I like history. Everyone should. Those who are not familiar with it are destined to repeat it. And other clichéd crap like that. Sure, there’s boring parts, like the Industrial Revolution, or all that ultimately pointless stuff about Home Rule (let’s face it, there were cool parts, but it went nowhere), but History is one of those things that has universal applications to everything. Like English. If anything, they should replace Irish with History as a core subject. I just want to stress that before I continue…
That paper was an absolute bitch. Everything was either too vague, or took an unexpected spin.
Ireland: Topic 3
Anglo-Irish relations came up in TWO SEPERATE FREAKING QUESTIONS. Right after coming up once LAST year. WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT MR. EXAM WRITER? What possible sense does that make? It makes no sense! There are hundreds of better, more interesting, more anticipated topics, and you pick the boring one TWICE?
Cultural Identity was looking good until I realised they wanted the North AND South. Who cares about the North’s culture? Bah. I basically took the ‘social and economic challenges of Northern Ireland 20-45’ and made it about the Belfast Blitz. I mean, it seems pretty challenging to your economy and society if tens of thousands of bombs are raining down on you.
Ireland: Topic 2
Who was better, Butt or Parnell? Why is that even a question? The man has one of the worst names in history. Plus there was the whole gambling addiction thing. But mainly it was his name. Why did he expect anyone to take him seriously? Then there was the Michael Davitt question. Social reform. Wow. Not. Then the “development of Ulster Unionism in Belfast” — hahaha, no thanks. Great grandparents would be turning over in their graves if I spent all my time writing about Belfast for my Irish History exam.
I did the Strike and Lockout. Luckily, I find the topic pretty cool. The epic struggle between socialist Larkin and conservative Murphy. They’re like the Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader of, y’know, Irish labour… (I’m totally going to do a 300-style over-the-top stylised movie about the Irish Labour Movement someday)
Europe: Topic 3
France? Seriously? You have FRANCE, in a section about the WWII era, but you don’t have RUSSIA? What the hell are you smoking Mr. Exam Writer? I mean, I’m not going to lecture you on what you do in your spare time, but maybe SOBER UP BEFORE YOU WRITE THE DAMN EXAM. Gosh. Not rocket science. The Britain question was also lame. Britain came up last year. Sure, it was a comparison with Germany, but even that would have been better than a vague question about Britain. Nobody cares. And it was the Jarrow March’s turn to come up specifically anyway. There wasn’t even a case study.
There was a vague question on World War II. It was crap. Has a question like that ever come up before? I don’t know. The only part of it I recognised was the ‘technology of warfare’ part, and I never liked that anyway. Too much like the Industrial Revolution. All machines, no interesting people.
I did the terror/propaganda question. Again, infuriatingly vague. I wasn’t going to do it at first, but then I realised I knew nothing about that damn Jarrow March. So I made up a vague answer to the vague question. Suck on that, education system. I did like, a page each on Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. Hitler was a jumbled mass of crap I remembered from various sources, Stalin I completely abused in order to talk about the Moscow Show Trials (so pissed that didn’t come up on its own), Mussolini was a wafflefest. Ultimately I just mentioned a bunch of stuff in passing.
Why History Can Suck It
It’s examined so badly it makes me almost as pissed as Irish. This time it has less to do with how it’s taught, and the unwarranted stress put on it (in the case of Irish), and more to do with how narrow the damn test actually is. It’s the biggest hit-or-miss ever. Here’s what I studied
Moscow Show Trials => Twisted a question into it, will probably lose marks for over-talking about it
Fascism and Religion => Didn’t come up. Complete waste of time in terms of exams.
The Jarrow March => Half-came up.
Belfast Blitz => Twisted a question into it. Probably will lose marks for focussing too much
SF and 1918 Election => Didn’t come up. More time wasted.
Irish Cultural Revival => Half came up. Knew nothing about the other half.
The GAA => In fairness, I should have realised that wouldn’t come up, as it did last year.
