Leaving Cert. '11/'12 Off-Topic

Namlub

Eathrin wrote: »

Not much. Holidays are holidays for me, rest time.
I may sort some folders out, might get some French oral practice in, but I don't know how any of you could possibly be working during the holidays! I know its LC year and all but I've never done work during a break, I just don't get the drive or motivation. It's too easy to just muck about for a couple of weeks.
We spend enough time in school anyway, you can grant me my break:pac:

With regards to French, does anybody want to set up a video chat at some stage during Easter, treat it as another mock maybe or just practice some?
I'm not pushed either way but it was mentioned here before and seemed like an alright idea.

We've got orals straight after we go back man!

Hoping to get a good bit done, concentrating on orals obviously but I don't want to abandon my other subjects either. This all rests on me not fcuking up my sleep pattern like I always do during holidays...

Eathrin

CTYIgirl wrote: »

YES. Also Irish, if anyone else is interested? We can set up a tinychat

Togepi wrote: »

I've been meaning to bring up the chat for orals for a while, it could be good. I need to practice over the holidays anyway, it's just so much harder to do it outside school!

And yeah, Irish would be great too.

Cool we should get around to doing that then sometime,
my french could do with some working!

Namlub wrote: »

We've got orals straight after we go back man!

Hoping to get a good bit done, concentrating on orals obviously but I don't want to abandon my other subjects either. This all rests on me not fcuking up my sleep pattern like I always do during holidays...

I have a mock tomorrow in Maths and I'm doing sweet féck all right now, I have a weird mental block about upcoming exams, doing homework under pressure is one thing for me and that's grand but with exams I seem to whince away sort of:o

Ah the inevitable destroyed sleeping pattern, we shall meet again in the near future.:pac:

13spanner

Raeone wrote: »

How much study are people hoping to do during the easter?

Supervised study, 9:30 to 4 every day, both weeks it'll be tough going but 2 weeks wont kill me

Meowth

Ok guys today has been a very monumental day
Its the day I've actually motivated myself to do something about this leaving cert !!
So I made my very first plan!! Yes you read right , I made a plan
I also made myself and one of my friends sign a sort of oath where we no longer procrastinate etc
So my plan consists of this , if any of you wish to follow it

I'm taking this weekend off (apart from work ) I'm taking it off from school and homework

• I'm going to haul my sorry ass out of bed on monday morning at 8 and have a nice breakfast and start the day as if I was in school , except I'm going to be teaching myself. Sticking to my school timetable , and free periods , Re. and PE will be used as extra oral classes

• I've also wrote my list of sh*t that needs to be done and I WILL do it

And yes I'm going to do this taking weekends off and enjoying them , except for the weekend before the irish oral where i'll be talking as gaeilge constantly !!

Sorry for the long post but I had to type this out so I cant back out now , if i ever thought of doing such a thing :cool:

Eathrin

Okay serious question here,

I'm consistently getting Cs and Bs in French, around the 60-75 area since 5th year. I got 72 in my mock oral and 73 in the written. I'm looking for high grades but I never considered French a subject where I could feasibly attain this.
Does anybody actually think one could move up to an A2/A1 standard in these final months with work? I'm not sure it'd even be worth it, it'd take away from my other subjects too.
I've never really bothered with french at all in school, never do homework, assignments etc. so to come out with those results was kinda saying to me, hey with some work I could make something of this! But it'd take the biggest effort at this stage.

PictureFrame

My Plan: :rolleyes:

English

• Learn 5 Hamlet Essays (Hamlet's Character, Characterisation of Women, Theme of Revenge, Importance of Soliloquys and Imagery in the Play)
• Learn Kinsella, Rich and Heaney
• Study and write up an answer for General Vision, Literary Genre and Theme
• Do Paper I Essay
• Do 2 Paper I A's and 2 Paper I B's

Business

• Unit 5 revise
• Unit 6 revise
• Unit 7 revise
• 3 ABQ'S
• 3 Years Short Questions

Economics

• Demand and Supply
• Elasticity
• Factors of Production
• Market Structures
• National Income
• International Trade
• Government and Economy
• Inflation

Geography

• Landform Development (Meander)
• Geothermal Energy
• Human Interaction with Surface Processes
• Paris (Primary, Seconday, Teritary, Urban City, Map)
• Characteristics of Brown Earth Soils
• Plant and Animal Adaptations to Soil and Climate
• Human Interaction with Soil

French

• All basic oral
• Paragraphs on more topical issues
• 3 Tape-tests

Music

• Preparations for Practical
• Music Technology
• Unprepared Test revision

Maths

• 2010 Paper I Q.1-8
• 2009 Paper I Q.1-8
• 2008 Paper I Q.1-8

So much! :eek: It's manageable though, 16 days is a hell of a lot of time for study! I'm aiming to do a minimum of 2.5 hours per day for the French Oral, 1 hour for Music practical and possibly 3.5-4 hours between my other subjects every day! Last chance saloon I suppose! Can't afford to feck up now. If I don't get enough points for a Scholarship I can kiss College goodbye for this year anyway! :rolleyes:

Bears and Vodka

PictureFrame wrote: »

If I don't get enough points for a Scholarship I can kiss College goodbye for this year anyway! :rolleyes:

Is that NuiM? What scholarship is that and how many points do you need for it?

