Advice from LC's for these Subjects..

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Hi there, first of all congratulations to all L.C'S who received their results yesterday. For those of you who achieved your goals I say well done, for those that may not have completely fulfilled their potential just know there's also a second route available! .

I am entering 6th year on the 22nd of August and will need high points to (hopefully) study European Studies in Trinity. I think the requirements are well into the mid 500's so I need all the advice I can get. I am sitting the following HL subjects and would just lie any advice you could offer in regards to how you went about studying them and what methods you would use when studying these subjects, If I could get advice from A/B students I would greatly appreciate it.

• English HL
• French HL
• Music HL
• Business HL
• Geography HL
• Economics HL (Outside school)
• LCVP

I am particulary worried about French, Music and Economics as I feel confident in my abilities in English, Geography and Business and hope to achieve A1/A2's in them.

In conclusion, thanks for any advice you can offer me!. And once again congratulations on all the hard graft you have put in over the last 6 years!

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partyatmygaff

I've just finished writing an epically long PM with advice for English to another incoming sixth year. I may as well reproduce it here. I've changed some parts to suit the thread.

To put it in context, the person who asked wanted to know how I got an A1 in English.

I wouldn't be too worried about your grade at the moment. I started off in fifth year on a C1. I then went on to get B3s until the Christmas exams. I then continued on to a B2 in the 5th year summer exam before finally settling on B1s in my Christmas and Mock. Changes in your English grade don't take place overnight! It's a gradual process that needs consistent practice to take place.

Language is an art. It's a form of communication. Through words and sentences you communicate an idea the same way through pitches and rhythms you communicate ideas in Music. Music, much like English is a language. Think of the English language as a musical instrument by which you communicate ideas. I ask you now, how do you improve your ability in an instrument? You practice regularly and listen to the works of the great masters of the instrument who came before you. You study their works and you learn from them. English is no different. You read the works of the masters of the language and learn from them. You read first and write later. Now to get an A1 in any language or artistic subject you need both technical skill and flair. To attain this skill and flair you need a lot of experience in using the language both in reading it and writing it.

Anyway, time for some practical advice.

From now on until the exam you need to read and write constantly. I don't mean just doing your homework or limiting yourself to what's required of you in school either. What you really need to do is read varied material. Read encyclopaedia articles, read short stories; Read widely and read regularly is the message i'm trying to get across. It may not seem like it helps but reading greatly improves your vocabulary, your sentence structures and your syntax and grammar. Not only that but it opens your mind up to new ideas which may prove useful in a composition. Personally, I owe it all to boards for my level of English. I used to and continue to spend a lot of my free time debating topics such as politics, religion, current affairs and the economy on boards. Conversing and debating with tens of other people will do wonders for your written English and composition. However, I've got to stress the point that unless you read and write regularly regardless of the day being a schoolday or not, you will not make much progress.

Too long; didn't read? The summary of the above few paragraphs is "Read, Read, Write, Read, Write 7 days a week"


This may come as a surprise but I never did extra work for English. Not even once throughout my five years in secondary school. I never purposefully sat down and said "Alright, i'm going to open my exam papers and do questions x and y." All I did was my homework. No more, no less. That's all that's required really. I never purposefully learned quotes nor scenes nor character maps. The only form of study that I did was reading/watching my prescribed texts and analysing them. I knew the set works to the point that quotes came naturally as if I was recalling a chorus from a favourite song of mine. The scenes, the characters and the plot were all crystal clear in my mind. That's how well you should know them. Never mind rubbish sample answers or lists of quotes. That'll get you nowhere.

Now for some exam-specific tips

Notes (To be made around a month or two before the Mocks)

Poetry: Half an A4 page for each poem with extremely short bullet points that keep things concise. Even better if you can include a quote or two.

I'll start you off with Robert Frost. These are the notes that in the last hours before my English Mock and my English exam. I got an A1 in both my poetry essays. I'd give you other poets but they're not on your course for 2012. *I'm sending the notes in another PM as this one is too long to be sent.

Hamlet: Don't write essays. Write essay plans. Before my exam I had six essay plans written up (3 A4 pages).
Not one of them were of any use to me this year mind you . But that said, I had attempted to cover all angles. I had plans for Hamlet: Hero or Villain, Claudius: Nature of villainy, Soliloquies, Imagery and Symbolism, Dramatic scene (Ghost scene) and finally Hamlet and his foils. I'll send you along one of them to give you an idea of how you should plan your essays in that second PM.

