Today was the first day I had two exams coming together, I am surprised that I’m not as worn out as imagined. This morning’s ordinary level maths paper came with few surprises and was relatively straight forward. The probability question offered students an easy 50 marks in my opinion (Despite forgetting my rules). Everything seemed straight forward but as the paper progressed many of my friends found that the paper got progressively challenging. My only failure of the day was section B which I was never good at, I was required to add and multiply vectors- absolutely horrible.

Irish paper 1 started just over an hour later. Being a higher level student I was required to write on the things I love, the health system and a range of other enticing topics. A brief glance over the “Sceal” question of section A scared me with unknown seanfhocals, many fellow students also failed to decrypt the meaning of these old sayings, composing short stories completely off topic (An instant loss of 20 marks).

The comprehensions in the honours Irish paper were a piece of cake for most, Answering questions on Fair Trade and the Blasket Islands. With plenty of time left to go after I had completed and reviewed the paper I chose to take a break before the aural. Reaching the exam centre again just before 4.30 I feared a repeat of my mock aural which I had failed miserably but I could not have been more pleased with how the listening paper had gone this afternoon. Extracts were featured about the Foinse newspaper among a host of other topics.

Today was a pleasant surprise for me and look forward to many more of these this week! Irish paper 2 and the dreaded business paper tomorrow!

Discuss Maths paper 2!

Discuss Irish paper 1 & Aural!

After yet another night of only 4 hours sleep, I got up again at 6am to look over some notes and practice a little. The exam seemed fine at the start. I had a quick glance over it and told myself that I was going to make a good effort at this.

The first question that really frustrated me was question 1, part C, (ii). “a cent less than a multiple of €10″. In fairness, thats more like they’re trying to trick us rather than focus on what we were actually preparing for. I never seem to grasp how or why they phrase questions in such akward ways and hinder people from showing their actual ability to solve the given task.

I ended up doing about 7 questions out of the 8 just to be safe. I wasn’t very happy with the exam I have to say and I really hope that Paper 2 will put me in a better mood.

Now If you’ll excuse me, I am going to head out for a well deserved pint!

Maths paper 1 came a with devious questions this year, many part C’s consisting of confusing symbols and figures. Question 1, arithmetic is generally the easiest on the paper- Not for me this year. Terrible phrasing was seen throughout part C where we marked-up the sale price of an unknown item.

After a bad start, I got into the game and flew through my questions only experiencing a demanding question here and there. Under the stress of the moment it is hard to remember every little rule during differentiation and functions but I managed to pull through.

Overall: Satisfactory. A few friends are very unhappy. many fear failing! If a high failure rate is possible in ordinary level subjects then it’s my opinion that the exam should be revised. Although we still have paper two to regain our optimism, paper 1 has out a dampener on many students weekends!

Discuss ‘Maths Paper 1′ in the forums!