All smiles as poets appear as predicted
LEAVING Cert students gave a warm reception to their second English paper, as they continue to sit their exams in scorching temperatures.
The pupils attending Mount Carmel Secondary School on Kings Inn Street in Dublin’s city centre said they were happy with how the papers went.
Ar-Raiyan Adesanya (17), from the Malahide Road, said: “I really liked the questions. I thought that I was well prepared for them. I liked the kind of universal themes that the questions asked.”
She said the higher-level exam was difficult in the sense that you had to really read the questions.
“I had to make sure I was sticking to what was asked. It is easy to get off track,” the student pointed out.
She said she was worried beforehand about answering a question on ‘King Lear’, but was happy with what came up in the exam. “I had sufficient information to answer the question and I was happy about that. I am so relieved. I was happy that Philip Larkin came up as well,” she added.
Grace Curpen (18), from Phibsboro, who also sat the higher paper, said: “I kept a watch with me. We were taught to time-manage really, really well. I think we had enough time, and we covered everything.”
The feelings of the Dublin pupils were also echoed elsewhere.
At Coláiste Abbáin in Adamstown, Co Wexford, there was no sign of any tears as the students left the recently constructed school building following the conclusion of their English endeavours.
Cordelia, Robert Frost and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin had been predicted by many students for Leaving Cert English higher-level paper two and they duly obliged yesterday, prompting smiling faces and relief at the end of day two.
“It was OK, it wasn’t a hard paper,” Brandon Sinnott said. “I thought it would be worse.”
Brenda Whelan said she got “the predictions” right, with Frost and Ní Chuilleanáin among the poets she had prepared for.
“Three of the poets came up that we worked on.”
She said paper two was “about the same” as Wednesday’s paper one in terms of difficulty.
Damian McGarry felt his paper went “all right”, with no nasty surprises. “Everything that I thought was going to come up came up. I’m happy.”