Mysteriouschic

If anyone else has trouble with procrastination.
Theres a google chrome app called Stayfocused I think there may be a firefox app in it too. You can block your distraction sites for an amount of time.
Or with a mac download self-control and it's the same an you can set how many hours to block those sites for. I find this is the only way for me, I get more work done otherwise I'll keep putting work off .
I'll be blocking my laptop for the whole day. I can still visit examinations website if I need to check anything. Before studying I usually set an alarm on my ipod for when I want to move on to the next subject so I won't have to keep checking the time.

Meowth

subz3r0 wrote: »

Is that NuiM? What scholarship is that and how many points do you need for it?

Yeah its NUI Maynooth. Em 1000 euro for getting over 500 points
I was thinking of going there before, thats how I know lol

PictureFrame

subz3r0 wrote: »

Is that NuiM? What scholarship is that and how many points do you need for it?

Yep NUIM. 500 points, I got 510 in the Mock but tbh I think a lot of them were complete flukes!

Meowth

Eathrin wrote: »

Okay serious question here,

I'm consistently getting Cs and Bs in French, around the 60-75 area since 5th year. I got 72 in my mock oral and 73 in the written. I'm looking for high grades but I never considered French a subject where I could feasibly attain this.
Does anybody actually think one could move up to an A2/A1 standard in these final months with work? I'm not sure it'd even be worth it, it'd take away from my other subjects too.
I've never really bothered with french at all in school, never do homework, assignments etc. so to come out with those results was kinda saying to me, hey with some work I could make something of this! But it'd take the biggest effort at this stage.

Ok I'm no expert in French , as you know I dont even do it, so you should probably just ignore what I say :P
I'm just going to tell you my story ok ? :P My weakest subject was probably english or history , and lately I've put huge efforts into both and getting back great results ! With english especially because I kinda accepted it would be the one I wouldn't count. But tbh I've decided to give everything my absolute all from now on, I've decided to study hard for even english and think I can do reasonably well, if not exceed my expectations

Ok to cut my little rant short , Cian I think you can do anything you put your mind to I believe ANYONE can get 625 / A1s in everything etc ! If you work hard and do your best at least you wont be kicking yourself in the end, saying I could have put more effort into x, y and z

And yes I've referred to nothing about the french course , but tbh I can't sorry just a little general advice , if you'd even call it that !

Canard

Cian French is mon truc so je pense que je peux aider toi un peu :P
I'm going for the A1 in it myself being the ambitious mofo that I am :pac:, so I'd advise you to look for similarities in words - I did a comprehension the other day and it mentioned 'la salete' (with accents but my keyboard cant do them), and I hadnt a clue what it meant til I realized like sal, dirty, salete, dirtiness.. :P might seem basic but it helps a lot.

For reaction pieces - idioms. They fill up space, look good and if you learn them properly, you'll get them right. Piece of cake

Namlub

Patchy~ wrote: »

Cian French is mon truc so je pense que je peux aider toi un peu :P
I'm going for the A1 in it myself being the ambitious mofo that I am :pac:, so I'd advise you to look for similarities in words - I did a comprehension the other day and it mentioned 'la salete' (with accents but my keyboard cant do them), and I hadnt a clue what it meant til I realized like sal, dirty, salete, dirtiness.. :P might seem basic but it helps a lot.

For reaction pieces - idioms. They fill up space, look good and if you learn them properly, you'll get them right. Piece of cake

*Je peux t'aider. Yeah, I went there :pac:

Canard

Namlub wrote: »

*Je peux t'aider. Yeah, I went there :pac:

Dont know if thats right! Aider takes the preposition a, causing the indirect pronoun, no? :P

Eathrin

Patchy~ wrote: »

Cian French is mon truc so je pense que je peux aider toi un peu :P
I'm going for the A1 in it myself being the ambitious mofo that I am :pac:, so I'd advise you to look for similarities in words - I did a comprehension the other day and it mentioned 'la salete' (with accents but my keyboard cant do them), and I hadnt a clue what it meant til I realized like sal, dirty, salete, dirtiness.. :P might seem basic but it helps a lot.

For reaction pieces - idioms. They fill up space, look good and if you learn them properly, you'll get them right. Piece of cake

Actually I never found reading too difficult, I think I got about 50/60 in both comprehensions in the mock. Major problems for me stem from speaking and writing.

Good point I suppose, I could learn off a load of idioms and phrases to fill my reactions, that'd boost my mark a good bit.

