Shane Kelly

Shane is from Carlow and is studying Pharmacy in RCSI. He got an A1 in German

“If you’re going for an A1 in anything, you’ve to do that little bit extra. You can’t cram a few weeks beforehand. You really need to be comfortable with it when the exam comes around. You need to have used certain tenses, phrases and sentences before.

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“I had all the exam papers done for German before doing the exams. The vocabulary wouldn’t be the same every year, but questions of a similar style kept coming up and you learn the quickest, easiest and most efficient way of answering them.

“Show the examiner you’re putting in that extra work. If, for example, you were answering every point with three sentences. Put in a bit of flair with a fourth sentence. But do remember that the paper punishes you for making mistakes. Our teacher, Niamh O’Rourke, was very good. She used to always say there was no point taking a risk putting in flair if you’re not sure it’s correct.

“I went to Germany for an exchange in fifth year. It was just for two weeks, but it was handy for the oral – for getting the accent and for listening to German, but, most importantly, it gave me the confidence to speak it.

“For the oral, the picture story and role play are very straightforward. You can be very prepared for these by having material learned off. It’s easy marks if you put in the work.

“With the general questions, they ask about fairly basic topics such as family, school, sport and hobbies. A good idea is to throw in an unusual hobby or sport. You can then throw in unusual sentences that no one else will have.”

Yvonne Mullins

Yvonne is from Cullohill, Co Laois, and is studying Animal Science in UCD. She got A1s in ag science and biology

Yvonne says ag science and biology overlap: “If you pick subjects that link together, you’ll massively boost your points.”

For ag science, she says that doing badly in either the project or the exam will bring your grade down. Yvonne put a lot of work into her project.

“Almost too much work,” she laughs.

“I had to do sections on barley, grassland and beef, but I put in extra on top of that. I included different dried plants I had picked every month. I included another section about insects and farm pests and another about farm diseases. I also did a farm diary every month. I compared animal feeds and looked at nutrient value compared to cost. The syllabus isn’t very definite, you never know how much is enough.

“However, what you’re supposed to have done is what you get graded on, so I went into more detail than necessary for the other parts.

“You also have to do an experiment book. You only have to do 10 from each section but I did them all because it helped with the experiment question on the written paper – it was like learning it twice.”

Yvonne had the same teacher for ag science and biology and she employed the same methodology for both exams.

“When we finished a section of the course, our teacher would get all the exam questions on that topic together and we’d do them.

“I looked up the official marking schemes online (which give the correct answers for the past papers) and I’d write all my answers using those to help. I had all that in a copy which I used for revising, rather than the book.

“We found the exam papers better than the book, particularly for ag science. There are 10 to 12 questions in the exam papers that are not touched on in the book. If you study the exam papers, the two subjects are quite predictable.”