Geography and Maths Paper 1

Sometimes I scare myself with my imaginative blog post titles, I really do.

It’s hard to believe the first weekend is here already! Saturday’s nearly over and I still haven’t opened up any Irish but I’m hoping it’ll be a nice exam. You can imagine the SEC headquarters, on a big, dark hill and a squeaky gate. The postman gets letters in the postbox as fast as he can before the hot oil is poured out from the upper windows. And the local children say that when the moon is full, you can hear Eavan Boland whimpering in the cellar. (Yep, people aren’t letting that go!)

So Geography yesterday… from listening to the radio and talking to people coming out from the exam, it seems like everyone found it okay. Personally I thought the short questions were a bit of a step-up from the past few years and I didn’t fly through them as quickly as others. Didn’t mess up my timing but I had expected to do it a little bit faster. Soon as I’d those done I turned over to the Option and breathed a sigh of relief when the biome characteristics came up. Doing the desert biome had worried me, especially with regard to the human impact (eh…we don’t really grow stuff there no….eh….yeah…) but the climate worked so beautifully for it. I got out a page/page and a half on each of the 4 characteristics so hopefully I can grab as much as that 20% of the grade as possible.

I thought that Physical Geography wasn’t that bad, but what an emphasis on plate tectonics! I did the last of those questions, answering questions on Haiti and types of faults (and I thought they made exams in November/January!), human interaction on coastal processes and the karst landscape. I was slightly disappointed with the coastal answer, I’d prepared oil/gas exploration much better but I  wasn’t too keen on the fold mountains in relation to tectonics question. In retrospect if I’d kept the head I probably could’ve answered it but I made a decision and ran with it- I hope it’s ok and I was right waffling about groynes and longshore drift? And metamorphic rock…wtf? Left that well alone and completely resented learning basalt so well.

The Regional I thought was lovely this year although the development of tertiary question was a little bit of a twist I hope I answered it okay. Human-wise I wasn’t happy that migration was forced upon us (and with such rotten questions too). I nearly punched our supervisor in the face when I sealed the envelope and had forgotten to mention anything about donor/receiver. Overall though, an okay paper.

Ah Maths Paper 1. I dropped down around Christmas, finally giving in to George Humphrey and his insane insistence to do easy examples and forget all about the later, harder questions. I definitely passed it and I’m hoping I won’t have to use it for points so I think it went okay. All those questions about roots I think were really unfair, especially for people who find Ordinary Level Maths difficult. I think though the marking scheme will reflect it: a lot of my friends had difficulty and they’re not bad students.

Here’s hoping this coming week isn’t too bad. If you don’t hear from me Monday or Tuesday I’ve taken it upon myself to make a few house calls to the homes of featured Irish poets. (There’s a Cathal O’Searcaigh joke there, but I’m taking the high road- and besides, Níl Aon Ní and Magdileana are decent poems!)