h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

LONG POSTING ALERT!!!!!!!one!!!!!!!!!

There seem to be a lot of complaints on this page about the GCSEs, so I thought I would put forward some information on what we have to put up with in Ireland. The Irish exams are widely regarded as being far, far worse than the British; indeed, only the Japanese surpass us leprecháns for exam stress and hype.

Secondary school in Ireland features 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year, transition year, 5th year, and 6th year. Not all schools do transition year, and most of those that do make it optional. However, this is irrelelvant to the discussion.

At the end of 3rd year, all the pupils do something called the Junior Certificate (henceforth abbreviated to JC). This is widely regarded as the most pointless exam in the world. It has no bearing on anything - whatever results you get, you can still do any subject at any level for senior cycle, and the JC has absolutely no bearing on entry into college.

Most pupils do nine subjects, but I did ten. Those available are:
*English
*Irish
*Maths
*French
*German
*Italian
*Spanish
*Science
*Business Studies
*Technical Graphics
*History
*Geography
*Music
*Home Economics
*Religion
*Art
*Technology
*Materials Technology (Wood)
*Civic Social and Poliical Education (CSPE)

These are spread over several weeks. The first three as well as Technical Graphics and Honours Business Studies are all two paper exams. English and Maths are obligatory for all students; a very few are not required to do Irish. despite its pointlessness, the JC must be done by law. The most annoying thing about it is that pupils are given guidelines as to how much to write in terms of paper rather than words (eg, "For question 3, you'd want to write three A4 pages,") which is bad if, like me, you have tiny handwriting.

CSPE, formerly known as Civics, is a bull**** subject which thankfully is not done in senior cycle. It has just one level.

At the end of 6th year comes the Leaving Cert (LC). This is the hardest, most important exam in Ireland, and ym poor sister is doing it this near (over the current weeks, as it happens). I know the LC is harder, because I just did my first year college exams, and they were far far easier (though this may have been because I didn't have to waste precious synapses on what the f*** Shakespeare was talking about.) The results of the LC alone determine whether you get into college.

One of the biggest problems I have with this is that, though we are supposed to finally be assessed on word count rather than dead trees, we still seem to be expected to write five pages - an act which discriminates against people with small handwriting and throws the entire marking scheme off. For one of our mocks, nobody scored higher than 55% because the outside examiner docked so much for not using letters big enough to fill up two more pages without actaully saying anything more.

Anyway, all LC subjects can be taken at either honours or pass (officially called higher or ordinary) levels. A third level, called foundation, also exists for English, Irish, and Maths; however, a subject taken at foundation level does not contribute to COA points, which are needed to enter college.

The subjects available for LC are:
*English
*Irish
*Maths
*French
*German
*Italian
*Spanish
*Arabic
*Latin
*Classical Greek
*Ancient Hebrew
*Classical Studies
*Physics
*Chemistry
*Physchem (physics and chemistry as one subject)
*Biology
*Applied Maths
*Technical Drawing
*Accounting
*Economics
*Business Organisation
*History
*Geography
*Music
*Art
*Home Economics, Scientific and Social

English and Maths are obligatory to all pupils. So is Irish, unless:
*You began school in Ireland after the age of 11 AND are a foreigner.
*You have a specific learning difficulty.

As well as this, a third European language is required to enter any college course, so that's four subjects already that you have to take. Most pupils do seven subjects, but a few do eight; when the exams finish, the results of your best six are used to calculate your CAO points.

These subjects are hard. For English, you MUST do something by Shakespeare, as well as three other semi-obscure texts from a selection, eight poets (though the way the exam is formatted, you are safe if you just do five), and a whole bunch of stuff about different ways of writing. Then, of course, there are a lot of questions on unseen articles and poetry. This exam consists of two written papers.

Irish is similarly difficult. You are expected to be pretty fleunt and to speak and argue it almost as well as English. You only have to learn one text and a few poems, but you also have to know a fair bit about the history of the language - and, of course, there are lots of unseen articles to answer questions on. Irish is the biggest subject, encompassing two written papers as well as oral and aural components.

Maths is also pretty hard, though fortunately it is logical and not even slightly subjective, so it is possible to obtain an A1 grade in it. It consists of two written papers.

The European languages do not require you to learn texts, but they are still very hard. Each consists of a single written paper plus an oral and an aural element.

I don't know much about the classical subjects; one Egyptian boy in my LC biology class was also doing arabic, and I discovered tat they have to answer questions on classical poetry and the Qu'ran.

Music has three papers: Composition, Listening (Core), and Listening (Elective).

Technical Drawing is the only other LC subject that encompasses two papers; however, since it is literally a very hands-on subject (since you get to work with all kinds of instruments), I found it a fairly nice subject - still challenging, though.

My TD teacher told us an amusing anecdote. For the LC, you are expected to be able to draw a few teeth of a gear given three data, and also produce a table showing eerything extrapolated from these data, all within twenty minutes. A boy did TD for the LC, then did it in college for an engineering course. He was given three hours to do a similar question, and ended up doing it three times because they wouldn't let him leave in the first hour!

All the other subjects are one paper each, and quite challenging.

Exams weeks kicks off with both English papers on the same day; pupils are then under exam conditions for over six and a half hours, and have to write the equivalent of a novella in that time.

The next day, they have Irish paper I followed by Maths paper I; the next day is the second paper in each, with the order reversed. Even people who somehow think the LC is a good thing argue that this overloads pupils on the first day, and the subjects should be spread out more.

After that, things settle down a bit, and most pupils will just have one exam per day; however, some have two per day all through the exam period.

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Right! That's a general synopsis/rant about the Irish exam structure. From what I can gather, it seems far worse than the British one.

glad i dont live in japan