Feeling Positive After History - Keileagh

Wow, just wow. As someone hoping to be a history teacher, I can’t say this exam was weighing lightly on my mind. 

With such a broad course and having 5 exams back to back beforehand, my history study was admittedly limited. I decided to narrow down the course to the sections I enjoyed and in honour of Martin Luther King, walk in there with a dream.

After speaking to some of my peers, there are mixed reviews on today’s exam, but I personally can’t explain the sigh of relief I let out as I read through the paper.

This year's DBQ options were the Dublin strike and lockout, the 1885/1886 elections and the star of the show, the foundation of the GAA. The sources were nice and easily comprehensible however I was hoping for a question on the general challenges facing the GAA rather than solely the political.

For the essays I focused my study on Mussolini, Hitler, The Jarrow crusade and race relations, and thankfully I was nicely covered. I don’t think they could have asked a nicer race relations question if they tried, and I'm sure there’s many in my shoes delighted with this too. Despite this, I was disappointed for my friends that had studied the moon landing and Vietnam as we were all expecting to see those options there today. 

Overall I think it was a very fair paper from the SEC, and with amalgamation of my RSR submitted in April I’m expecting to be very happy in August!