To get a good oral mark would be even harder than that, I can't actually speak French very well(I hear a stay in France or french summer college has done wonders for people in that department). I'd have to learn a lot of conversation topics, but I've seen people do that. When asked about des passtemps ou le lycée ou le week-end they know exactly what they are going to recite for the next minute.
Maybe I could try that:rolleyes:

Canard

Eathrin wrote: »

Actually I never found reading too difficult, I think I got about 50/60 in both comprehensions in the mock. Major problems for me stem from speaking and writing.

Good point I suppose, I could learn off a load of idioms and phrases to fill my reactions, that'd boost my mark a good bit.

To get a good oral mark would be even harder than that, I can't actually speak French very well(I hear a stay in France or french summer college has done wonders for people in that department). I'd have to learn a lot of conversation topics, but I've seen people do that. When asked about des passtemps ou le lycée ou le week-end they know exactly what they are going to recite for the next minute.
Maybe I could try that:rolleyes:

I was in France for a few days with school, was pretty helpful to drill the sound of the language into you yeah :P Listen to French music! Its super catchy and works wonders, you learn phrases etc, helps with aural and yeah, its fun

Also lads, I've been spelling 'able' in irish as abailte for god knows how long without ever knowing its abalta...traumatic

Namlub

Patchy~ wrote: »

Dont know if thats right! Aider takes the preposition a, causing the indirect pronoun, no? :P

You still put the indirect pronoun in front of the verb though, unless it's one of these

snoreborewhore

Patchy~ wrote: »

Dont know if thats right! Aider takes the preposition a, causing the indirect pronoun, no? :P

No it's definitely "je peux t'aider/vous aider!" You're probably thinking of just the verb itself with no pronoun preceding it like "aidez-moi". It's different when you're trying to say something like "they help me" which is "ils m'aident" etc etc

Canard

Namlub wrote: »

You still put the indirect pronoun in front of the verb though, unless it's one of these

Hmm, so would that make it toi aider? That just doesnt sound right haha. So its m'aider, t'aider, l'aider?

snoreborewhore wrote: »

No it's definitely "je peux t'aider/vous aider!" You're probably thinking of just the verb itself with no pronoun preceding it like "aidez-moi". It's different when you're trying to say something like "they help me" which is "ils m'aident" etc etc

Ahhh thats what it was! I came to my conclusion because I remember thinking that, if in a difficult situation, 'aidez-moi!' just sounded more logical than 'm'aider!' :pac:

Learn something new every day, thanks guys :P

PictureFrame

I thought I was ok-ish at French. Like B2 standard maybe. These last few posts frighten me! I only managed a C3 in the Mock (1% from a C2) but I have to get it up to a B2 to be honest! I just hope it's an easy paper!

Togepi

PictureFrame wrote: »

I thought I was ok-ish at French. Like B2 standard maybe. These last few posts frighten me! I only managed a C3 in the Mock (1% from a C2) but I have to get it up to a B2 to be honest! I just hope it's an easy paper!

Don't hope it's an easy paper, that'll mean they'll mark it really hard!! We had the loveliest paper ever last year and they marked it very hard (à mon avis). :P I just hope I've something prepared on everything that comes up for the written sections, and that the listening isn't too hard.

AlmightyDublin

Screw study, I'm off to the Astro turfs

AnnaKin

Togepi wrote: »

Don't hope it's an easy paper, that'll mean they'll mark it really hard!! We had the loveliest paper ever last year and they marked it very hard (à mon avis). :P I just hope I've something prepared on everything that comes up for the written sections, and that the listening isn't too hard.

apparently it goes easy-hard-eas-hard...if last years was easy...well... i may just start to take french more seriously :pac:

Chuchoter

There is no pattern for easy/hard. The entire point is that the paper should be fair, the ones that are too easy are too hard are mistakes, it isn't done intentionally.

ConTheCat

Leaving Cert- go away will ya! I'd nearly sit it next week, just to get it out of the way!

Chuchoter

I know!! I'm so tired today and the thought of facing into study is killing me. This summer is going to be epic though!

SeanMadd

Is anyone doing only 4(or less) poets? We're only starting Boland after the Easter holidays and I don't know if I should bother paying attention or not and just focus on my other 4 poets Am I risking it or is 1/4 guaranteed?

ConTheCat

SeanMadd wrote: »

Is anyone doing only 4(or less) poets? We're only starting Boland after the Easter holidays and I don't know if I should bother paying attention or not and just focus on my other 4 poets Am I risking it or is 1/4 guaranteed?

I'm only learning 4 myself going in, a female, Irish poet and a non-Irish

13spanner

SeanMadd wrote: »

Is anyone doing only 4(or less) poets?

Learning the 3 women inside out, and that's it

SeanMadd

13spanner wrote: »

Learning the 3 women inside out, and that's it

Oh yeah, doesn't a woman come up every year? I'm doing Plath, Rich, Kavanagh and Heaney, and am just not at all bothered learning Boland :pac: