Leaving Cert 2012-13 *OFF-TOPIC* (hideaway) thread

Monsieur Folie

Eurovisionmad wrote: »

I dunno about the physics one, I think that's fairly time consuming!

Well I've my physics mock on Monday so I'll let you know after that if I agree with you or not! I've never really done a physics paper, every time we had school tests he'd only examine the experiments with us. So we've have like 4 experiment question in 1 and a half hours or something. Woeful teacher! I'm going to work at it myself between now and June though.

Chemistry was alright though, answered more than the required amount with plenty of time to spare..

And biology takes the cake lengthwise. If you were in a hurry I'd say you'd get it done in an hour! =P

Eurovisionmad

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

every time we had school tests he'd only examine the experiments with us.

Really?! I don't mean to freak you out but the experiments are the really easy part in the paper! It's what comes after is the hard part.

I wish the Physics paper was like the Chemistry paper where you have to do 2 experiments at least and you can answer the 3rd one if you want and that counts as one of your 8 overall, unlike in physics where you can only answer 3 of the 4 experiments and you have to answer 5 questions from section B, cause what they ask you in the experiments are always the same!

Monsieur Folie

Eurovisionmad wrote: »

Really?! I don't mean to freak you out but the experiments are the really easy part in the paper! It's what comes after is the hard part.

I wish the Physics paper was like the Chemistry paper where you have to do 2 experiments at least and you can answer the 3rd one if you want and that counts as one of your 8 overall, unlike in physics where you can only answer 3 of the 4 experiments and you have to answer 5 questions from section B, cause what they ask you in the experiments are always the same!

Yeah, I've been looking through the exam papers and I've a long road ahead of me if I want to do well in physics! The experiment questions are handy (probably because we've done so many) but I'm struggling with many of the other types of questions!

11Charlie11

Omg! Just realised that the poem for the Irish paper is only worth 5% and same with the story!! The amount of learning for 10%!!!

Prodigious

16% altogether. Absolute joke

kingcobra

Methememb wrote: »

16% altogether. Absolute joke

....and we're also given the poem right in front of us

11Charlie11

And we get 30 marks for reading it?

HugsiePie

How much is an trial worth (or the other stories I don't know what there called)

11Charlie11

HugsiePie wrote: »

How much is an trial worth (or the other stories I don't know what there called)

6.6666% so not worth it!

HugsiePie

11Charlie11 wrote: »

6.6666% so not worth it!

WHAT!!!!!! Well there's the hope of passing Irish out the window :rolleyes: So you could never study an trial and still get an A1?! WOW, what a mess of a course

user.name

HugsiePie wrote: »

WHAT!!!!!! Well there's the hope of passing Irish out the window :rolleyes: So you could never study an trial and still get an A1?! WOW, what a mess of a course

Sure our teacher calculated that the sraith picutures only count for 16% overall :P

Slow Show

user.name wrote: »

Sure our teacher calculated that the sraith picutures only count for 16% overall :P

But that's loads?

user.name

Slow Show wrote: »

But that's loads?

Its not enough for me :pac:

suitcasepink

On the subject of irish whats the deal with getting like 2 hours to do the essay on paper 1? If youre getting tha long is it meant to be unreal or something?

Eurovisionmad

deise_girl wrote: »

On the subject of irish whats the deal with getting like 2 hours to do the essay on paper 1? If youre getting tha long is it meant to be unreal or something?

I was thinking along those lines also, the imbalance of time division in Irish is slightly crazy like you could be easily pushed for time in paper 2 then! I think there's rumors that in future years the comprehensions will be moved back to paper 1.

Parawhore.xD

But if you move the comprehensions back the entire paper 2 will only be worth 16.666%? It's the way they have the marks divided out that's the problem!

I nearly think that instead of one big essay they should break it up into 3 small ones like the French paper... It'd test a wider range of vocab too rather than one learnt off essay!

Colm!

Yeah, I left Irish 1 early simply because I'd written four pages and there was nothing else to be done.

spurious

Parawhore.xD wrote: »

But if you move the comprehensions back the entire paper 2 will only be worth 16.666%? It's the way they have the marks divided out that's the problem!

I nearly think that instead of one big essay they should break it up into 3 small ones like the French paper... It'd test a wider range of vocab too rather than one learnt off essay!

The problem is the learned off essays. The time allotted is to allow someone plan an essay from scratch, write their plan and then compose it, not fire off some crap about an accident happening on the sunny day on the way to a funeral that was the best day of my life.

Parawhore.xD

spurious wrote: »

The problem is the learned off essays. The time allotted is to allow someone plan an essay from scratch, write their plan and then compose it, not fire off some crap about an accident happening on the sunny day on the way to a funeral that was the best day of my life.

