The Leaving Cert exams can be one of the most stressful times in your school career. Striking a balance between studying, homework, and spending time with your family and friends can be a task, to put it lightly.
If at any point throughout the course, you find it all a little too overwhelming, first of all, know that this is normal and one day you will look back on this period of your life and realise it wasn’t worth stressing so much over.
To put your nerves at ease, I will leave you with a selection of assessment tips to help you focus your mind and instil confidence that you are ready to ace both papers.
There is so much more to performing in the assessments than knowing the examinable material of your subjects inside and out. You also need to practice best-practice test strategies and optimise your study time by making predictions about what is likely to appear.
By mastering skills such as time management, memorising quotes and honing your creative writing abilities, you can unleash your full potential and thrive once you step into that exam hall.
We have a number of articles on this topic, such as the Superprof guide to the English Leaving Cert
As well as this, we don't just cover what to study, but also how to study, such as over on our article on how best to study for the English paper
Ensuring Clarity for the Examiner
In gearing up for the test, clarity and organization in your answers are key for conveying your understanding to the examiner.
Keep in mind that the examiner who corrects your test will also be assessing hundreds of others. This is why it’s important that you label each question that you are answering clearly on your answer booklet and ensure that your handwriting is clear.
You can’t expect your examiner to spend an hour out of their day sorting through your paper and making sense of your answers. Instead, give them reasons to award you marks by making life a little easier for them and keeping your work neat!
Remember, the main composition holds significant weight in the assessment, making up a third of the overall grade, so allocate enough time for a well-crafted response.
There are marks for mechanics that you can bank on by paying close attention to grammar, syntax, spelling, and punctuation. By implementing these strategies, you'll enhance the clarity of your responses and demonstrate your command of the language, putting yourself in the best possible position for a high grade.
Creating Your Study Plan for Leaving Cert English
Crafting a well-structured study plan for the assessment is a pivotal step toward realising your academic potential.
Plan out how you’re going to study. Plan where you’ll study, and make sure that it’s the place that will be most productive for you, away from any distractions.
Your plan doesn’t have to be elaborate, colour-coded, or a huge detailed wall hanging. In fact, you probably won’t have time at this point to develop a massively elaborate schedule. Instead, you have to prioritise your study schedule and the topics you’re going to study.
In crafting an effective plan that will set you up for success in the subject, you will need to begin by setting yourself a reasonable timeline that will allow you to cover the material that you decide to include.
To do this, you’ll want to prioritise material according to its likelihood of appearing on the assessment and the number of marks that the respective question is worth on the test.
Your study plan should cover a range of materials, including past papers, study guides, educational videos and podcasts. This mix helps keep your learning experience engaging and caters to parts of the syllabus.
Integrating studying into your daily routine by incorporating activities like listening to podcasts on poetry and books, along with exploring literature and films in your free time can enhance your grasp of the subject and help you improve your analysis answers.
Approaching your studies in a planned and consistent manner will help alleviate stress and ensure that you are putting your best foot forward for that H1 grade. Want help building a schedule? Use this useful online schedule maker!
Working on Time Management Strategies
If you want a high grade in the assessment, being good at the subject won’t be enough. You will also have to be good at exams. Unfortunately, these are not the same thing. You will have to map out how long you are going to spend on each question in advance and try your best to stick to the strategy.
The number of marks allocated to each question can give you a sense of how long you should spend on it. This will be highlighted on your test papers.
When it comes to Paper 1, you should aim to spend around 40-45 minutes on each of the Comprehension sections and 75-80 minutes on the Composition, as it is worth the most marks. Personally, I would advise starting with this question and securing these marks from the outset, and then spending your remaining time working through the comprehension.
With Paper 2, you’ll need to distribute your time across the Single Text, Comparative Study, Unseen Poetry, and Prescribed Poetry sections. If you stumble upon a difficult question, you might want to consider spending slightly more time on a question you feel you can give a stronger answer to.
Every minute matters in the exam hall, so it's important that you plan ahead and aim to pick up as many marks as you can. You should practice timing yourself so that you don’t finish too early and so that you don’t run out of time before completing the test. Both are equally bad.
By employing these time management strategies, you can confidently tackle each section of the test and boost your grade in the process.
To strengthen your points when analysing your single text, comparative, and poetry questions, you have to back up your arguments with plenty of quotes. Want to explore some more learning resources? We have compiled a list of online English notes full of information and tips!
Strengthen your Answers by Memorising Key Quotes
By providing appropriate quotes in your answers in the right context, you showcase that you possess an in-depth comprehension of the respective material.
Examiners are always on the lookout for your ability to analyse through the use of quotations, as it indicates your capacity to engage critically with the material.
Sometimes, finding the right quotes can be relatively straightforward, but the problem lies in getting them stuck in your head so that you are ready to jot them down in your answer booklet on the day.
The best way to get these quotes into your memory is to employ strategies such as flashcards, audio recordings, or visual associations. Make sure that the quotes that you select can be applied to a number of different questions to reduce the volume of quotes that you’ll have to memorise.
By carrying around flashcards that are covered back to front with quotes or listing to your recordings on your daily commute, you can bring your learning with you everywhere!
This method not only enhances your essays but also showcases your meticulous preparation and strong analytical aptitude to the examiner who’s correcting your test during the summer months.
Still unsure as to what topics are covered in the English leaving cert exam?, click that link to help prepare yourself before you sit the assessment!
Prepare Alongside an English Tutor from Superprof
By taking the initiative to engage with a tutor from Superprof to learn assessment techniques, you can significantly improve your preparation for the test.
On Superprof, you can discover a tutor who matches your learning requirements and receive support that is designed to address your weaknesses and enhance your strengths in the English curriculum.
The tutors on Superprof offer flexible and affordable tutoring options that can easily fit into your schedule and budget with many providing the initial session completely free of charge.
This trial session is a great opportunity to discuss your learning goals for your lessons and get a sense of the tutor’s teaching style before making any payment commitment.
Availing of private tuition is without question the best way to improve your grade in the subject as you will be working one-to-one with somebody who knows that test inside and out.
The tutors available on Supeprof will have worked with countless students in your position, helping them to perform well on the test.
This personalised assistance not only deepens your knowledge but also boosts your confidence, ensuring you are well-prepared for the test. Get started as soon as today by heading over to the homepage and inputting English alongside the location that you intend on learning from.
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