Comparative: I did cultural context so I can't offer you much assistance modes wise. What I'd advise you to do is make a matrix table with headings such as Family, Society, Poverty e.t.c. across the top and your three texts down the side. Then just fill in relative key moments and information.

No notes are necessary for Paper 1.


Paper 1

• Read the question and answer it EXACTLY. No wishy washy answers that sort of teeter on relevant. It needs to be precise. Be extremely careful as not answering the question will bring you straight down to a C. Even up until the end of sixth year I was still being marked down for failing to answer the question asked. Be vigilant and keep asking yourself "Is this relevant?"
• Choose your section B comprehension question wisely. You don't want to choose a comprehension only to discover that the other two have nasty section Bs.
• Speeches are the easiest section Bs to get marks in if you're a theatrical type of person who knows how to play to people's emotions.

Paper 2

• Again, read the question and answer it EXACTLY.
• Do not quote unless the inclusion of a quote would give weight to a point you made. I included at most six short quotes in my entire Hamlet essay for example.
• Do not under any circumstances skip a question. If you're running low on time, move on.
• Length =/= Quality. My highest marked poetry essay was just barely three pages long. My highest marked Hamlet essay was two and a half pages long. To give a sense of perspective my best short story was eight pages long! Write only as much as is necessary.

Bloody hell, that's one long PM

I'm going to fire off the second PM with those examples I promised earlier in the PM.

Continued in my next post...

partyatmygaff

Continued

partyatmygaff wrote:

Robert Frost

• Well known later in his life.
• Moved to New England after death of his father. Then England when he was 40
• Much loss in his life.
• “Writing a few poems it will be hard to get rid of”

The Road not Taken - Detail

• Regretful of his past choices and decisions in life
• Self-justification of his poor judgement and choices through mistruths and hyperbole
• ‘Yellow wood’
• Wholly ambiguous.
• Possibly saying that it mattered little what path he took and that uncertainty lied at the end of each regardless.
• Lingual: Slow Rhythm, Woodland imagery that is metaphorical in nature. Wavering rhythm communicates uncertainty. Metre is trochic tetrameter but rhythm varies.

Birches - Mention

• Autobiographical without being explicitly so. Childhood memoir.
• Wants to live yet yearns a pause in life
• Hypothetical -> Factual
• Lost Childhood innocence
• Lingual: Celestial imagery and beauty

“Out, Out-” - Detail

• Inspired by a true story.
• Loss of childhood as a boy is made do a man’s work and suffers a terrible fate.
• Highly detailed setting and scene, all senses are evoked.
• Brevity of human life - Macbeth quote.
• Lingual: Metonymy as “life spills from the boy’s hand” as if life were blood. Life brings about a more emotional response as blood is essential to life. Blood is a main feature of life. Metonymy likens blood to life.

Spring pools - Detail

• Nature poem depicting the beauty of the shortlived spring pools
• Hates the trees for their consumption of the melted snow
• Icy and crisp landscape
• Lingual: “These flowery waters and watery flowers” - Reflected repetition, possible call for people to reflect upon the beauty and process of nature. Atmospheric.

Acquainted with the Night - Detail

• Very personal poem. I and my pronouns.
• Outwalked all hope, lethargical, chronic depression
• Lingual: Imagery and sound effectively illustrate his loneliness. Repetition in the first two stanzas creates an almost haunting chant like effect. Terza Rima much like Dante’s inferno.

Design - Mention

• Wonder of who a designer could design such an apparently appalling display of nature.
• Pessimistic
• Lingual: Abnormal imagery. Ugly. Reversed Italian sonnet. Scene in the octet and question in the sestet.

Now the formatting is a bit messed up but the content remains unchanged. As you can see it's very very compact. You will not have time nor mind to read through pages of notes on the day of the exam and the days leading up to it. As you can see, I start off with some small relevant biographical data that may prove useful in writing an intro for answer. Then in my analyses of the poems I try my best to amalgamate theme, technical features and quotes in to one bullet point to keep things compact and dense. You need to do the same for your other poets.


Now on to Hamlet (Note this question in particular was predicted to come up this year so watch out...)