1885/1886 Elections => Didn’t come up. Really pissed about that.
Irish Labour Movement => Cha-ching. Although it was focussed on the Lockout itself, so probably lost marks on the lengthy intro too.
Is that the way history should be learned? I mean, the other exams are bad (in terms of learning what will come up rather than what you should know), but history is just sickening. There’s so much I knew, but couldn’t talk about. Isn’t that the exact opposite of what an exam should be?
That’s not even taking the time issues into account. I left out an entire essay for my mocks, so this time I was very strict. As a result, all my essays get really rushed and panicky towards the end.
The whole exam is illogical in general. I’m just glad, as my friend said (in a most cringe-worthy manner), “it’s all history now.”
Hey Emerald,
Glad you got the Lockout and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (you didn’t mention it, but assumed you’re contented) and I feel your pain on the Green and Blue books. Didn’t get the rise of SF/fall of HR and was instead treated to the damned Treaty and only talked about Stalin in my dictators. They didn’t say one or more examples, so I made my own essay. Suck on that, Department beardos!
Excellent excellent post. Probably the best post ever. All so true. History is my best subject, my only decent subject and then today we get thrown that utter shit! It was like what the fuck! Two questions on France basically with all that collaboration and resistanceand then the other one. Britain has come up for the past 2 or 3 years! The War of Independence has never come up since the new course nor the lead up tp the 1916 Rising or the impact of the Rising. Instead we get asked to talk about the consequences of the Treaty, could you be any more vague? Like seriously.
True. They don’t really seem to ask any questions where you can give them have the crap you have in your. You have to basically learn everything as anytning can come up so you end up learning everything(more or less) incredibly superficially and then when you actually get to a question you’re completely pidgeonholed.
Both Irish questions were pretty chill but Europe was a motherfucker. I think everyone in the country probably just threw together a piece of shit propaganda/terror essay from whatever they could remember b/c there’s no fucking way homeboys were writing about fucking France, let alone technology of warfare.
It’s a good thing my essays on my boys Martin Luther, Parnell and de Valera were fucking masterpieces.
“Had my projects not been interfered with, I had the Leaving Cert in the palm of my hand.” –CSP, 1890
Your negativism amazes me. But being positive isn’t funny so…
Shittest history paper I’ve ever seen. The fact that I didn’t study for it probably didn’t help..
Is it just me, or has this been a bad year for predictions? First Longley, then stair na Gaeilge, then no church-fucking-state relations?!
Wtf are the documents for next year? I better start studying them. 🙁
You might have had boring questions, try boring questions for 2 soul-shatteringly boring sections. Highlights included Vatican 2 and First programme for economic expansion.
History is a joke as a subject though and 2hrs 50 is nothing. Glad it’s over though. Onwards to biology.
I walked out after an hour. The paper was bullshit! I forgot William Martin Murphys name so he got no mention in my strike and lockout essay that was like 3 pgs long and the anglo Irish treaty was a page long!!! Left out europe cuz I hate all the dictators other than Stalin, who went nutjob! So pissed……
I didn’t really know what to make of the paper…
Was DELIGHTED with the Europe question about terror and/or propaganda, that is the ONLY thing I’m good at.
Wrote a pretty general Butt/Parnell answer, it really wasn’t anything special.
Then we came to the Topic 3 of Irish History. What did I learn for that? The rise of Sinn Fein and the Fall of the Home Rule/Cumann Na Gael party. Did any of that come up? NO!
I knew I was going to fail at that question before I went in, but mother of god, not as much as I ended up failing. Did the de Valera question and I’ll be LUCKY to pick up ANY marks in that at all.
Fuck it, I’m only looking for a C anyhow. History bonfire tonight anyone? =p
Agree completly. I mean I love history, its a cracker of a subject but honestly the way it’s examined is awful. That paper was shocking I mean dictatorship nd democracy…bewildering!! so dissapointed over it, really worked for the a but not a chance after that paper. Also 2:50 hours for nearly 4 essays it’s actually illogical
This post, and all my whinging friends last year, make me glad I didn’t do History.
