Kate - Higher Level Paper 1 & 2

After a surprisingly successful English paper one and two, I was dreading Irish. Irish is not my strongest subject and without the previously prepared essays I wouldn't have survived. My biggest fear approaching the exam was in reference to the aurals. Donegal / rural Irish will be the death of me.Paper One - Paper one started off terribly and it never recovered. My hopes of getting an A rolled down the mountain along with my story. We started 10 minutes late as the examiner played the tapes but did not hand out the papers. The whole class died. I thought that they had changed the layout so you had to remember what was being said. After the disastrous start we began the paper. The aural was worse than I expected, rural Irish is what I hear in my nightmares. The grammar section was great, I predicted that Aimsir Chaite would come up and thankfully it did. I chose the essay title "an incident that happened when you are walking in the mountains" as it was the only title that I understood. All in all, I think I was okay in paper one but it could have been better .Paper Two - Paper two probably saved the day. Going in to this exam I was nervous, if not scared, due to my earlier experience. But when I opened the paper all my worry went away. The unseen prós and poetry was not as hard as I thought and was shocked that I understood the majority of them. The themes for studied poetry and prós were great. I choose 'grá' for poetry and 'duine cabhrach' for prós. Finally I did the letter. My letter was a load of waffle. I wrote about a party but I didn't understand the guidelines very well so I wrote and wrote and prayed for the best.Today had its ups and downs but I'm going into tomorrow on a positive note and hoping for the best! 

Philip - Higher Level Paper 1 & 2

Paper 1: Can I start by saying, that was the hardest listening comprehension I have ever done. But apart from that I think paper 1 was good enough. The first comprehension was on something Ihave never heard of but I think I got the answers well enough. Then I moved on to the comprehension on "inside out" which wasn't too hard.(I said alt 3 and alt 4). Then I did the verb question, I think that went well enough too. I guess we were lucky enough with it being just multiple choice. Finally I did the story question. I did the first one which was something like " wait mum you haven't heard my side of the story", you wouldn't believe the amount of people who thought it was "you need to hear the news" and totally messed up the story section.Paper 2:  Now this was a hard paper.....ok in the vampire one I answered all the questions just to try and get as many points as possible. As the studied story I answered on "An t­Adh" as "duine carduil". I decided to skip the unseen poetry for a while and I answered the studied poetry which I used "Na Blatha Craige" for with "brod". I said they were proud of their cliff. So, I decided to keep going and go back to the unseen poetry in the end. I did the letter about the party, the first one. I wrote about a page including the address. Finally I went back to the studied poetry and did every question except (A iii). I thought that first poem was REALLY bad but that the second one was good enough. So I hope ye all did well and good luck everyone in geography and maths paper 1.

Shane - Higher Level Paper 1 & 2

Paper 1: I went in to paper 1 this morning feeling relatively optimistic. Then the listening started… I was on the brink of tears listening because I am generally rubbish at them. But! Then that ended and the written exam started and my hope returned. I started with the eachtra in the mountains and as usual, I fell and broke my leg. It always works! Then I did question 2 A and was a very happy person at just seeing those 2 words, Aimsir Chaite. Then I did 2B which I feel I did well in. And finally, the comprehensions. I did the second one first (I don’t know what my problem is with exam order but whatever) and lastly, the first one. I feel this went well also! All in all, paper 1 (minus the listening) went very well.Paper 2: Then we get to paper 2… I did the first letter which went well. Then I tried my best to make Pádraic from An t-Adh fit ‘duine cairdiúil’. I did Subh Milis for the studied poetry. Then the prós question 1 and filíocht question 3. As usual, I had a limited concept of what the poems were about and wrote 11 lines on why I enjoyed the vampire story, saying I love vampire stories and the main character (basically anything to stop me from having to read the full thing!)All in all I feel I did well in Irish, with my paper 1 and optional oral being my saving grace. I hope you all did well and I will say a prayer for everybody for Maths Paper 1!!! Best of luck! 

Chloe - Higher Level Paper 1 & 2 

Paper 1: Listening was up first, I felt these were quite difficult especially having two Donegal accents laced in there making it all the more challenging but aside from that I think it went well.Irish paper one was a grand paper, I thought. The Léamhthuiscints were easy to understand and the answers to the questions weren’t hard to find in the passage, which sometimes they can be. Between both reading passages I did the grammar and briathra questions, with these I think sometimes you just get lucky and thankfully today we had Aimsir Chaite and the grammar section wasn’t too bad either! The essay choices were also really nice and thankfully an essay that I had prepared was able to mix well with the first eachtra choice.Paper 2: This wasn’t as fab….I started with the reading comprehension, yet again and was disgusted when reading the piece about vampírí as the Irish used was so advanced and I found it really difficult to make sense of! I then went on to do the studied prose. Using ‘duine gclic for Díoltas an Madra Rua which I really tried to make work but honestly it didn’t go that smoothly. I continued on with the other studied section which was poetry and I chose grá for Bean tSléibhte ag Caoineadh a Mhic. It went well but it could have gone better. I was really racing against the clock at this stage! I did the letter next and chose the one about the storm, which was really like an essay we had learned in class and so it fitted well. This was the only semi-good section of paper 2 for me ! Lastly was the unseen poem and exactly like the reading passage it was so difficult I’m not sure if what I thought the poem meant is actually what the poem meant but I had no choice but to go with it!Overall definitely a harder year than usual in my opinion!Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union. Blogs are updated daily by 6.30 pm on scheduled examination dates.Zeminar is an event for Generation Z, particularly those aged between 15 and 19, and their parents, teachers, mentors and coaches. It will take place from 11th - 13th of October 2016. For more information see www.zeminar.ie