Day 1 – English Paper 1

This morning was different. I woke up, and my mother went to the shop to get me fresh rolls. Something I’ve never experienced in this house before. And I’ve been promised a fry in the morning! Maybe the leaving cert isn’t so bad after all?

So I ate some food, hopped into car and tuned into Spin South West to listen to those fools ‘waffle’ even though they claim not to. I arrived at the school in time and ready for exams. We were sent to the canteen for a motivational speech, which was rather humorous. Of course we were expecting breakfast rolls or something.

I headed for the hall, found my seat and sat down. First things first, I had to prepare my red, blue and black pen, obviously! Then make sure I had remembered the right exam number. I had my eye on the clock. I was in my zone, my table, my workspace. The smell of fresh exam paper. The excitement in the hall. You could feel it.

Then we began, the hall went quiet. I read over the questions in text 1 and text 2, decided what questions i was doing and crossed out the others. Then it hit me that there was 3 texts. So i rushed to have a glance at the third text. I went for question A – Text 1, Question B Text 3. By the time I had read over the paper, had a good look around me, and sufficiently chewed a pen it was already 10am. And then in walks another guy from our year who had ‘overslept’. It was bound to happen to someone.

I then made my way through the paper trying to stay as motivated and interested as I could. And in fairness to the department, I think the texts they gave us this year were rather fair. So I finished up the A & B questions and turned over the page to the Composition question. Having prepared for the short story question I decided to change to personal essay in the last minute. Which I’m hoping was my strong point of the paper. I actually enjoyed writing the personal essay unlike previous years.

I finished about five or ten minutes before the exam ended. I have to say I was pleased with the overall exam so far, but then again I’ve stopped using my own judgement after the pre’s.

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