English Paper 1 with Abby

The Leaving Cert has officially started and we're off to a flying start! We started off the day with English paper 1 - known for being the “paper you can't study for”. While you can't really study for this paper, it's one of the few papers that allows you to get really creative with the broad topics it gives you for the composition and the question B’s.

Speaking of compositions: the theme this year was influence and the topics we got for that section were pretty lovely! I personally chose to do the speech on the motion for or against “Social-media influencers are best ignored”. This gave me LOADS of freedom to talk about the pros and cons of influencing!

For the comprehensions's, the texts were nice and simple (text 1 was my personal favourite), although I wasn't the biggest fan of question B’s. They felt a bit confined to me and I wish we got a bit more freedom in that area. For example: the letter to the editor felt a bit constricted as not many students would have covered that exactly.

Overall I wrote just about 19 pages and got everything completed! My hand may need its own massages after all that writing though. A tip I want to give to future exam students is don't overthink it! Go into the exam with a clean mind and write from the heart. They want you to put everything down on that page!

Roll on English paper 2!