EuraStudy
This topic is not itself an examined component. It is the architecture of the whole qualification, and it feeds every one of the six units, because nothing else in these notes makes sense until you know what the units are, what they are worth, and which assessment objective each of them pays. CCEA GCE Irish, subject code 5550, is a unitised AS and A2 qualification of six units: AS 1 Speaking, AS 2 Listening, Reading and Use of Language, AS 3 Extended Writing, A2 1 Speaking, A2 2 Listening and Reading, and A2 3 Extended Writing. Every unit carries two different published weightings — a share of the AS qualification and a share of the full A level — and confusing the two is the commonest planning error on this course. Fourteen topics map onto those six units, which means several of the topics in this set are competences or prescribed content rather than distinct assessed elements; each of those says so in its own first paragraph. This one is the first of them.
5 sections~33 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Foundation 4 · Standard 1
basic level
At AS you sit three units and only three, and their weightings inside the AS qualification are 30, 40 and 30 — quite different from the 12, 16 and 12 they carry inside the A level. AS 2 is the heaviest unit you will meet in the first year, at 40 percent of the AS, and it is the one that contains three separate sections in a single two-hour sitting. Plan the AS year around AS 2's breadth and AS 1's deadline, because the speaking examination and its paperwork fall before the written papers.
higher level
At A2 the weight moves decisively towards the reading and listening paper and the spoken examination. A2 2 alone is 24 percent of the A level and A2 1 is 18, so those two units are 42 percent of the whole qualification between them. A2 also introduces synoptic assessment and higher order thinking skills, which in practice means inference questions, a summary within a set word limit, evaluative tasks, and questions that require connections across the specification. And the A* is not available on AS strength: it requires a grade A overall plus at least 90 percent of the maximum uniform marks available for the A2 units.
Reading depth: In depth
Text size: Standard
The six units and what each is worth
You are beginning the two-year A level in September. Using only the unit list and the two weighting columns, decide the order in which the units fall, where the pressure points are, and what a resit could realistically rescue.
Year one is AS 1, AS 2 and AS 3, worth 12, 16 and 12 percent of the A level — 40 percent in total. Year two is A2 1, A2 2 and A2 3, worth 18, 24 and 18 — 60 percent. Write both columns down; from now on quote only the A-level column when you are thinking about the A level.
AS 1 is a speaking examination conducted by a visiting examiner, and it is preceded by paperwork: a Summary Sheet the teacher must authenticate and the centre must submit to CCEA by a set deadline, and a Preparation Sheet of up to sixty words. That deadline, not the written papers, is the first hard date in the course.
At AS it is AS 2 — two hours, three sections, 40 percent of the AS. At A2 it is A2 2 — two hours forty-five minutes, 24 percent of the A level, and the single largest unit anywhere in the specification. Both have a fifteen-minute break after the listening section while candidates move to another room, so neither is a continuous sitting.
Each unit is available in the summer of each year and may be resat once, with the better result counting. So a poor AS 2 in year one can be retaken in year two — but it will be retaken in the same summer as three A2 units, in the middle of the heaviest term of the course. A resit is a real option and a bad plan to rely on.
AO3, accuracy, is examined in all six units, so grammar work never goes to waste and should run continuously from September of year one. Everything else is unit-specific and can be scheduled: set-work study before each extended-writing paper, theme work before each speaking examination, and listening practice from the first term because it is the skill that improves slowest.
Result: Year one carries 40 percent in three units with the AS 1 paperwork deadline first and AS 2 heaviest; year two carries 60 percent with A2 2 heaviest at 24 percent. One resit per unit is permitted and the better result counts, but a year-two resit competes with three A2 units, so it is a safety net rather than a strategy. Continuous grammar work is the only preparation that pays into every unit.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Write out all six units on one card, each with its title, its AS weighting where it has one, its A-level weighting, its total time and its sections. Then close the card and answer three questions from memory: which unit is worth most at AS, which is worth most at A level, and what do the three AS A-level figures add up to? If the last answer is not 40, find the error before you go any further.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §1 Introduction, §1.2 Key features and §2 Specification at a Glance (CCEA)
Assessment objectives by unit
You have one free hour a week for a term. Using the AO grid rather than instinct, decide what to spend it on and justify the decision in objective terms.
AO3, in all six. It is worth 30 percent of the A level and it is assessed in the two speaking examinations, the Use of Language section, both translations and both essays. An hour spent on the verb system or on mutations is an hour that pays into every unit you will ever sit.
AO4, at 20 percent, sits in only three units — AS 1 at 4.8, AS 3 at 3.2 and A2 1 at 7.2, plus A2 3 at 4.8. That is concentrated enough to be worth targeted work, but the work is research and reading about a chosen topic, not general revision, so it belongs in blocks rather than in a weekly hour.
AO1. Understanding spoken Irish from authentic sources — announcements, news items, talks, presentations and discussions — is the slowest skill to build and it cannot be crammed. It is 20 percent of the A level, split between the two speaking units and the two listening sections.
Thirty minutes on AO3, worked on written sentences where a mutation or a tense can be checked against a rule; twenty minutes on AO1, listening to authentic Irish without a transcript and then with one; ten minutes recording yourself speaking on the current theme. That last ten minutes serves AO1, AO3 and AO4 at once, because a spoken answer is marked on all three in the conversation.
It does not cover the set works or the research project, which need scheduled blocks of their own, and it does not cover AO2's reading, which improves fastest when it is attached to the themes and done at length rather than in ten-minute pieces.
Result: Half the hour to AO3, because it is the only objective in all six units; a third to AO1, because it improves slowest and cannot be crammed; and a final ten minutes speaking aloud, because a spoken answer is simultaneously AO1, AO3 and AO4. Set works, the research project and extended reading are scheduled separately in blocks.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Copy the per-unit AO grid onto one sheet and check it yourself: add each row and confirm it equals the unit's published weighting, then add each column and confirm you get 20, 30, 30 and 20. Now answer two questions. In which units can you earn AO4, and how much of it is in each? And if you improved only your grammatical accuracy, in how many of the six units would that show?
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §4.2 Assessment objectives and §4.3 Assessment objective weightings (CCEA)
A candidate sat all three AS units in the summer of year one and is unhappy with AS 2, which is 16 percent of the A level. They are considering a resit in the summer of year two. Reason it through on the specification's own terms.
Yes. Each unit is available for assessment in the summer of each year, and an individual AS or A2 unit may be resat once with the better result counting. A resit therefore cannot lower the outcome — the worse result is discarded — so the risk is not to the mark but to the time.
The resit falls in the same series as A2 1, A2 2 and A2 3, which are 60 percent of the A level. A2 2 alone is 24 percent, half again as much as AS 2's 16. Every hour spent re-preparing the AS listening, reading, translation and grammar section is an hour not spent on the unit that is worth more.
Here the calculation shifts. AS 2 and A2 2 test the same competences at different levels: two recorded passages, questions answered in Irish and in English, reading comprehension, translation and — at AS — a grammar section. Preparation for A2 2 substantially IS preparation for AS 2. The overlap is real, unlike the overlap between, say, an AS essay and an A2 essay on different set works.
AS 2 Section C, Use of Language, has no counterpart in A2 2: the A2 paper has no discrete grammar section, only a gap-filling exercise and an English-into-Irish translation. So a resit needs some dedicated work on the AS grammar exercises, which is AO3 work and therefore useful anyway.
Resit if — and only if — the candidate's A2 2 preparation is on track by the spring, so that the AS resit rides on it rather than competing with it. If A2 2 is not secure by then, drop the resit: 24 percent secured beats 16 percent improved.
Result: A resit of AS 2 is permitted, cannot lower the result, and overlaps heavily with A2 2 preparation, which makes it cheaper than it looks — but only Section C's grammar exercises need separate work, and the resit should be abandoned if A2 2 is not already secure by the spring, because 24 percent outranks 16.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Answer these four in writing, from the specification rather than from memory of another subject. How many times may a unit be resat, and which result counts? On what scale are unit results reported? What exactly does an A* require, and on which units is the 90 percent condition set? And name three of the five things the specification says synoptic assessment at A2 involves.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §4.1 Assessment opportunities, §4.5–§4.7 (CCEA)
You have twenty-four prescribed topics across four themes, two speaking examinations, and two years. Build a schedule that puts the right theme in front of the right examination.
