FE-1 Irish Exam

Muff_Daddy

I'm about to start the FE-1 course next month in Griffith and I just want to find out some info about the Irish Exam, as I can find little about it. When is the exam taking place, and what does it contain? Irish was never my strongest subject in school, and I'm dreading the thought of having to write out an essay in Irish!

Also, I know a few non-nationals who are sitting the exam....will they get an exemption from the Irish or not?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

dK1NG

Muff_Daddy wrote: »

I'm about to start the FE-1 course next month in Griffith and I just want to find out some info about the Irish Exam, as I can find little about it. When is the exam taking place, and what does it contain? Irish was never my strongest subject in school, and I'm dreading the thought of having to write out an essay in Irish!

Also, I know a few non-nationals who are sitting the exam....will they get an exemption from the Irish or not?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

No exemptions, and its fairly handy tbh!

tombren

irish exam is seriously handy, i sat it last june,
my irish level would be poor enough, did honours irish for the leaving but that was 12 years ago, so really forgot everything
didnt do the gcd course but got the manual from a friend and everything u need is in it,
as far as i can remember, the paper usually goes like this

1) write a sort essay from one of four choices, these are usually something like, a letter to mary harney, or myself in 5 years or a trip i took etc but if u dont fancy doing this instead they give u the choice of writing a book review of an irish book that u read. the griffith manual has a book review done out in it, just learn it off, write it out in the exam and you're laughing

2) there are 4 books on the syllabus, the exam paper sets out 2 passages from each book, one in irish and one in english, u must choose one of the four and translate the irish passage to english and the english passage to irish,
the griffith manual sets out all the available passages from just one of the books (only certain pages are asked) each passage is about five lines, again just learn by heart what's in the manual and transcribe it in the exam

and that's the written part, really easy, exam is three hours long, i and most of my friends were out after 45 minutes, the 'rumour' is that they only actually look at your written paper if your oral is really bad,

oral is again very do-able, u can learn off some key phrases, lasts about 3 minutes, there girl who examined me was very sound, about my age, asked where i lived, with who, did i work, what i did in my spare time, we chatted about gigs for a few minutes and that was it,

if you've any level of irish at all and u can learn stuff off pretty easy (which i presume u can otherwise u wouldnt be doing fe1s) you'll be grand. only ever heard of 1 person failing it, she's english and the last set was her third attempt but she got it

oh, i sat mine in june, but i think the next sitting is in dec or january, not sure

Muff_Daddy

tombren wrote: »

irish exam is seriously handy, i sat it last june,
my irish level would be poor enough, did honours irish for the leaving but that was 12 years ago, so really forgot everything
didnt do the gcd course but got the manual from a friend and everything u need is in it,
as far as i can remember, the paper usually goes like this

1) write a sort essay from one of four choices, these are usually something like, a letter to mary harney, or myself in 5 years or a trip i took etc but if u dont fancy doing this instead they give u the choice of writing a book review of an irish book that u read. the griffith manual has a book review done out in it, just learn it off, write it out in the exam and you're laughing

2) there are 4 books on the syllabus, the exam paper sets out 2 passages from each book, one in irish and one in english, u must choose one of the four and translate the irish passage to english and the english passage to irish,
the griffith manual sets out all the available passages from just one of the books (only certain pages are asked) each passage is about five lines, again just learn by heart what's in the manual and transcribe it in the exam

and that's the written part, really easy, exam is three hours long, i and most of my friends were out after 45 minutes, the 'rumour' is that they only actually look at your written paper if your oral is really bad,

oral is again very do-able, u can learn off some key phrases, lasts about 3 minutes, there girl who examined me was very sound, about my age, asked where i lived, with who, did i work, what i did in my spare time, we chatted about gigs for a few minutes and that was it,

if you've any level of irish at all and u can learn stuff off pretty easy (which i presume u can otherwise u wouldnt be doing fe1s) you'll be grand. only ever heard of 1 person failing it, she's english and the last set was her third attempt but she got it

oh, i sat mine in june, but i think the next sitting is in dec or january, not sure

Thanks a million....that's everything I need to know;)

Font22

anyone know the closing date for the applications?

dK1NG

tombren wrote: »

oral is again very do-able, u can learn off some key phrases, lasts about 3 minutes, there girl who examined me was very sound, about my age, asked where i lived, with who, did i work, what i did in my spare time, we chatted about gigs for a few minutes and that was it,

I went into my oral and the examiner asked me about my "uimhir" - not having a clue, I proceeded to ramble on the usual suspects - xxx is ainm dom agus ta me x blian etc. She then started going through her list and eventually found my exam number - no.400+:eek: Despite that setback, we went on to have a great (read - basic as heck) conversation about my pasttimes, family and summer job (teag me na bagaiste don eitlean - little did i realise that she would want to expand further on this:o)

Notwithstanding the above, I passed!!!:)

Tom Young

King's Inns Irish exams has been upgraded. You lucky people!