To drop levels or not?

Chuchoter

I'm doing 7 HL subjects atm and I need roughly 550 points (its terrible I know ) . I have two subjects causing me hassle, Chemistry and Irish. The main problem with these are that in Chemistry, last year my teacher was terrible and this year I'm catching up but its still tough (the maths isn't what you'd call logical).

For Irish, we've done literally no oral at all, we only have 3 poems done, 4 essays and 2 stories. We haven't done much aural either. We have finished An Triail but haven't done much analysis, even if we got all the An Triail done it would leave me no choice at all in the exams if I don't understand a question (the other class are so far ahead they're doing the extra 5 poems so they have a choice). I'm not bad at Irish, I enjoy Irish, but I don't know if I'm throwing good money after bad so to speak by doing grinds and putting loads of study into it when we are so far behind. Do I leave Irish to go to pass so I can have more time for Chemistry or have the extra HL subject?

Bubbleope

I think you should keep with honours irish! (: By the sounds of it, it seems that you're at least passing it since you're enjoying it?
No point dropping down if you're passing it? (:
I can every so often give you some of my notes if you like? Bear in mind that I myself have a shíte teacher but I'm doing relatively okay, Bs and As.

And as for you being behind.. I don't think you are.My class hasn't even started An Triail, NO oral work(my teacher tells us to do it, but gives us absolutely no notes) and I think we have one more story to do. S: I'm not too sure. But yeah, I'm in the same boat as you. xD

BL1993

Drop Irish and focus on chemistry. The Irish course is far more bigger than the Chemistry course and is far more unpredictable. From my experience, Chemistry is more about understanding the concepts rather than learning them off by heart. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes far easier to study and do well in. I dropped down to pass Irish purely because of the amount of notes you had to learn off and even then, there is no guarantee that the question will come up as you learned it.

Focus on organic chemistry. It usually makes up 2/3 questions on the exam and is relatively easy! Don't give up on Chemistry. Get some grinds if you need too. Take it step by step. As you do a chapter in school, go over a chapter you did last year. Believe me, the more you review your notes, the easier it gets. Personally, I review my notes every day to make sure I'm on top of things.


Get 'exam Edge' for chemistry! It's a life saver and fives you model answers and shortens the experiments! I believe that in order to do well in the experiemnts, you must write them up yourself bearing in mind to avoid waflle so you can easily learn them!

Hope that helps!

Canard

I dont do chemistry so I cant contribute but I'm in HL Irish with a good teacher. In fairness the stories and poems are worth so little in the real exam that maybe if you got some notes on them you could just translate and learn them? As for essays, we've only done two too but we're doing Olympic Games and Michael D Higgins soon because they're sort of likely questions. You cant really predict what'll come up with those and even if its not in the essay, just throw a debating start/finish onto it or turn it into an article or something like that!

We've done An Triail but only done 2 questions so far, and started picture sequences yesterday. We do a little oral work but not a lot. It doesnt sound like you're too far behind and tbh I'd wait til after the mocks to keep up a high level of Irish in case you do drop

Luno

Can't really comment as I don't do chemistry but I wouldn't worry about not being far into the Irish course, prescribed material is worth so little. If your oral is good then maybe you could keep on honours Irish.