#nathanstudyblr

[lex-certa]

Hello!! Just saw that you recently did unreal in your leaving cert!! I'm currently heading into 6th year and was wondering if you had any tips? I'm the first in my family to do the leaving cert so I've no one to turn to for advice. Ciara

My number one tip is to just be organised! Get a folder for every one of your subjects and keep all your notes and homework and everything organised neatly in each one.

What I liked to do was get a big A3 sheet and divide it into 8 columns (one for each subject). And I’d write down every chapter and topic in the columns. I’d then use a method my teacher told me about called the traffic light method. What you do is colour a red dot next to everything you don’t really know at all, an orange dot next to it if you kind of know it and finally a green dot when you know it perfectly! The goal throughout the year is to have every topic green by the end! This is so useful because it’s great to visually see what you need to get done by the leaving cert and you can track your progress continually.

Another tip would be to figure out how YOU best study. Everyone’s different. I loved making colourful charts and liked to pretend I was teaching other people the stuff and that worked great for me! Others liked to write out reams of notes over and over until it’s drilled into their heads. Often teachers will tell you writing things out is the only way to learn things but lots of studies have actually proven that our brains are wired differently depending on our learning style. So try to figure yours out! Once you do, it’ll make everything much easier!

For the leaving cert in particular, everything’s about the exam. So exam paper practice is key! Do exam questions from the get go! And from November onwards try to do them in a set time limit (mimicking your exam times). You’ll get used to answer questions in the time you’re given this way. On top of that, correct them using the marking schemes! You can get them on www.examinations.ie for free so make use of them! Questions have been repetitive in the past so it’s great to know what the SEC are looking for!

If you’ve any specific subject questions please feel free to ask me! I’ll post which subjects I did below and the grades I got so you’ll have a better idea!

English (H1) Irish (H2)Maths (H3)Geography (H1)Phys-Chem (H1)Biology (H2)Business (H2)Economics (H2)

I actually repeated the Leaving Cert and opted to drop French in lieu of Economics this year. So I’ve an idea of French too if that’s any use to you!

Best of luck with 6th year! It’s the quickest year of your life! It’ll be over before you know it!

[lex-certa]

How the hell did you study for Irish? Normally for me I just learn things off, but there's so much in Irish I don't even know where to begin. For someone who sucks at Irish, learning off multiple 3 page essays is just impossible. Any tips?

Irish is a tricky one for me to give advice on. I went to a Gaelscoil so Irish has just always come naturally to me. I do have a bit of advice though. Focus on your Oral and Aural. They are two of the easier sections for people who don’t have a ridiculously high level of Irish and on top of that together they make up 50% of your final result. Learn your sraith pictuirs as you go along and get them perfect. Prepare all the different topics that you can think of for the oral and just learn them off. For the aural keep listening over and over again to as much Irish as you can. Watch TG4 and listen to RnaG. They’re not the most entertaining outlets you’ll ever find but you kinda have to take what you get. Listening to these will tune your ear into Irish really well and in the end it’ll help both your aural and oral. 

The next section you should focus on is the Comprehensions. These are worth the same amount of marks as your essay, and they’re super easy to score high on. Do every practice on you can find. Write out words you don’t understand into a separate copy and hopefully you’ll remember them again in the future. Don’t worry too much about the grammar question at the end. Everyone finds these tough. Just try to figure out how to distinguish between the tenses and whether a noun is masculine/feminine and in the plural or singular. That being said though, it’s worth such few marks it’s not worth upsetting yourself over. 

You should however invest in a grammar book. The one I used was this one: https://www.irishschoolbooks.ie/buy-online/secondary-level/junior-cert-1/irish-9/9780714416892-detail but that maybe a bit too technical for someone who’s not great at Irish. Just get your hands on any grammar book that has exercises you can practice in it. It’ll help you out in all sections of the paper. 