Hamlet: Imagery & Symbolism

1. Mention how the Danish court is shrouded in secrecy. Mention how Shakespeare sought to convey the Danish corrupt through imagery. Mention lack of trust and how the characters speak in riddles and imagery to each other.
2. Speak of the metastasising cancer that is the “rank weed” that is growing throughout the “unweeded garden” of the Danish court. An evil King is the seed of this weed and the weed itself is a symbol of corruption. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Fat Weed e.t.c. Do not spread compost on the weeds to make them ranker
3. Poison, disease and ear imagery. All the main characters die by poison - “Leprous distilment” - “whole ear of Denmark” Claudius sees Hamlet as a disease and he attempts to cut the disease away by sending him to England for execution. Hamlet likewise sees Claudius as a source of disease which must be killed to cleanse the Danish court. “Rose of innocent love is replaced by a blister” - Claudius
4. Hamlet uses his antic disposition and imagery to break down facades. Hamlet says “I know not seems”. He can see the reality behind the semblance. His language breaks down the barriers of falsity in other characters e.g. The pipe and R&G. He also prompts Gertrude to think of what she has done through the comparison of King Hamlet and Claudius’ image.
5. Imagery and symbolism are prevalent throughout the play in both inter-character dialogue and soliloquy. Shakespeare sought to shroud the play and its characters in mystery and ambiguity by this use of symbolism and imagery rather than direct language.

As you can see, I plan out the structure of the essay with snippets of relevant quotes throughout the plan in bold. I keep it short and to the point. Note that I also keep it logic-driven and not plot-driven. Plot-driven answers are received very poorly by examiners as they reek of poor textual understanding. What I mean by plot-driven is structuring your essay with regard to the events of the plot itself. I.e discussing the introduction of the play in paragraph one and the ending in the final paragraph. You should discuss it in separate points with discussion going fluidly back and forth from scene to scene and act to act without any hiccups. This is a bit difficult to do at first. If you need any more help with this, I can give you some more tips.

As for now, I'm tired and have to head off to bed. Good luck with next year. With any luck, you'll be the one advising people next year hopefully

Just Like Heaven

Your a star

GoldFour4

Do not get confident in business. Just keep revising even if you know it well. The exam was marked very harshly this year. I was very confident of an A yesterday but ended up with an B1. They really reduced the number of A's this year.

For french you should read french articles. Your teacher may give you vocab to learn on specific topics eg. Racism, the internet, young people and clothes and other social problems. Learn these as if your life depended on it! Be able to adjust the vocab to reflect the question asked. Practise oral early and learn how to pronounce words early before getting into bad habits. Practise as much tape as you can. The questions are really easy if you have a good grasp of vocab on a wide range of everyday things such as the weather and sport.

Best of luck !

cabbage kid

Music:
Let me know what you're doing for your practical and what questions you'll be preparing for in the composing paper and I'll give you tips on them later.

For the Listening Paper:

1. Answering technique is the single most important aspect. They are looking for Key Words. Don't waste your time with waffle.
2. Answer every question. There's usually very few possible answers so a guess is always worth it - you won't run out of time.
3. Remember that the studied works are worth comparatively little in the exam overall so don't waste all your study time on knowing them back-to-front. An exceptional knowledge of the bar numbers, specific notes etc. is not required for an excellent grade.
4. You will probably need to know 7 or 8 Irish essays off. They are marked hard so you need to fill the page with detail.
5. When comparing two pieces of music, make reference to both pieces i.e. don't say "The second one was loud."
6. Learn the features of the different eras as they will definitely be asked.
7. The best way to prepare is to just listen to the pieces. I really liked the works and listened to them a lot in the lead up to the exam.

If I think of more things I'll edit them in. I got my A1 in Music yesterday so the advice given to me must've been good.

Bottleopener

Of the subjects you did, I did Economics, French and English and got A1s in the 3 of them

Partyatmygaff covered English fantastically, not much more I can add to that really.


Economics - the main thing to think about here is methodology. So much of this exam is just knowing what to do and how to answer the questions correctly. There is so much repitition in this exam that it's almost taking the piss =P.

Basically, as you know the course has 2 big sections - microeconomics and macroeconomics. Every year people will be coming out with crazy predictions as to what is going to come up, but my advice is not to listen to them. It's such a short course, so try and cover as much as you can.

The key to this subject is past papers. The past marking schemes are online and use them as much as you can - you'll quickly see that there is a lot of repitition. I also have the answers to short questions back as far as 1980, will scan them at some point in the next couple of weeks and pm them to you .

As for what to cover, it really depends on what you find the easiest. I personally covered the micro questions, International Trade, National Income + Money and Banking in detail while I briefly covered the rest of the course. Don't rely on the very minimum, a lot of people in my class were caught out by the fact that the law of equi marginal returns came up this year, and they had no idea what it was =P.

