Beefy King approaches...

adnans

shouldn't english be about creativeness and originallity. it seems strange that the dept. of education is trying to stuff the concept of "irishness" to students throughout the country. i would consider it a bit racist since the whole of paper 1 is filled with concept of being "irish". but nevertheless i would finish the paper to the best of my ability and hopefully include elements of dwarfs, endangered species, bar fights, the virus, sex and murder into my story. ive always have done it that way no matter how much "irishness" they try to stuff my way. and look at me now. got a B in higher english and that isnt even my 1st language.

adnans

Jak

Listen ...

They do not fking care about whether you can describe the Irish experience. It's all about showing you can write and think.

Try being a little bit inventive. If all the topics are Irish and you have not spent much time here - use that.

Being Irish - Try working the angle that as someone who comes from outside Ireland, you have a different perspective. You could examine what you see in Irish people that makes them different from the people where you lived.

Or just write about yourself. Claim that as you are living here, you are part of Irish society. If you are really all that different (which is doubtful) - the essay will at least be unique.

There are no right or wrong answers on an English paper and there is no special lessons that Irish people get which would tell them how to answer the question.

WhiteWashMan

shouldnt most of you people be studying or something?
you have to do more exams you know...

C B

Leaving Cert English is about the ability to express your opinions and understand the opinions expressed by others. If you felt that the chosen extracts displayed bigotry why not express that in your answer with reference to the themes addressed in a logical and structured format.

Secondly querying the issue of "what it means to be Irish" is not racist and anybody actually sitting the leaving cert should be able to discuss the issue regardless of what their background is.


...........................
Edited for spelling and grammar.
/I hang my head in shame and thank God that I didn't have to sit the English exam again!

[This message has been edited by C B (edited 07-06-2001).]

androphobic

i thought the English hons papers were lovely.. a theme is a theme..

On the Irish hons paper today, the Irishness theme cropped up again - Irishness, what is it? (that was an essay title by the way)

And while I'm talking about exams, the Maths (hons again) paper was really good today.

Hopefully the trend will continue..

[This message has been edited by androphobic (edited 07-06-2001).]

Jelvon

that hons maths paper was HANDY , I hope paper 2 on monday is as easy. Leaving Cert 2001 has been great so far , right back to study for the "old" history course

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah I agree, english paper wasn't that bad

although that being said I was very tired in the middle of paper 2 so I didn't answer the comparitive section.. and the only poet I studied (heaney) didn't come up, so that's not good.
Irish was lovely today, tomorrows shouldnt be that bad either... scoiscéalta is too simple
maths paper1 was beautiful... that's the only word I can think of for it
got nearly everything right on it luvverly.. cept that damn differentiation from first principles.. I forgot how to do that

Stephen

Ahh, thank fup for ordinary level maths and Irish

---

- Munch

Miguel_Sanchez

Sounds to me like the LC English paper has gone ****e easy in the four years since I sat it.

What's that about writing a story based around a picture? Sounds like something you'd have to do in National School. When I did it, to the best of my recollection, there was six essay titles and that was it. You could write a proper essay or a story around any title you felt like.

I took the story and packed it full of sentimentality and tragedy posing as truth to make sure that they marked me high.

---

I'm the Dude

T.G Catter

The irish tape..was very nasty today.maybe it was the poor sound quality.maths p1 higher was v handy i hear.
the ordinary..ah yes the time it takes to cook a chicken.. lol
lets see wat the history brings tomorrow, i pray Stalin comes up.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the irish tape rocked, was bloody funny
my class burst out laughing at it twice heh
the one about the dood calling in to complain about Ros na Rún was the best,

rumpelstiltskin

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by adnans:
i would finish the paper to the best of my ability and hopefully include elements of dwarfs, endangered species, bar fights, the virus, sex and murder into my story</font>

my essay was about this guy who lived in a small irish town, basically, he kept his wife hanging in the attic, and his kid covered in shít and dead in the cot.
Theres even a bit where he takes down the wofes decomposing corpse and gives a good feel up (while hes feeling her breast her nipple comes off).
The essay was q7, i started the story with the two aulwans in the door of the shop...

I done this in my mocks, except it was about a guy who killed peoples pets, and there was a scene where he masturbates over a dogs corpse

and yes i am a sick fúck, but i got 70 out of the 80 marks going for the question in the mocks...

Puck

It's only the Leving Cert man just tell them what they want to hear and get on with your life! Relllaaaaaaaaaaaxx!

---

John (yes THE John!)
john.filetap.com

Shiminay

If there are Quality issues with the Aural, it puzzles me why they don't just use a CD instead of a ****ty old cassette player.

Irish governmental efficency in action again...

I never liked the Iriah Aural much - I wasn't necessarily bad at it, it just seemed pointless as each region has it's own dialect and it's sometimes very difficult to figure out what's being said (luckily, my Irish teacher was top notch and knew loads of different dialects).

---

All the best!
Dav
@B^)
So Bob Hoskins was about to roll a spliff when in walks Dana with her 3 foot Bong
[honey i] violated [the kids]
Tribes 2 Goodness
The Dawn of the Beefy King approaches...

DrunkLeprachaun

I think it's because for the amount of copies they make it's cheaper to make tapes.

---

If there's one thing I hate, it's people.

Celt

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:
my essay was about this guy who lived in a small irish town, basically, he kept his wife hanging in the attic, and his kid covered in shít and dead in the cot.
Theres even a bit where he takes down the wofes decomposing corpse and gives a good feel up (while hes feeling her breast her nipple comes off).
The essay was q7, i started the story with the two aulwans in the door of the shop...

I done this in my mocks, except it was about a guy who killed peoples pets, and there was a scene where he masturbates over a dogs corpse

and yes i am a sick fúck, but i got 70 out of the 80 marks going for the question in the mocks...

</font>

P
L
D
!

richindub2

LOL rumpel, class, anychance you could scan that essay in for us to read? Would like to see it

---

*cough*
daves l33t site 0wns j00.

Lump

I would hope that his essay is in the hands of the Dept. of Education....... ya muppet :P

John

Snaga

*warning - pointless post*

I think what everyone here is missing is the gross unfairness that has befallen all of us who did the leaving cert in previous years.

You guys got COLOUR papers, with...PHOTOS!!11!1!1!! OMG!

We made do with black and white and we liked it, but NOOOOO, laaa DEEEE DAAAAA!, you had to have colour, didnt you, DIDNT YOU!!11!11

(course im not talking about the pink bits, you know, the other ones ;p)

richindub2

He could scan in the one from his mocks ye muppet lump

---

*cough*
daves l33t site 0wns j00.

Hannah

ahem, well i have to say that english paper 1 was a huge dissapointment in my opinion, it was boring, pointless and i felt, left very little scope for initiative.
possibly though, it could just be that it didn't suit me, i can't explain how thoroughly sick i felt when i opened the paper and saw the theme.
For the record i did the essay on "what being irish means to me" and made, i would say, a complete mess of it ..... i'm english.
Yes, it was possible to do that paper even if you weren't irish but i really think that the dept. of ed. could have thought it through a little more thouroghly before issuing it, it struck me as being small minded and almost provincial. But, as i said maybe i'm just bitter.

T.G Catter

history paper....was it for real? it was so so easy. I was in an exam centre with the supervisor on my own!!!! he even fell asleep,bless him.....