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Advice for future 6th years
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26-07-2011 10:06am#1I meant to write something like this a while ago, but better late then never. I am a survivor of the Leaving Cert 2011, and there are some things I wish I'd had someone to tell me about going into that year. Now, Everyone and their mother will tell you tips about staying fit and eating healthy and not panicking during the exams and studying every day, so I'm not going to repeat those types of tips. These are just some important but unexpected lessons I learned that I hope will help those of you who face the LC in 2012 or later! Any other past LC students around here should contribute their wisdom also. What I write is only my experience, and your mileage may vary!
Online Distractions- See this thread. It shows you how you can still be in the same building as a computer while studying without the fear of wasting hours on Facebook (Or Google+, whatever the kids are into these days :P ).
Exam papers and Marking Schemes- I cannot stress enough how awesome the Edco Exam Papers are. Teachers will tell you it doesn't matter, but for a lot of the subjects (not all though) the Edco papers have a little code under each question which you can put into their website and get a solution or sample answer. These sample answers and solutions are what made me into an A student in Geography, Biology and Maths (Maths might not apply to the new course as much but still worth a try I think). You should also download marking schemes online for free at examinations.ie, but they don't have full answers or diagrams like Edco does. The Edco answers aren't perfect (or even that great in some cases like for English) but they'll give you an idea of what an answer should look like or how long it should be, which is important.
Getting essays to stay in your brain Different people study in different ways, but what I found worked for me was rewriting and re-typing essays and notes over and over again. English, Irish, History, and Geography at some point or another will require you to memorize quotes, essays or answers. If you can do that, but you can also tailor what you've learned to answer the question, you will do well. By the end of the year I must've re-typed some entire essays 30 times, but I sure as hell knew them off by heart. And, I can type faster than anyone I know now :cool:
--If you are using a computer to type and revise notes, Which I personally found extremely helpful and handy, make a Dropbox account and keep your notes there. Not only are you then safe in case something happens to your computer, but you can access all your notes from a smartphone, school computer, or a whole load of other devices.
--One of the best ways to memorise essays and notes is to listen to them. I use a mac computer which has the (awesome) option of taking a typed document and putting it on an iPod as a spoken mp3, but recording yourself reading the essays and putting them on your iPod is just as effective. You'll feel like a tool listening to yourself reading poetry, but people tend to remember times when they felt like tools vividly
I should restate how important it is that even though these tips are mainly about learning essays off by heart, that's *useless* unless you can use the information you learned to answer a question you've never seen before without panicking or going off topic. I did horribly on my History exam because the exact questions I'd prepared didn't come up, I thank God I got lucky for English and my other subjects.
Mocks/Pres- Don't cheat! If you go on Boards or other websites when the Mocks are on, you'll find other people posting what questions are coming up. The mocks are going to be difficult as for most subjects you won't have finished the course. Do the best you can without resorting to Boards to cheat, but don't sweat it if they don't go your way. They don't matter in the long run, it's just a wasted opportunity to practice if you sneak a look at the exams first. Also, many teachers actually make their own mock papers these days, so you could screw yourself if you prepare for a paper you might not get. I cheated for a few subjects and it was the dumbest thing I did all year! :rolleyes:
Grinds vs School teachers- Grinds are Eeeeeeeexpensive, but in my experience they were worth the money. I did grinds for English (just to get myself from a low B to an A hopefully) and German (To get try to myself from an E to C standard). I'm sure there are many crappy grinds teachers out there, but mine were absolute legends and I probably owe my future career to their hard work. Sometimes you will find your teachers will actually take it personally if they find you've been getting grinds, but don't let that stop you if you think they're helping.
It's important to stay on your teachers' good sides only up to a point... and that occasionally means not doing some homework for a certain subject, if you feel your time is better spent on another subject. Explain this to your parents and they shouldn't give you a hard time if you get in trouble for not handing up work on time sometimes if they know it's for a good reason.
Maths- I was part of the last year to do the old course, so there's only so much advice I can give. But what I will say is moving from Higher level maths to Ordinary level was one of the best moves I made, aside from the fact the honours maths paper my year got was by far the hardest there's ever been. I got an A in maths for the JC, but struggled to keep up in Honours through 5th year. After I went down to pass, my whole experience of school got a lot better, as it got rid of loads of stress. But, ordinary level restricts your CAO choices greatly, so it's not for everyone.
That's all I can think of for now, but if anyone else has more advice, then speak up. If you need any help, send me a PM! I did Higher level English, German, Geography, History and Biology, and ordinary level Maths and Irish, so I can offer help for those subjects in particular.
Good luck, you poor, unlucky people! :P12
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angela1711 wrote: »great tips and I knew about dropbox before but I never though that i can put mu notes there ;D well I still prefer to write my notes by myself rather then type them on the computer
maybe scan them if you have an all in one printer as it might be easier than typing them all out again
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QueenOfLeon wrote: »All entry requirements here on page 2
That link won't work initially because of boards censoring Med Entry, so when you open the new tab just change the stars in the URL to Med Entry without the space.
so the 6 years is for graduates, so they wouldnt need chemistry because they could have done business or law or something else
the 5 year undergraduate you need chemistry hc3, these are for lc students
sorry bit confused
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so the 6 years is for graduates, so they wouldnt need chemistry because they could have done business or law or something else
the 5 year undergraduate you need chemistry hc3, these are for lc students
sorry bit confused
No! Heres all the med courses:
Graduate Entry Medicine: This is a 4 year course, only for people who have got a 2.1 in a previous degree, and sit the GAMSAT exam. Only offered in UL, RCSI, UCC and UCD. This will not concern any of ye, it is not applied for using your LC points.
Undergraduate Entry Medicine: This is for entry using your LC and HPAT, offered in NUIG, TCD, UCD, UCC and RCSI. This can be either the 5 year OR the 6 year course. Applying is all the same, you just apply for "Medicine" on the CAO. When you get offered medicine by the CAO, you are offered the 5 year or 6 year course by the university.
Both courses are the exact same for the last 5 years, the only difference with the 6 year course is that you do premed first before embarking on the 5 year course. Most people do premed. It involves biology, chemistry and physics, along with some clinical stuff.0 -
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My question would be, as someone going into 6th year (which is horrifying. It was always something hovering off in the distance, I never thought I'd be actually be a sixth year!) is dropping out of a teachers class and doing it yourself a bad idea? My chemistry teacher is very bad, she's always making mistakes, always late, always copying answers out of the book and all her tests are way too easy. We're horribly behind in the course. I'm being given the option to sit the class out with another girl and cover the course ourselves, but this would mean no experiments and obviously no teacher. The other advantage though that I see to this is my maths course is also very behind, and if I could get the chem course finished a bit early myself because its short, I could dedicate two of my 6 free chem slots a week to maths. Is this a bad idea?
To be honest I think if you have the motivation to cover it yourself you should do so. My teacher in 5th year was horrendous, he retired and we got a better teacher for LC but still had to do some of the course myself. Its not too bad once you get over some of the more difficult stuff, just make sure to equip yourself with as much notes, internet resources and youtube links as possible
Is the other girl a fairly high standard? I find that one of the best ways I learn things is by explaining it to someone else, not that the opportunity arises all too often. If this worked for you, why not agree with the other girl that for a few days you each cover a seperate chapter, and then spend an hour or so teaching eachother the other chapter. This way you don't get in eachothers way, but you are motivated to learn something because you have a deadline to know it by 0 -
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