The Leaving Cert is a fine balance. In the run-up to these exams, I have been trying to get that right.
For me, this has meant studying as much as I can, but also avoiding burnout. So, I try to get to bed by 10pm or 10.30pm. I make sure I have time for a walk. I have proper meals away from the desk. I wanted to be sure that I spent time with my family, because otherwise there’s a risk of being too much in my own head.
And, so far, I think this has worked out well.
On day one, I went in to school a little early so that I could meet up with my friends and speak about what we were expecting. This helped a lot, as it took the fear out of those early papers.
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While English paper one was nice, and had relatable themes around connections, there’s been a lot of commentary around the Hamlet and poetry questions on this year’s English paper two.
Ah, those Hamlet questions: quite difficult. In particular, the second of the two questions; it asked us about aspects of the play that made it “a surprisingly hopeful and positive drama”.
Everyone said that it was hard to see it as hopeful; even today, a former professor of English at Maynooth University wrote to The Irish Times to say that it would have been fairer if candidates were required to argue either for or against this phrasing.
Our other option wasn’t great either: we were required to write about Hamlet’s relationship with his mother, but she is a minor character in the play.
As for the poems, I would have liked to write about Sylvia Plath, but the question focused on her as a “social commentator”, whereas we learned about her as a writer of very personal and intimate poems. Luckily, I was able to tackle a question on Seamus Heaney instead.
Then, before I knew it, we were into the maths papers. Maths paper one was okay, particularly as there was a lot of financial maths. And maths paper two was quite nice, despite my worries about trigonometry.
In Irish, I thought that the aural comprehension test was tricky due to all the different accents although the rest of the exam was nice: our teachers had prepared us perfectly, and the prompts on the paper allowed us to lean into the parts of the language that we liked.
Still to come is Irish paper two, biology, art history, Spanish and music.
When it’s all over, I am looking forward to going away for a week with a friend and their family, keep working on my art portfolio and getting a part-time job and some money in my pocket.
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