Know your definitions well, they'll stand to you in time, they're that important. Know certain ones that come up often BY HEART. They really do add up over time.

Apologies for the disjointedness of this, if you've any specific questions ask away . Will try write something up for French now.

Bottleopener

Where to begin about how to go about studying for French? =P Can only really give brief advice here.

I'm sort of big into listening to international music, so I had a decent amount of French stuff on my ipod. You'd be surprised at how much this could help with your listening, its generally a good idea just to get a feel for the language and get used to how it sounds. Otherwise practice exam papers and look at marking schemes. You'd be surprised at how strangely specific they are, so you have to get used to knowing what the examiner wants as your answer to the listening questions.

Oral is mainly about practice. Our teacher was fantastic and gave us handouts for 9 different sections, will look up the titles she gave the topics later, so you could possibly make your own ones surrounding these - our teacher gave us a series of common questions on a written sheet and we had to answer these using her handouts for help, this really helped us with revision =P. Know a few abstract topics too - you'll know yourself what's topical at the time.

Comprehensions = PRACTICE! Again, like the aural, you have to get used to writing exactly what the examiner wants, and you have to know how to answer the question. Methodology is almost more important than knowledge. If it says "trouvez un mot" you must give ONE WORD. No more!! Know when you have to quote, and when you have to manipulate. Be aware of grammatical terms - the grammar based question is often useful for gaining marks .

Finally, the written section! Do not learn off essays off by heart! Practice doing one or two a week, and you'd be surprised at how much your writing will improve over time! Learn vocab for more extract topics, but don't be relying on certain things coming up. It's not a kind of exam you can predict. For example, this year I ended up writing about the importance of independence, and the standard of refereeing in sport/video refs =P - two things I hadn't learned off vocab for, but was able to confidently write about due to having practiced over time =D. The one thing you know for sure is that there will be a diary entry and letter in question two though, and I'd recommend that you do the diary entry as its generally very straightforward .

There was also a chief examiner's report done up last year - use that! It has a series of recommendations for students and can be found on the examinations.ie website .

Same as for economics, if you have any questions go ahead and ask

plein de force

i got an A1 in french so i'll give you advice on that

Written

There's a book called "mot à mot" with really good vocab for essay writing and good sections on topics we cover at LC level. it's only around €7 and very handy i'd buy it if i were you.
Learn structure in your opinion essays e.g. start off introducing the topic then give two sides of the argument and a possible solution then a conclusion wrapping things up with a bit of your own opinion. Always have one or two subjunctives but don't do it just for the sake of it, it will be very obvious and won't get you marks.

For the journal entry learn as much idiomatic french as possible and try and use as many different verb tenses as possible but again don't do it for the sake of it. always go with the journal entry as you can be creative whereas the letter is merely translating and there's no real space for imagination so you more easily pick up marks in the journal.

Then, with comprehensions, when you're doing them in the papers, if you come across a new word, write it down and memorise it as it comes in handy and look at the marking schemes and see how they mark them and get used to answering as the way they like it.

read articles in french "paris match" "le figaro" "le monde" are good

Listening:

Go over them constantly and repeat them if you have to, they get you used to it. watch french news, french radio. you get used to how fast they speak then the listening is easy in comparison as they speak slowly in comparison.

Oral:

Get as much new vocab as possible and use it. just go over constantly what you're doing in class and when studying at home say it out loud and get the pronunciation down, even if your family think you speaking french to yourself is a bit strange, it helps:p
And bring in a good document, no pics or anything, not advanced enough for HL
An article or something with an interesting detail, something different that would interest the examiner


Bonne chance !

Random_Person

Guys, I really want to thank all of you for the advice. I've read every one of the posts for my subjects and they contain so many quintessential tips..

Keep them coming!

Sarah?

I got a B2 in French, but looking at the script what brought me down a lot was technical stuff. Know your verbs well, I haven't really worked on them much since the Junior Cert and it showed - cost me loads of marks in the essays. Do tape work regularly too, I thought I did brilliant in it this year, but I didn't do as well as I thought because I rarely practiced during the year.

For the oral (Irish and French) try to speak the language as much as you can, get a friend to join in if you can as it really helps. And read anything in the language aloud if you're really find speaking it hard, I used to be terrible at pronouncing French because I only read it or wrote it. :rolleyes: