Examens à Trinity College (Loriane S., Trinity College)

Camarades, 

Etant quelque peu à court d'inspiration, je vais me tourner vers un sujet qui, quand j'étais l'an dernier à votre place me faisait très froid dans le dos... Les exams en anglais. Voire le niveau d'anglais tout court. Btw I am going to write this article in English, in order to show off a bit, (and to train you haha)! 

I was REALLY desappointed last year when I received the results of the IELTS exam (6.5/9). I was literally harassing our beloved godfather Thomas of Wailly about his secret for attending (and understanding!) lectures in English, writing exams in English and the worse... submiting a 80 pages' dissertation in English (as required by Trinity).

BUT, from my 6 months' personal experience in Ireland, I really want to reassure you on the global level asked in LLM. If you survived 3 years of GED, the LLM degree is just a piece of cake that can be eaten with fingers in the nose (français, quand tu nous tiens!). But before tricking you into spending your all time doing anything but studying, I will just advise those of you who are not fluent (as I wasn't before coming here), to consider coming earlier in your new hosting country.

The first two weeks in Dublin has been really tough for me, and I couldn't have caught half of the lecture if I didn't come for quite a long time before the class started. These integration weeks helped me educating my ears with the different accents (New Zeland : "in the cinter of my bid" = in the center of my bed VS Ireland "It's foony in Dooblin" = guess yourself ^^). When the lectures started I still had some difficulties but after a while it was fine.

For the exams, the Trinity system requires to validate 3 lectures with different examination methods. Basically, it can be: or a 2 hours written-exam (40% required to pass), either an essay to submit of approximately 5,000 words (60% to pass). And it as REALLY easy compared to what we are asked in France. The questions could easily be expected in advance, there was no tricky questions. 

My only worry was that I spent the whole first semester visiting much more the interior designs of the Irish pubs rather than the library's ones. So it was VERY INTENSIVE to catch up before the exams (8 teas per day, 20hours revisions per day, with no time for a cigarette break, not even a one-minute break for crying). I am lucky I did well at the exams, but it could have been a complete disaster, as the LLM still requires some personal investment. That's why for the second semester I started appreciating the interior design of the reading room, with no restrictions as to the time I'm spending in =D