Advice for future 6th years

njd2010

Deleted User wrote: »

which kind of subjects are easiest to do for me outside school? id be getting a grind id say about once to twice a month.

id either be doing business, economics, French (most likely O.L) or geography outside school). I have a good interest in both business subjects. im ok at French; only got C in HL in jc and the French teachers aren't the best in my school so do you think id be able to manage OL outside school?

re. time- im will be doing OL Irish but HL maths. am I taking on too much by doing 8 subjects?
what I want to do in uni, I dont know but have a fair idea and it will require points in the 400's

thanks in advance; btw im in Ty now

I agree with Lostboy. Plenty of people think about doing extra subjects outside of school when they are in 4th year or starting 5th year(I certainly did)but it's almost never a good idea IMO. 7 subjects is a massive amount of work to begin with, adding another will just greatly reduce the time you can dedicate to your other subjects while not really increasing your chances of getting high points. And really, there are no LC subjects that I know of that can be learned by getting a grind just once or twice a month.

Also, doing Geography outside of school could be especially difficult as there's a whole field trip/project thing that's worth a big chunk of marks.

Chuchoter

@Bezka
You're much better off keeping your 6/7 at HL than having two at ordinary plus subjects outside of school. Extra subjects never works.

Closet Monkey

Chuchoter wrote: »

@Bezka
You're much better off keeping your 6/7 at HL than having two at ordinary plus subjects outside of school. Extra subjects never works.

You're right, but the only reason I am doing 8 subjects is because I do ordinary Irish and I don't think I can achieve an A in English. I am doing Applied Maths as my extra subject and I don't think it has effected my other subjects.

Bbbbolger

I dont think its fair to say extra subjects dont work. I did Biology on my own outside of school starting in 6th year and I got a higher B3. Not bad for one years work. It all depends on the person. If you do take up an extra subject though I'd make sure it's something you're actually interested in. I loved Biology and that motivated me to actually do it. If it's going to be a chore to learn it will ultimately drag you down without teachers/regular homework/tests to keep you on your toes.

njd2010

With the 2012 Mocks and exams coming up, figured this was due for a bump. Again, I'm available for questions via PM.

Petermt

njd2010 wrote: »

seriouslysweet wrote: »

Ok so I am going into sixth myself this year. Am following tips given by my cousin, not only did she get unreal results but is also relatively cool allround so I would like to do similarly. She plays lots of sports and music and has an active social life. She recommended visiting a recommended career guidance counsellor this Summer and I did. Have found it hugely beneficial as clarified what my goals and aims should be. I also sought the free advice of a learning mentor and assuch understand my own learning technique and patterns better.
She really stressed the importance of routine and from mid August plan on being in one. !

Excellent points, and reminds me of some important things I didn't think to mention before.

I found exercise to be the best way to get rid of stress, which for me was weird because I'm not at all a sporty guy. I used this 100 pushup program
, it's surprisingly effective, requires the minimum of time and effort, and every time I found myself getting frustrated or upset at the workload it totally helped me calm down. Got me through the year without freaking out too much, and by the end of June, oh how the ladies swooned at my Hulk-like physique! :cool:


Getting into a routine for studying, eating, etc is extremely important, as Sweet said. For me I only managed to find a routine that really stuck during the Mock exams, with 90 minute sessions of each subject, 4 or 5 subjects a day except Friday and Saturday. 90 minutes seems like a lot, but I procrastinated a lot so really it was a way of tricking myself into doing maybe an hour of good study (If I only planned to do an hour, I'd probably really do 30 mins of proper non-daydreaming study).

That routine got more intense as the exams got closer, eventually I was getting 7 90-minute study sessions done a day. To do this, I was getting up VERY early. Now, I was not and am not a morning person, but I found staying up late to study wasn't getting me anywhere, so I started going to bed at like 9pm at the latest, getting up at 4:30 or 5am, and studying. Yeah, that doesn't sound fun. Honestly though, once I got my sleep pattern sorted, It's actually not bad studying that early- I had the kitchen to myself for hours, nothing on TV or Facebook to distract me, and I found myself able to remember things much better. For the love of GOD, do not attempt to sacrifice sleep for study. Your brain will punish you for trying in horrible ways. Getting up early isn't a case of losing sleep, it's a case of going to sleep earlier. Yeah, I was getting up at 4am plenty of mornings but falling asleep by 8pm so I still got more sleep than most of my friends. When the exams come around, that's when this sleep pattern of "Wake up, study, exam, sleep, repeat" was actually really awesome. I walked into each exam with the precious knowledge super fresh in my mind, and sleeping almost straight afterwards meant I was bypassing all the "oh **** I wonder if that exam went bad" thoughts while cramming for the next day's exam.

So yeah, at the very end of 6th year, you get a choice- Social Life or Sleep or Study; pick 2. And you can't really choose a social life anyway, because your friends certainly won't!


Also, I really didn't go to school all that much for the last few weeks (like many of the things I've written here, this is not so much advice as a summary of my personal 6th year experience and how it worked out for me, it's up to you whether or not you take any of this on board as YMMV!). I thought a lot of my teachers were going over things I could've revised much better myself at home, so I stayed home and studied. I don't regret this, I think it all worked out as good as it could have. Throughout Junior Cert you tend to look at all teachers with contempt, but in 6th year we really started to understand which teachers were actually really cool and how beneficial they were, and for some others we started to understand that they were not going to be any help at all. Yeah, I had some gloriously bad teachers. I think everyone does to some extent; what separates you in life is how well you were able to judge how much help is available to you and having the initiative to help yourself after that.

Do yOu mind me asking you how many points did you get in the end and what are you doing now?

njd2010

Petermt wrote: »

Do yOu mind me asking you how many points did you get in the end and what are you doing now?

I got 480 points (actually struggled to remember for a second, amazing how unimportant it all seems a year later!) and I'm now doing Law Plus (with Economics) in UL