Oh I agree, the problem is we're being taught essays, well I am anyway! I'm lucky in that I went to an Irish primary school so I have the vocab and the grammar to make up an essay using bits and pieces from what I've been given, like I do with French but a lot of people went into my Irish mock on Friday with an essay prepared and jut word vomited it back up on the page despite the fact that it wasn't totally relevant. I won't give the title obviously but yeah, that bothers me tbh.

Colm!

There's essays to be learned bring fired at me by my teacher. While I try to write to my own ideas, it's a lot more difficult, that's for sure, and I often lack the vocabulary to write the same amount (or the same quality) on the more interesting titles.

suitcasepink

We're just given essays and told to reproduce them. Really you'd have that done in half an hour...
But kinda like Colm was saying if I were to write it myself it'd turn to muck..
The essay is purely testing my memory rather than any Irish ability, which is really bad..

Slow Show

We get given a few articles and a sample essay for each topic and we make our own essay from that and yeah, pretty much learn it. I don't really do learning essays off by heart but I learn the vocab, I think in that way you can write an essay that actually sticks to the point rather than regurgitating something that's somewhat irrelevant. At the same time, if a topic I haven't prepared for comes up and I have to answer on it my grade will probably take a serious nosedive. :pac:

Copper_pipe

Anyone have a link to an aisye for the education system, not sure how to start it

CookieMonster.x

We write our own essays after we've read the small comprehensions in the book and maybe a sample essay from another book. I far prefer that than learning off something that someone else has written! I'm gla of the time in paper 1 as I like to have time to plan my essay properly rather than just launching straight into it.

bluejay14

I was planning on going to the Westmeath/Louth match but had to out for dinner instead. Heard the last 2 minutes on the radio on the way home and it sounds like it was a cracker of a match: 11 yellow cards for Louth, 6 yellows and a red for us and we came back from 6 points down to win by 1 in the last minute 0-16 to 2-9.

Dinner was nice and all but I'm waaaay too full to do any work now and I think I'd have preferred the match even though it's freezing out.

Prodigious

#FúckLouth

David086

Anyone else beyond fúked for Maths? They're making it up as they go along at this stage.

ray2012

I completely agree that essays shouldn't be learned off by heart and just re-wrote out again word for word. That's not the way it should be taught. But ever since 1st year when we started doing Irish properly, we've been always told to learn this and that off as answers. Even now in Leaving cert, I would find it really tough to write an essay, from scratch, in an exam situation that I had never prepared or that I never learned vocab on. It would turn out a right mess. This is because we're constantly told to learn off answers which may be 2/3 A4 pages of length. The subject is being taught really badly. I can find myself able to write an answer on a poem, about it's contrast/poetic techniques, but yet I wouldn't be able to construct a basic essay on the environment (without notes) for example. I don't expect that we can write these essays straight away but come on, we should be at least taught the vocab. In my class, we get a load of sheets on a particular topic, we do an essay on that topic, the teacher corrects them and hands them back, and we're told to basically learn it off.


Well I'm fúcked for my paper 1 tomorrow

CookieMonster.x

ray2012 wrote: »

I completely agree that essays shouldn't be learned off by heart and just re-wrote out again word for word. That's not the way it should be taught. But ever since 1st year when we started doing Irish properly, we've been always told to learn this and that off as answers. Even now in Leaving cert, I would find it really tough to write an essay, from scratch, in an exam situation that I had never prepared or that I never learned vocab on. It would turn out a right mess. This is because we're constantly told to learn off answers which may be 2/3 A4 pages of length. The subject is being taught really badly. I can find myself able to write an answer on a poem, about it's contrast/poetic techniques, but yet I wouldn't be able to construct a basic essay on the environment (without notes) for example. I don't expect that we can write these essays straight away but come on, we should be at least taught the vocab. In my class, we get a load of sheets on a particular topic, we do an essay on that topic, the teacher corrects them and hands them back, and we're told to basically learn it off.


Well I'm fúcked for my paper 1 tomorrow

Up until 5th year we had to just learn off essays word for word. Then I got a different teacher who makes us write our own essays which is brilliant.
I don't learn my essays off word for word. I am quite good at Irish so I suppose I could come up with something on the spot but I do know phrases and good vocabulary for each topic.

Dreading maths P2 tomorrow..

ray2012

CookieMonster.x wrote: »

I don't learn my essays off word for word. I am quite good at Irish so I suppose I could come up with something on the spot but I do know phrases and good vocabulary for each topic.

In your opinion, what is the best way to learn how to write good essays? During the mid-term I plan on trying to get better at them as It's my worst section of the paper at the moment. Obviously I'm going to avoid learning off essays. But yeah, how do you think someone could improve?