I really wanted to- it was actually always my favourite subject, but there was timetable clashes with Chemistry or something back in the day.
Sounds like evryone got on not-so-good though, so like, it’ll be marked easy and shizzz.
I thought the documents sucked a big one. No visuals, and the two writtens were BORING AS SHIT. Questions were strange, unlike previous years. Made it awkward to stick in information about the period.
Thought the essay questions were grand, but I guess theres so many it completely depends on what you do in your school…
I did: de Valera economy/A-I relations, Contribution of Lemass, and the propaganda/terror question.
Happy days.
I agree with everything you just said.I love history too but I hated studying history. It almost killed history for me..(if that’s possible without a time machine)… anyways.. Questions today were actually ridiculous. I mean I did better in Maths!(I’m really bad at maths).What was with the Montgomery Questions?I barely even got to talk about technique etc.
Seriously in my exam centre a load of people just gave up in the middle and left. People who work really hard usually. It was awful. I went down waffling 🙂
I must say that history is not a subject where you are rewarded in the exam, unless you’re very very good and know it all.
I think it is much more rewarding than any other subject when you’re learning it though.
It’s far more compelling, and we have the greatest teacher on the planet.
I wouldn’t trade it for an easy points subject no matter the payout, I loves my history!
Gah. The History paper is outrageous, absolutely outrageous. There’s about 50-60 individual chapters on the course, and you end up writing about 3 or 4 of them. Bloody ridiculous.
And then they DELIBERATELY pick questions that absolutely no-one can do. That makes up around 3 out of the 4 questions in each topic. Like France between the wars? Is that even in the fucking book?!
Another thing that’s starting to bug me is the fact that they’ve asked about economic problems in Britain 4 years in a row, plus the sample paper.
And to top it all off, they don’t give you enough time to answer the questions properly. Bull, absolute bull. I’m not sorry to see the back of the LC history course.
That exam was a disgrace! I love history, it’s the one subject I find relevant. There’s only one history class in my school, about 24 lads, so school was pretty empty for the exam. EVERYONE came out of that exam from the different centres in silence with grim looks on their faces!
There’s stories of one lad just shaking his head and leaving after half an hour.
Fucking terrible, I wouldn’t repeat this subject again if you paid me. The love affair that History and I had is dead
I dont usually do this mainly because i never have the popportunity to but i think it went well!!OMG YESSS!!!and i just realised that now!!1because i opended the book for the first time yesterday evening (i only have a revision book for history):L i learnt of 3 essays show trials and stalin CNG and lockdown!!
so i wrote about the propaganda with my stalin and show trials essay and i trew a bit of hitler in there which i remembered from junior cert history !! and i taught i failed this question until like 2 mins ago when people were talking about puttin stalin and hitler and mussolini into it and i was like YESSSSSS and my dad was like what the fuck lol!!
the lockdown unreal 8 page essay 16 paragraphs i have to get near full marks!!
then i picked an essay about something i never did it had something to do with education changing so i basicall talked trough my ass but i think i pulled it off!!!for like a couple of percent!!
AND I HAVE NEVER LOVED BUSES AND RACISM MORE THAN TODAY!! bus boycott legend!!!!!!
bullshitted for the essay part that was pretti simple to tho!!!
oh and how could i forget my dear ol jim jones for my reserch project :)!!!
anyway were im going with all of this is that cause so many people had problems with this paper it will b taken into consideration
shiiiiit i can go on for a wile when im excited lol!!!
and now for the downer think i failed maths 🙁 !!!
ah sure shit happens :D!!!!
good luck in art that will b easy you can guess it !!
and biology people good luck from what i heard its difficult so okay ill actully leave for real now
bye
xxxxxxxxx
Same experience, had great time in history as a subject, but I have friends who are excellent at history who just didn’t luck out. The paper was awful really, like what’s the point in studying anything if they’re just going to reward blind luck in what you managed to cram the night before? I liked the Dictatorship question, but you had to make up the question yourself like, but the documents were odd, Soverignty was just mean and the Lemass and Whitaker question later was far too narrow considering what could have come up.