Don’t bother learning off essays if you can. My advice would be to practice learning your grammar (as above) and learn lots of phrases and fillers that you can use for every essay. Learn general openings and closings, and then practice doing essays through the year with your general stuff, learning specific vocab for various topics as you go along. The essays do tend to be a bit predictable. 2016-2017 was a very political year and that featured heavily on the exam this year. The 1916 Rising came up in 2016 as well. It’s hard to know yet what will come up in 2018, but pay attention to what’s happening in the world from October-December (that’s when the papers are supposedly set) and it might give you a clue. But all in all, do practice essays on every topic imaginable. Once you learn your general fillers and openings/closings all you really need to do is build up a bank of topic-specific vocabularly for the day of the exam then. I can do another post about what I mean if I’m not clear here. Feel free to ask me!

Lastly, the prose and poetry. Everyone spends a freakish amount of time on these when they’re only worth 17-ish%. That means your studied prose, your poetry and your extra literature is worth the same as the comprehensions. And yet we spend a scandalous amount of time on them! Remember for these your Irish is actually worth very little. It’s more so about how well you answer the question. Just know the general plot of every story and know the main characters. For things like Oisin learn the traits of the Bealoideas and for Gnathrud it’s important to be able to discuss violence in the North. Other than that there’s not much to learn. 

I’ll actually give you a great tip for the poetry. You only need to learn 2 poems: An Spailpin Fanach and one that isn’t on the course. If Spailpin Fanach comes up do that, but if any of the other 4 comes up do the Optional Poetry question under the poem. It always just says discuss a different modern poem you did for your Leaving Cert so you can use any poem really besides the 4 they prescribe. I always used Treall by Caitlin Maude as it was really easy, but look through the old syllabus (pre-2012 and another pre-2006) for other poems and chances are you’ll find tons of notes on them online. This reduces your workload significantly. 

The last section is obviously a bit tougher. You just have to know your text really well. I did an Triail so if you want me to discuss that more, feel free to ask but I’m not familiar with the others which you might have done so I won’t discuss it much now. My friend opted to do the extra poetry on her own this year though and she found it much easier so that might be something you’d want to look into? 

Finally I have to mention this website: http://www.mccgaeilge.com/page3 It’s fantastic for Irish notes. Definitely give it a look at! Best of luck with your Irish and let me know if you’ve any more questions! Beidh tú go breá!

[lex-certa]

Hey, I need some advice I am going into sixth year and I havent studied at all. I failed 4 of 7 exams in my summer exams. I now need to work my ass off but I take absolute ages writing. I also get distracted extremely easy. I don't know what to do because I want to continue with scouting since I need something to do other than study but most people I know - except my parents and leaders - is telling me all i should do is study. Im also failing maths but I need HL and I don't know what to do.

Okay well first things first. It’s a new year. Don’t let last years grades define you. The one benefit to not having continuous assessment (and maybe the only benefit) is that you can do terrible in every exam and still do great in the leaving cert!

Get organised in the next two weeks before you go back to school. Get yourself a folder for each subject and gather together all your notes into that subject. Being organised is half the battle. Then make out a list of every topic you need to do for the leaving cert (use your book if you’re not sure). For this you can do the A3 method I mentioned in an earlier post. Then using this you can start planning a study plan. List out what chapters/topics you want to do in each month and then at the start of the Month make weekly plans for each month so that you have a clear path of what you’re going to do.

In terms of your writing speed, is it a medical thing or your just a slow writer in general (that’s obviously a personal question so don’t feel obliged to answer). If it is a medical thing find out in school if there’s any accommodation procedures you might be eligible for. Some people get extra time in their exams and others get the option of doing their exams on a computer. So find out if you might be able to avail of any of those. If not however, all you can do is try to train yourself to write faster. Don’t worry about being too neat. The examiners correct hundreds of scripts and are fairly wellAble to go correct scrawls haha! Just try to make it legible. But sit down and figure out how long you’d have in an exam to write a question/essay/whatever and set a timer and try to do it. Keep practicing this over and over again until you finally find that you can do it within the time limit. This will probably be super tedious, but time management is really crucial for the exam.

