Gaeilge Ardleibhéal

bebop!

Just wondering has anyone got any good tips for improving perfomance in the Leamhthuiscint ?? Does anybody actually read the whole thing in the exam or like i do it just look for the words in the question?? And another question is anybody learining off aistes?? Two girls from our school did that for the 2006 exam and they were the only two in the class to get A1's!!

Any tips or just info on how your tackcling these areas of the exam would be great,

cheers

Carsinian Thau

Listen to past tapes. Also RnaG might help.
As regards the Aiste. Learning something off by heart is okay but I prefer to let it sort of just flow (like in English). The ones who learned off the essays last year were really lucky. You'd be punished severely for writing perfect Irish on something completely irrelevant comapred to fairly good Irish on what you've been asked.
The odd paragraph and plenty of sentences should suffice for learning obh.

RealJohn

bebop! wrote:

Just wondering has anyone got any good tips for improving perfomance in the Leamhthuiscint ?? Does anybody actually read the whole thing in the exam or like i do it just look for the words in the question??

How about reading the whole thing?
Go out, buy a few Irish newspapers (Foinse is good and relatively easy to read) and go through a few articles with your dictionary. Do one article every day (doesn't have to be a long one) and you will definitely improve.

behop! wrote:

And another question is anybody learining off aistes??

If you're not confident in your ability to write a good one on the day, it might be no harm but remember, about half of the marks (I can't remember the exact figure) go for content so if your essay doesn't match the title, you're down to 50% of the marks straight away.

Listening to RnaG and watching TG4 will help your oral and aural Irish and general fluency, which is no harm. Be careful with TG4 though. They still have a habit of throwing in english words.

PurpleFistMixer

As far as I know, it's 20 for subject, 80 for Irish, but the two are linked, as in, if you get 10 for subject, the max you can get is 40 for Irish, that sort of thing... (may not be directly proportional though, but that's the general idea afaik).

yurmothrintites

What I do is learn a opening and closing paragraph to a social problem essay(got it in the gaeltacht) Learn some vocab and phrases like:

Is cinnte go bhfuil/ raibh/ mbíonn/
Is dócha go bhfuil/ raibh/ mbíonn
Is trua go bhfuil/ raibh/ mbíonn
Is leir go bhfuil/ raibh/ mbíonn
(can all be used instead of tá/ bhí/ bíonn) for a better grade etc...

Make sure your tenses, urús, séimhiús are correct, that brings marks down. And finally keep it simple don't overcomplicate your sentences.

bebop!

Thanks guys,, its great to hear other peoples advice and views on how to approach it defo gona try out these things thanks:)