I dunno, it just taints one’s experience of the whole course
Love history, hate the exams in it.
What were they thinking when they picked those questions? Theres so much they could examine us on and they pick the stupidest aspects of the course, i mean WHY???
To get a good grade you have to get really lucky and have everything you studied come up, or else just know everything basically!
well….i was expecting worse….i was expecting to walk in there open the paper and self implode! granted i vaguely wrote about everything i’m still pretty ok about it all, i mean for the mocks i MADE UP an entire essay that we never covered and what do you know i got 60marks for it! so i really dont think things could have gone too bad, i mean the more random facts you write the more marks you get…soo lets just say after every essay was half a page of irrelevant points in some desperate attempts to scrape some more marks! I was actually surprised at how much bullshit can get you through that exam,….or maybe thats because for two years history class revlved around no tests and watching Psycho (yes…pscyho) every now and then!
But Biology tomorrow, I cant even think about how unprepared i am..but then art history so that’ll be a nice break! And then Deutsch, my favourit phrase….Ach Ja!
over and out
Time time time…. There is no bloody time in history. 4 essays in 2 hrs 50 mins, i really must make sure to take my speed pills next time. It was a terrible paper as we can all see the general consensus of the paper was…. It was a load of ball sucking shite. Being one who studied his arse off all year, got not one logical question to answer on. They have really fuked up this year. Good luck everyone anyways.
@ … (no name)
The reason there is so Economic History is because it used to be a seperate exam, but they got amalgamated.
The history book most people use is not intended to cover the whole course, so lots of teachers (like ours) cover some sections that aren’t in it.
History is my favourite subject, love it to bits, but basically agree that the exam is crappy. I don’t mind writing essays and I don’t actually think that the choice is all bad but WHAT is the point or reason behind us having to write at about a billion miles per hour non-stop for the whole exam? If any exams should be 3hrs20 than it should be history. You barely even have time to think, it’s insane!
Definitely agree on your point that it should probably be a core subject, Emerald – in my year, about 17 of us out of 140 do history. I actually love this, as the class is so close and great fun (we used have tea and cakes about once a week :-D) but c’mon people, history is important! Much more important than georgraphy, in my opinion, which *everyone* seems to do. But then people like it, so whatever.
As for the exam, I wasn’t as angry about it as some of you lot. Boycott contextualisation was lovely (I was afraid something crazy and obscure might come up).
I did the cultural identity one for Ireland 1, which is *the* most boring load of bullshit ever, but I’d done that exact essay before and looked over it that night (well, early hours of the morning) so I just went with it.
We did Northern Ireland for our other topic, so I did the Sunningdale etc Q, which I’d been banking on. The way they put it was a bit hard though.
Also did propaganda and terror, like I think everyone in the country did… It was ok (didn’t get to put in a conclusion essay and my Russia para was very sketchy as I had about 3 minutes left) but I think it was a fair question – all the dictatorships were based on terror and propaganda, you sorta have to know it.
So, probably didn’t do amazing, but hoping my special resarch topic thing will bump up my marks.