In terms of getting distracted, this is a personal challenge that only you can overcome. Lock away your phone and everything else that might distract you and literally focus. Figure out how long you can study for without getting distracted and plan your study around this. For example, if you can study for 15 minutes before getting distracted, study for the 15 minutes, take a break and repeat. This will end up being more efficient studying in the long run anyways.

Don’t quit scouting! Everyone needs a bit of relief! As long as you balance scouting with enough time studying, there’s absolutely no issue with you doing it. It’ll be great to have something to take your mind off things.

In terms of HL maths, why do you exactly need it? HL maths is the hardest subject without a doubt. It’s why they give extra points for it! I struggled through it and thankfully managed a H3 but it was so much effort. It probably ended up sacrificing a better grade in a number of other subjects. If you don’t 100% need it for the points and it’s too much work for you, drop down. It’s not worth the pain in some cases. If you do have to take it tho, just practice every god damn question you can. And do that question 5 more times until you can do it in your sleep. Focus on the really common topics like Complex Numbers, Differentiation, Trigonometry, Co-Ordinate Geometry that come up every year before worrying about other stuff!

Best of luck with 6th year! Please don’t hesitate to ask me any other questions 😅

[lex-certa]

How about English? It's not my first language so I feel like I'll have to work extra hard to get a good grade :-( I started reading books in English and writing down words I don't know. Hopefully that helps.

That’s a great tactic! I used managed to get hold of a pack of SAT word cards. I went through them as often as I could to try and boost my vocabulary. But reading books and taking new words from them is probably an even more effective method of doing it!

The key thing about English that everyone forgets is that Paper 1 is worth the same amount of marks as Paper 2! And yet everyone spends 80% of their time preparing for Paper 2! This is madness! Do loads of practice for Paper 1. Write essays every week and ask your teacher to correct them. Practice practice practice is all you really need for this section! Paper one is great to start the leaving cert with cause it’s the only one you don’t actually need to ‘know’ anything for going into it. Don’t learn off essays! They bring people down a grade more often than get them a good one.

For Paper 2, know the plot of your single text really well. Know a good chunk of quotes from it and know the characters and themes brilliantly. It’s worth more than the poetry so it deserves more of your time. It’s easy enough to do a single text question when you know your play/novel inside out! (Your doing King Lear this year right? If so feel free to ask me any questions because it’s genuinely my favourite Shakespearean play ever!!)

After that you need to spend time on your comparative. What I did was sort out my two modes (in my case Theme/Issue and General Vision&Viewpoint) and grab a pack of those small post it notes. I’d then read through one of the comparative books and for every place I found a key moment or quote or something that I could use for theme, I’d stick in a yellow sticky note, and anywhere I found something for gv&v I stuck in a green sticky note. By the end my book was bursting with sticky notes but it was great because I could find everything I needed for my comparative quickly. This method won’t work if you do a film (I didn’t) so what I’d recommend there is to watch the film with a fine tooth comb and write down every place you find something for your two modes onto a piece of paper and write what time into the film it was next to it so you can go back and check if needs be. Practice doing comparative essays as soon as you can. Once you’ve two texts done start doing the 40 mark questions that only get you to compare two! Getting the format of the comparative essay down can be tricky at first but once you do, they actually become an easy enough part of the course because the questions are usually broad enough to take whatever view you’d like on them.

