It’s tempting to imagine you’re falling behind – but there’s no need at all for panic
First and foremost, don’t panic. It is tempting to imagine you are falling behind; you aren’t. You are getting ahead of your Easter revision schedule. I’m sure you all have a mountain of paper at home leering at you, daring you to escape to the virtual world of social media instead of trawling through the mammoth task of revision. Be strong!
Leaving Cert English students at both Higher and Ordinary Levels need to organise notes and draw up a plan of attack for the next few weeks. A little of every subject every day is far more valuable than a single marathon studying session.
Paper One needs practice, practice, practice. If you don’t already have exam papers, don’t fret. You can go online to examinations.ie and download both previous papers and their marking schemes for every subject. Use the marking schemes in English as a guideline, following the suggested materials as you frame your answer.
Paper Two needs more groundwork before you get to the practice stage. In the Single Text, remember character, plot development, themes and genre. You will need some quotation/reference to ‘prove’ your point in answers.
Revise a poem at a time; style, theme/ subject matter and quotation should form the basis for this revision. The Higher Level candidate can then merge their poems by poet into larger blocks of work, ready for the essay.
The Comparative Section is not as arduous as you might imagine, the same breakdown of character, plot development and reference/quotation should be revised here. You should then group aspects of the three texts into the genres you are studying for. If you are studying Themes, where does a theme begin? How does the theme manifest itself throughout the text? Are there any plot twists that add to or take away from the theme? How is the theme dealt with at the end of the text? What are the similarities/differences in the treatment of theme between texts? Is the theme relevant to your/modern life?
Junior Cert students, broadly speaking, follow a similar outline of revision to Leaving Certs. Character, plot, themes, climax and resolution are good places to start with your revision of texts.
The Junior Cycle syllabus requires you study 16 poems. Subject matter/theme, style and quotation/reference are useful headings to use when revising all poems.
There are some fabulous online study aids available to students. Schmoop is good for literature; studyclix contains sample essays on texts and poems. Leavingcertenglish.net is a dormant blog, but thankfully Evelyn, its creator, has left a huge index of essays on a variety of topics, and it’s well worth checking out! As ever, stick to reputable and well-known sites. Your teacher may already have pointed you in the direction of some excellent online resources; use them!
Finally, we advise you to revise at a steady pace. The Leaving Cert is a marathon, not a sprint. In the famous story of The Tortoise and the Hare, the hare never wins!