Seriously though, the history exam is *so* much harder than most others… I think they should give it more time but then if they *did* do that now we’d all be angry! So best leave it, as we had to suffer 😉
@ Matthew…
I’m not complaining about the presence of economic history on the exam, or questioning why it’s there. I’m aware of the fact that the two courses were amalgamated. I’m complaining about the fact that the Dept. of Education have asked a question on the British economy FOUR YEARS IN A ROW. AND the sample paper. It’s such a small part of the course; it really doesn’t make sense. It seems like they’re just trying to catch people out.
hey ino the history exam is done with now…but i cant help but still be pissed off!
like most of u history has been my fav subject since primary skool and i hav been pretty much A student since then, the paper was d biggest loada bollox imagineable..i acto left in d middle to cry 4 a bit!
wher was church state relations..origins of fascism..anglo american culture..even the fuckin jarrow march which i HATE failed to come up!
wher was sinn fein 1918 election..decline nd opposition to homerule..or anyting on cosgrave or cnaG…???
nd wher d fuck was my beloved welfare state in Northern Ireland?????
the department completely fucked us over and i am soo ragin its not evn funi..i’l be lucky to pass i reckon.
does any1 else feel as though we were some kinda guinea pigs.? as clearly the deptmt felt lik changing every logical thing we studied!
k rant over..still gutted tho 🙁
Oh yeah, I agree Niamh, chuch-state relations?? That was seriously booked to come up. They even did a special thing on it at the history seminar at Trinity, and they’re supposed to know what they’re doing! Would have liked an essay on that, there’s some funny Mussolini quotes to put in.
a glance at irish history is a great way to put me to sleep
That went super BUT the questions were horrible!
They went to themselves and said what wont students study so we can fuck them up the ass!!!!
No holocaust, churches, anglo-american.
I was lucky though!!
Studied technology of warfare!!!
6 page essay on it!
It was on the sample department paper so it had to be up sometime!
Anyway it should be easier!
Like the obvious stuff should come up just to help weaker students!!!
And let the stronger student pick the odd ones and be marked easier on them!!
I disagree with everybody here. The problem with history isn’t the exam, it’s how it’s taught.
The majority of people in the country don’t know 1) how to write an essay with limited preparation and time, and 2) how the marking scheme for history actually works. This is because they haven’t been taught these things. And that’s because most of the teachers in this country have no idea what they’re doing.
Behind the wording of almost every question on the leaving cert in history or any other subject is a hidden question. Questions are phrased to be deliberately misleading, and trick you into thinking that it’s asking you something you don’t know.
The Parnell/Butt question for instance asked something along the lines of “Who was the more effective leader of the Home Rule party?” Well, within the parameters of the course you can only really write one paragraph about Butt no matter the question (Dude only ran the party ten years and accomplished almost nothing), and the examiner’s instructions for marking specifically say you don’t need to give an equal treatment. So what the question was actually asking was: “EXPLAIN IN A PARAGRAPH WHY BUTT FAILED, THEN GIVE ROUGHLY FOUR PARAGRAPHS OF THE STRENGTHS/SUCCESSES OF PARNELL.” And for the topic heading of every paragraph make a comparison, ie, “Whereas Butt’s HR League was disorganized and badly led, Parnell imposed strict rules on the INL.”
Then you hit them with what you know, fitting it into the parameters of the question. For a high mark detail is the key, because of 100 marks per essay, 60 is going for basically the level of detail, and the other 40 is going for overall cohesiveness/coherence etc.
The department doesn’t expect you to answer questions about interwar France. Questions appear every year that literally NO ONE in the country answers. C’est la vie, bitches. Deal with it.
Srsly – maybe some teachers don’t tell you much about how to do essays properly, but ours talked about cumulative marking and all that until we nearly killed her! It was always ‘timing timing timing, lots of paras, write quickly, more paras, look at the clock, paras!’
And we did quite a few practice essays in 40 minutes, which was helpful but stressful. Despite all this though, I still didn’t feel I could properly do the exam thing – I mean, it went ok, but I just think a different system would suit everyone better.
I agree with Roisin.
The History paper has as much as (most likely more) writing than English Paper 2, but lasts for half an hour less time. That’s hardly fair.
At the same time, the Biology and Chemistry can be finished in about 2 hours, but last for 3 (longer than the history paper). Where’s the logic?