Everyone ignores the unseen poetry for some reason! Practice it! It’s the handiest 20 marks you’ll ever get. Just do past ones and have your teacher correct them. They’re very very easy once you get used to knowing what the examiner is looking for. For studied poetry, it’s without a doubt the hardest part of the course. You’ve to learn 5 poets with 6 poems by each. What I did however was make a two page document on each poet. I’d write the poems title first and then underneath I’d write some key details such as a sentence on the theme, a few quotes from it, a great sentence from some essay I seen before that I wanted to use, etc. And I did this usually for five poems (there’s absolutely no need for you to mention 6 poems, in my actual exam I only did 4 poems and still got a H1 so there’s no need to do 6)! I then learned those two pages off by heart and every time I did an essay on that poet, I used everything on that page in my essay. It’s not the same as learning off an essay cause these facts only make up the skeleton, you’re free to flush it out any way you want to ensure you’re answering the actual question being asked, but now you know the actually facts and key things you want to mention on each poem and that makes it a hell of a lot easier to do well on the essay!

That’s all I can think of right now, but if you’ve any more question, always feel free to ask! :)

[lex-certa]

Hi! I'm really happy for you - you did so well! I was wondering, do you have any LC/study tips or advice? How many hours a day should one study? Which did you do first - study or homework? Many thanks ❤️

Thank you very much! I answered most of the study tips thing in my last answer but if you’ve any other specific questions please feel free to ask!

In terms of hours of study, I usually did three hours a night until Christmas and after that did 4/5 depending on whether I had exams or tests coming up. This may seem like a lot but the key is to taking loads of breaks! Studying for 20 mins and taking a 5/10 minute break is so much more effective than trying to sit down for 50 mins straight!

In terms of homework, I usually got my homework done first but after October I kind of only did the homework I felt was beneficial to me. Homework that I could count as study. Like I just felt it pointless doing certain things so I didn’t do them. This does cause tension with some teachers though, so be weary if you do this! On nights where I had a lot of homework and actually did it, I’d do less study then because my homework counted as study. What I usually did was try to study what was on the homework, put my notes away and then did the homework without looking at my notes! This proved effective!

Let me know if you’ve any other questions! Bets of luck with your leaving cert! 😅

[lex-certa]

Hi! What bujo spreads did you use for school? Also, I can't make up my mind whether I should use a bujo or a normal €5 Tesco planner haha. I have both and I feel like I should use them both to compliment each other. Do you think it'd be a waste of time?

I actually never used a bujo for school. I tried twice but I think it just never worked out for me. I feel like the leaving cert is such a massive abundance of workload that it just felt inconvenient for me to do something like that.

However, I am trying one out this year and I’m currently in the process of setting it up for the first month (September) so I’ll post that in the coming week or so once I’ve got it all ready!

Bujos are absolutely brilliant if it’s tailored perfectly to you. They only work if they actually help you personally, to be productive and organised. Sometimes a simple planner may actually be more productive for you. That’s what I did last year. My college gave out a planner and I used that to just write in what I had to do every day during the week and I’d cross it off as I went along.

Figure out which is best for you! Maybe use both in conjunction as you suggested. Use your bujo to organise your personal life and hobbies and everything and then use your planner for just your studying plans? As I said though, it’s very personal and up to you to decide what will work best for you!

[lex-certa]

Do you have any tips for repeating? Did you follow any study plans? Did you repeat in the same school as you originally did the lc? If not did you think this environment was better and the teachers were more focused?

I actually went to a plc college that had a repeat leaving cert course and I found this to be the best, because it wasn’t actually like being in secondary school and I had way more freedom. It was a way better environment.

The key thing about repeating is to constantly remind yourself why you’re doing it. You need to be even more motivated than you would on a normal 6th year because you’re older and you’re even more keen to finish school. Once you’re motivated you’d be shocked how much work you’re actually willing to get done.

I did have a study plan! I used the A3 sheet method with the traffic light colours that I mentioned in an earlier post! I found this the most beneficial method for me, but everyone’s different so something else might work for you. :)

[lex-certa]

Thanks! I find the A3 method quite interesting. Do you have a picture by any chance? I'm thinking of giving it a go but I'm afraid I might run out of space

I actually threw mine out once the exams were over (it was like a victory 😂)! Use two A3 sheets of you think you’ll need more space but I managed to get mine on one! Hang it over your desk or on your wall then and you’ll always be able to look at it and know where you’re at!

