I have been a bit weirded out this week with the concept of an impending Leaving-Cert. In merely 4 weeks I will walk out the school doors for the very last time. I have been waiting for this day since I entered that spine-chilling portal of primary school as a junior infant. But have I? When we walk out that door, a thousand memories will depart us forever. School life as we know will be over, the past eighteen years will be nothing more than a memory, a past event, an occurrence, history.

In a matter of weeks, us scholars will enter an exam hall, and experience the torment of maturity. Over a period of two weeks, we will forget years of prized academia. Our social network will be substituted over the following months altered by our imminent transformation. A thousand faces lost eternally.

However, with on our parting we will take with us a respectable wisdom that will enable us to move on and become the proud heritage of the land of saints and scholars. With every step in life we gain a thousand years of experience, every advancement makes us a million times stronger. Live for today and rejoice tomorrow. Look at every single affair from every possible angle. Only when we are wise we are victorious, only when we have truly lived life to our fullest we can say we have gained what is known as wisdom. Wisdom is just an expression; award it your own meaning because the Leaving-Cert is merely one small step of our lives now to take that giant leap…

As all of you are probably (should be) aware that the Leaving cert Oral exams begin soon. Very soon as a matter of fact. So the majority of us should be trying to only speak in these languages for the weekend.

Just a note of the dates

7th - Start date for Leaving Certificate Oral tests in:

• Irish
• French
• German
• Spanish
• Italian
• Russian
• Japanese

I’d like to wish all my fellow students the best of luck.

They’re over and done with! Out of the way. Now comes the bit where I deny how badly I’ve done. But of course, that can wait until Sunday. First we must go out and celebrate! Right? Isn’t that what we do here in Ireland. Any excuse for a night out.

So yeah, the past few days have been annoying with these exams going on. Finished up today with my final exam, LCVP. Which was rather easy I have to admit. The LCVP exam was rather funny tho.

You know those exams that are never done in the hall because they either require you to listen to a tape or watch a video. Well LCVP was one of those exams. As soon as we were moved out of the hall and into a normal classroom, the whole ‘exam’ effect walked right out with us, and out the front door. So everyone started talking as usual, and sharing answers. A friend of mine asked the teacher a question, which happened to be a question on the paper and she happily answered him before being told she had just given him the answer.

Teachers clearly also forget to take things seriously. Not long after (20 minute delay), the Audio/Visual exam began. Except without the visual part to it. So after another 5 or 10 minutes, the teacher finally managed to get it working. And then of course there is that high pitched tone that most people have on their phones now, which was going off on three phones simultaneously. These are all the things that take away from the seriousness of the whole idea of pres. So i ask myself, are they really worth it?

A friends mother asked her if anything expected came up in her exam. She replied “Yeah, i had to draw a venn diagram. The mother replied “Was it not English you had?”. So Louise turned around and said “Yeah…”. Sarcasm is the sugar in my tea, so i laughed for a solid ten minutes when she told me that.

I gotta go to the pub and socialize study, bye!

Kevin.

The Pres have always been a hot topic up for debate. As many of you noticed, the debating has already begun. Many people argue that cheating for the pres is morally wrong, whereas others will be for it, depending on how you look at it. Although cheating has been frowned upon, it has been looked at in a different way recently. Focused learning being the positive one, and using information for bad intention being the negative.

Various formats of the the pre leaving cert exam papers from DEB and examcraft have been floating around the internet lately. Various discussions have been going on over at boards.ie about it, until the moderators stepped up and banned users for posting links to copyrighted material. Which was a step in the right direction, but there was always google cache. And various other sources.

It seems that many people all over the country obtained copies of the papers before they sat their exams. Which raised a little more awareness about the pres and how effective they really are. The fact that schools choose the date that the pres are held doesn’t help either. You have friends sharing copies also. However, sharing information wont stop. But perhaps the approach to the pres needs to be looked into.

Let us know what you think!

It’s Sunday evening and I have just woke up. In less than 15 hours I, along with my fellow suffering leaving cert students, will be trudging into an exam room to sit the first of our mocks.

Why am I not panicking? This is not good, after a full week of nothing, I find myself glancing over study notes and browsing Bebo… at the same time. I’m tempted to switch off my phone but it’s harder than it seems. What can I say? I’m in demand!

So these are the harsh realities of a 21^st century student. Personally I blame technology. It wasn’t too long ago that students had to make do with skipping ropes, spinning tops, or if they were really lucky perhaps a piece of chalk for hopscotch!

But we are cursed with televisions, computers, mobile phones and social websites. So parents, please do not blame us for poor school concentration, but instead the likes of Bill Gates (send him an email), or other such tech geeks.

You did not have the distractions we have today, except maybe a hard day’s work on the bog. We have an excuse, unlike you who did the leaving cert a hundred years ago in the typewriter days.

Take it easy,

Colin.