Expert teacher and examiner Conor Fitzgibbon has reviewed a number of sample essays to show you how to structure an answer and where to pick up marks.
Our examiner-reviewed essays are a new resource for both students and teachers. We have spent the last few months working with experienced teacher and examiner Conor Fitzgibbon who has annotated the essays and focused on a number of key areas.
These include:
How to approach a question
Where the student picked up marks
Where the student lost marks
The overall grade of the essay
We have 25 examiner-reviewed essays for you to look at!
These essays can be used in two ways:
As a sample essay to learn
For the examiner feedback
To switch off the examiner's comments, you simply have to click on the toggle like below:
Every essay includes a number of feedback boxes from the examiner which have different colours.
The blue feedback boxes are general points the examiner is making about the essay. For example, how to approach the question and the overall grade.
The red feedback boxes explain where students lost marks in the essay.
Finally, the green feedback boxes explain where the student has picked up marks in their essay.
The examiner has also written notes within the essay that you can also view.
You can find these essays on the 'videos and notes' page in a topic or at the bottom of an exam question.
You can find these essays in a number of topics, such as:
Some of the ways we suggest using these essays are:
Some of the ways we suggest using these essays to teach are:
Want to see what an essay looks like? Look at one here.
For more tips on how to do well, read our Distinction guide for Junior Cycle Irish.