[lex-certa]

Thank you! I see that you did Geography. I'll be doing Geography too and I hate it. It was my worst subject in JC and I had no motivation whatsoever to study for it. Do you have any tips on how to study for Geography (or any other subject you hate)? I'm thinking of making colourful and pretty notes, and I got this binder on Amazon that I really like. Anything to give me that extra bit of motivation haha :-)

Geography was actually my favourite subject so first I’ll just discuss that and then I’ll talk about subjects I disliked haha!

Essays are key for geography. It’s a rote learning subject. You just have to learn your essays. I got one of those subject divider copy books and made one part for Physical, one for Regional, one for my Elective, one for for my Option and I had one left over (I’ll mention this in a minute). I literally wrote out every single essay that could possible come up. I drew in my diagrams too. I tried using different colours but I’m not very visual so it didn’t do much for me. I literally just learned them by trying to teach them to someone else (most times I just pretended in my bedroom someone else was there haha). But the great thing was that I had every essay in that one copy book. I made sure they all had the right amount of srps and the right facts. The great thing about geography is that it’s super predictable. 1 physical question is always on your landforms (deposition or erosion or mass movement) and 1 regional is always on your sub-continental. If you learn these two perfectly, you’ve 60 marks in the bag. That’s 12% of your exam! I did Economic Geography so EU policies always comes up there so that guaranteed me 120 marks. On top of this the Part As in every long question are usually super doable and most people can get 16/18 out of 20 with very little effort. So all in all your long questions can easily get you 168 marks. That’s like 34% and that’s a pass already! So there’s no excuse to fail! The trouble then is the other 30m in each of the long questions! All you can do is try your best and literally throw whatever down and hope it’ll make up an srp! I’d focus more so on your short questions and your option! I used the 5th section of my copybook to go through each chapter and write out any possible short questions plus answers, I’d draw out diagrams and write in little bits that could crop up! This helped me make sure I nearly always got at least 70 out of 80 on the shorts! Practice is key with them! Just go over and over them! And remember if thheres one or two you can’t do, there’s options on the day so just do all of them and they’ll correct your best ones! So that brings your overall marks up to 238 which is 47% so we’re getting even better now (and that’s ignoring the other 30m long questions). Then your option! This is the hardest part for most people. Your only choice is to learn as many essays as you can. I did Culture and Idenity and it’s reasonably predictable. I learned 3 essays and 2 of them came up on the day which is great. The essays are very repetitive so if you learn every one that’s come up in the past, you’ll be sorted on the day! And you can easily score 60 out of 80 by just ensuring you get the right number of srps down. The last 20 marks are for overall coherence and that’s a balls to understand, so just hope you get the most marks there haha! So with an extra 60 marks for the option you’re at 298 which is almost 60%. But don’t forget you’ve a project which is worth 20%!! Put lots of effort into it! Use your book to make sure you have the exact number of srps required in each section and get your teachers to correct several drafts! If you do this you will get at least 90 out of 100 on the project (most people do)! With that 90 extra marks your overall mark goes up to 388 or 77%. That’s a pretty good mark and assuming you could whip out 8 srps on each of those 30m we ignored earlier that’s another 10% added on, bringing you to 87%! So honestly geography is super easy to do well in if you just put in the work! Compared to other subjects it’s so predictable and I loved every bit of it! Getting my H1 was the cherry on the cake last week! Haha

In terms of subjects I hated. I didn’t really hate any. I just didn’t like maths very much cause I wasn’t great at it. Maths tho is all about practice. I just kept doing exam questions over and over again. I also made colourful summaries of different topics to revise over quickly. Thankfully my practice paid off and I got a H3 (was literally over the moon with it). So all in all just try your best with any subject you hate. Work will always pay off!

[lex-certa]

Is there anything that you tag all your posts as 😊

I don't usually have any particular tag but I guess I can start tagging them as nathanstudyblr if you wanna track it 😅