If History was 200 minutes long (instead of 170) it would be a lot more comfortable to do, and put more emphasis on actually knowing history rather than being able to write fast.
Right now, History is only really advisable as a subject choice if you can write fast, and are willing to take a lot of risks.
i was really happy with it cos my taecher basically didnt teach us a thing all year. And his last words to us before he laft was ‘learn all the case studies’ and i did!!
The strike and lock out and the treaty negotiations!! SCORE!!!
The impasse here is that you’re making the assumption that ANY kind of exam is fair. Having to distill what you know about a subject into an essay, whether you have 45 minutes or hours to do it, is never going to be an authentic measure of your understanding of that thing. True understanding comes from inner reflection and has nothing to do with sophistry (the art of creating a convincing argument that you yourself don’t support).
TRUE UNDERSTANDING CANNOT BE TESTED, BECAUSE IT IS AN ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENON. So, if you are to accept the prearranged terms that there has to be some kind of measure of what you’ve learnt (in this case an exam), then you must also accept that it MUST BE SUPERFICIAL.
Let’s extend your argument to its logical conclusion: Give more scope to the questions, more options etc, and add on, say, an extra hour to the exam so that there is now less time pressure/more opportunity to drag out your essays for longer. This would make it easier to get a high mark, certainly. It would be “fairer”/easier to adapt to. But in what way would it make the exam any less superficial in terms of actual understanding/analysis of history?
Emerald – Yes, exactly! All of us have been bemoaning the fact that you can’t ‘transfer’ time… I would happily shave half an hour off french or chemistry (even more at a push) and they would just be so much better used in history!
Srsly – Not really sure I understand your argument any more. The fact that exams, as a whole, are shitty is basically a given. But, insofar as any exam is fair, most of us agree that history is that little bit less fair.
Your point about ‘understanding’ is a good one in some ways, but really most exams are about knowledge. I think the point of many of the essays is too demonstrate that you have a *knowledge* on the subject (giving facts) and some understanding of how/why this happened (giving analysis). While this isn’t a great system, perhaps, we can’t just completely do away with exams. So, if we’re going to have them, we just think they should be a little fairer – ie. give us some more time so we can actually gather our thoughts before doing all this knowledge-giving and understanding-expressing!
How do you define “fair”? Easier?
As far as I’m concerned, if we’re going to test people by means of an exam it might as well have a high value to it. That is, if we are to measure people in this way we might as well keep it at a tough standard. Fuck it, why dumb it down? We’re all roughly 18/19 here, it’s not like this is primary school and the chief aim is just to get kids interested in the subject. It’s a really tough fucking subject and I like it that way.
My original point was that most of the people studying history at leaving cert level in this country have only become disaffected with it because they haven’t been legitimately taught how to prepare for the exam. It’s a failure of teachers at large to cope with this course, not students.
No I wouldn’t define ‘fair’ as ‘easier’! Then my argument wouldn’t make any sense.
Fair is more – you’ve learnt lots, now here’s a chance to prove it to us and we’re not out to get you.
This makes most exams not very fair but, for most of us I think, the point is that the history exam is that little bit more unfair. As in it’s disproportionately hard to get across all that you’ve learnt, mostly cos of timing.
Srsly, this argument has absolutely nothing to do with understanding.
There’s two points I’m/we’re making: we don’t get enough time, and the actual exam is way too chance-based.
You’re talking about structure and exam technique. This is completely different. This is being punished because you’re unlucky and don’t have strong wrists. What does that have to do with history knowledge?
There’s no other exam on the course that’s more hit-or-miss then history.
I didn’t read Srsly’s comment but yeah, I think I’d probably agree with Emerald (because he’s a blogger, they have powers) so stick it. Pow.
All done?
No need for all the anti british feeling in ur article.
Apart from at it a guid summary of ur exam,
u wouldnt take it kindly if i started mocking the south cus im from northern ireland
I do love history though
definetly my favourite subject