The AS themes, Relationships and Culture and Lifestyle, supply the AS 1 presentation topic and the eight-minute AS conversation, and they supply the topics of the AS 2 recordings and reading passages. The A2 themes supply the nine-minute A2 conversation and the A2 2 source material. Note the asymmetry: the A2 conversation may also incorporate AS themes where appropriate, so the AS material never goes away.
Twelve AS topics across roughly five teaching months before the AS speaking examination is about two and a half topics a month. Twelve A2 topics across the second year is the same rate. That is a manageable pace only if it starts in September; it is not manageable if it starts after Christmas.
For each bullet, one page: eight to ten items of theme-specific vocabulary with genders marked, three or four sentence frames for stating an opinion and justifying it, two concrete examples you can name, and one question you could ask back. The frames are the transferable part — they will serve every topic — while the vocabulary and examples are topic-specific.
The conversation is eight minutes at AS and nine at A2, and it is a conversation, not a monologue. Practise being interrupted, being asked why, and being asked for an example. A prepared paragraph that cannot survive the question 'cén fáth?' — why? — is not yet an answer.
Because the A2 conversation may incorporate AS themes where appropriate, the twelve AS pages should be revisited once a term in year two. This costs very little and protects nine minutes of the most heavily weighted spoken examination in the qualification.
Result: Twenty-four one-page topic sheets, twelve prepared before the AS speaking examination and twelve before the A2, each carrying vocabulary with genders, opinion-and-justification frames, two nameable examples and one question to ask back — with the AS twelve revisited termly in year two because the A2 conversation may draw on them.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
List the four themes and, under each, every prescribed bullet from the specification — five under Relationships, seven under Culture and Lifestyle, six under Young People and Society, six under Our Place in a Changing World. Twenty-four topics in total. Mark each one with a tick if you could speak about it for two minutes in Irish today, and a cross if you could not. The crosses are your syllabus.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §3 Subject Content, areas of interest and the four themes (CCEA)
Set out every assessed task in the specification with the language of the stimulus, the language of the response and the assessment objective, so that nothing has to be decided under examination conditions.
Presentation, approximately three minutes: stimulus is your own prepared topic, response in Irish, AO4. Conversation, approximately eight minutes: questions in Irish, response in Irish, AO1 and AO3. Nothing in this unit is in English.
Section A Recording 1: questions in Irish, answers in Irish, AO1. Recording 2: questions in English, answers in English, AO1. Section B Question 1: Irish passage, Irish questions, Irish answers, AO2. Question 2: Irish passage of about 130 words translated into English, AO2, and marked partly on the accuracy of that English. Section C Questions 1 to 4: grammatical and lexical exercises in Irish, AO3. Question 5: short sentences from English into Irish, AO3.
One question of two on your set film or literary text, answered in Irish in one hour. Assessed on AO2, AO4 and AO3 together — content understanding, cultural and critical response, and accuracy.
Introduction of one minute and discussion of five on your research project, in Irish, AO4 and AO3. Conversation of nine minutes on the A2 themes and possibly the AS themes, in Irish, AO1 and AO3.
Section A Recording 1 in Irish answered in Irish; Recording 2 in English answered in English; both AO1. Section B Question 1 gap-filling in Irish, Question 2 questions in Irish answered in Irish, Question 3 an Irish passage summarised in English in about 100 words — all AO2, with the summary also carrying the written-communication requirement. Question 4 translates about 130 words from English into Irish, AO3.
One question of two on your set literary text, in Irish, one hour, AO2, AO4 and AO3.
Result: Of the assessed tasks, only three are answered in English — Recording 2 in each listening section and the A2 2 summary — plus the AS 2 translation, whose output is English. Everything else is produced in Irish. The two English-output extended tasks, the AS translation and the A2 summary, are the two places quality of written communication is assessed.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Draw a grid with the six units down the side and three columns: language of the question, language of your answer, and assessment objective. Fill in every task — both recordings in each listening section, each reading question, each translation, the summary, the Use of Language exercises, both essays and both speaking units. Anywhere you hesitate, look it up; on the day there is no time to work it out.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §3.2, §3.5 and §4.4 Quality of written communication (CCEA) · GCE AS and A level qualifications — regulated qualification information (UK Government)
References & sources