On a beautiful sunny day many people might be daydreaming of a trip to Paris, walking along the banks of the Seine...but the Leaving Cert gang were fully focused on the ins and outs of the Romance language.
This morning, Lauretta was happy as she explains in the video above and Olga also liked the French exam.
And, in the afternoon it was time for History, and we look back on that classic subject with Aoibhín and Olga again. Massive thanks to all the students who take the time to share their Leaving Cert Diary.
For great Leaving Cert tips, advice and more on RTÉ Learn click here!
With thanks to our friends at the Irish Second-Level Students' Union we will continue the Leaving Cert Diary series throughout the exams.
It's the place where young people tell us what they thought in their own words.
Aobhín says: "We now leave History to be History..."
You and I certainly have a lot of History and after an eventful 2 years, today we say goodbye to Leaving Cert History.
With the appearance of the Sunningdale Agreement as the document many of us let out a sigh of relief as we ploughed on with the exam.
Under the adjustments for the 2023 exams, I focused on Europe and the Wider World: Topic 3, Dictatorship and Democracy in Europe 1920-1945 and Europe and the Wider World: Topic 6, 'The United States and the World 1945-1989 in my exam.
The Dictatorship and Democracy segment held some nasty questions but with Stalin's scheduled appearance I can safely say I left content unlike those on the show trials...
The United States and the World segment however offered us a more diverse range of questions from the military-industrial complex to the moon landing. I happily chose the question on the Korean War and the Cuban Missile crisis as threats to US security and the question on the 1969 Moon Landing.
With much to be left pondered on what actually were the reasons Stalin transformed the Soviet economy? Or why did the US actually achieve a successful moon landing? All I can say is we now leave History to be History...
Olga has tells us about both her exmas today
First up with French...
C'était super!!
I sat the Higher Level French paper this morning and found it relatively easy. I found both reading comprehensions very doable, with a nice choice of written pieces after. I chose to do the opinion piece on travelling vs staying at home, and one about impacts of social media on young people.
It was a very doable paper, the listening had some tricky bits but overall it feels like my work over the years paid off. My word of advice would be to consistently revise common vocab - took me a second to remember what Nina's grandfather was to understand the second text!
And then History...
I sat the Higher Level History paper and I am so so happy it's in the past, pun intended. I personally feel the History course is way too broad and as I spent most of my time trying to learn a wide range of topics, I missed out on what could've made my essays the H1s. Also, where was Vietnam?? Where was my Johnson or Truman essay??
I ended up leaving an hour early, as I couldn't even try writing an essay about topics I didn't know well enough. If the course were to be shorter, we would be able to focus more on specific topics than cut ourselves short - after all we only write 3. I understand it's to give us choice, but who can realistically remember all H1 standard essays for every possible topic?
To say the least I was disappointed but only with my lack of memory, and the expectation that I should be as flexible. It's just not realistic.
3 more to go!!!
