past personal essay questions leaving cert

The Leaving Cert personal essay is a well loved and virtually permanent feature of Paper 1 (here is some evidence ).

It belongs in the 100 marks Composition section, the single biggest chunk of the English exam.

What is the personal essay?

It calls for a confessional, introspective tone.

Do you like the sound of these questions:

• Remember those times when you did not say what you really thought or felt. Why didn’t you? How do you feel about it now?
• How would you feel about a terrible event of your past if it happened today?
• What did you learn about building family relationships based on the experience of your parents and grandparents?

You get the message – this is serious life stuff! The Leaving Cert personal essay may be one of the only times you truly get to be yourself in a standardised exam.

The marking scheme allows us to interpret the term “personal essay”’ liberally, potentially even entirely or partly as personal (first person) narratives.

How to do well in the personal essay?

Reading such an essay, you should get the feeling that you are learning someone’s deeper thoughts and reflections. It shouldn’t feel like an opinion piece in a newspaper.

Even though a certain stream of consciousness quality is usually acceptable with these essays, remember that clarity (the P of PCLM) always gets priority .

By reading the correct and H1 sample essays below, you will learn how much to write, what kind of themes come up again and again and how you may be able to differentiate yourself from the crowd.

‘To live is the rarest thing in the world, most people just exist.’ – Oscar Wilde

Personal essay: pleasures particular to you for Leaving Cert English #625Lab

• Post author: Martina
• Post published: April 18, 2019
• Post category: #625Lab / English / PCLM / Personal essay

Write a personal essay on what you perceive to be the pleasures particular to you. #625Lab. Corrected by an experienced examiner, graded as 83/100 with feedback on how to improve…

Personal essay: a time in your life in which you felt you were treated unfairly for Leaving Cert English #625Lab

• Post published: March 22, 2019

Write a personal essay on a time in your life in which you felt you were treated unfairly. #625Lab. Corrected by an experienced examiner, graded as 79/100 with feedback on…

Personal essay: moments of insight and revelation for Leaving Cert English #625Lab (Divorce)

• Post published: September 23, 2018
• Post category: #625Lab / English / Personal essay

Write a personal essay in which you reflect on moments of insight and revelation you have experienced. (2017) #625Lab. Theme: divorce. Some parts of this essay are outstanding, but it…

Personal Essay: Uncertain about what you want for Leaving Cert English #625Lab

• Post published: April 23, 2018

Write a personal essay in which you reflect on an occasion in your life when you felt uncertain about what you wanted. #625Lab. Wonderfully reflective, revelatory personal essay dealing with loss.…

Personal essay about significant endings for Leaving Cert English #625Lab

• Post published: April 7, 2018

Write a personal essay about your response to an ending, or endings, in your life that you consider significant. (100 marks)   Stellar stuff via #625Lab. If you want to send…

Personal Essay: Moments of Insight and Revelation for Leaving Cert English #625Lab

• Post published: February 25, 2018

Write a personal essay in which you reflect on moments of insight and revelation you have experienced (2017). This is a good attempt at a personal essay showing a lot…

Write a personal essay about one or more moments of uncertainty you have experienced #625Lab

• Post published: February 15, 2018

This essay below is a beautiful exemplar of the genre of personal essay, full of cathartic confessions, teenage going on middle-aged angst and some incredibly deep insights and lessons learnt.…

Personal Essay: Experience of Dramatic Arts for Leaving Cert English #625Lab

• Post published: November 9, 2017

Write a personal essay about your experience (as a performer and/or audience member) of the dramatic arts; plays, musicals, concerts, comedy etc. (2010) You may also like: Complete Guide to…

Leaving Cert English Personal Essay: Irishness #625Lab

• Post published: October 1, 2017
• Post category: #625Lab / English / Personal essay / Too long

“The shoes of Irishness fit me well.” Write a personal essay in which you explore your sense of what it means to be Irish. (2001) This is a good essay…

Leaving Cert English Personal Essay: Pretence and Unvarnished Truth #625Lab

• Post published: September 18, 2017

“Let’s stop all this pretence and tell each other the unvarnished truth for a change.”   Write a personal essay in response to this statement. (2006) This is an essay…

Leaving Cert English Personal Essay: Useless Clutter #625Lab

• Post published: September 10, 2017

The village shops in Sara Baume’s novel contain a “surplus of useless clutter”.  Write a personal essay in which you reflect on the “useless clutter” that is a feature of…

Write a personal essay on the tension you find between the everyday treadmill and the gilded promises of life

• Post published: June 5, 2017
• Post category: English / Personal essay

Write a personal essay on the tension you find between the everyday treadmill and the gilded promises of life. (2013) Themes: social norms, choice, philosophy, religion ‘To live is the…

Leaving Cert English Personal Essay: one or more moments of uncertainty you have experienced.

• Post published: June 4, 2017

Write a personal essay about one or more moments of uncertainty you have experienced. Themes: social disadvantage, divorce, homelessness Note: this is a personal essay, but it has a plot…

Write a personal essay in which you describe a place that you consider beautiful

• Post published: February 1, 2017

Themes: religion, family Please note that we are apolitical. We just like good essays. This came up on the 2008 paper. This essay is on the short side of the…

Personal Essay: Not all problems are physical

• Post published: October 23, 2016

'Not all problems are physical'. Write a personal essay about your response to this statement in light of experiences your life that you consider significant. Themes: mental health, anxiety ‘It is…

Personal Essay: Moments of Uncertainty

• Post published: September 26, 2016

  Write a personal essay about one or more moments of uncertainty you have experienced.  Themes: sexuality, social conflict Candidates may adopt a variety of approaches (serious, humorous, anecdotal, discursive,…

How To Improve Your Grade If Your Teacher Isn’t Giving You Feedback

• Post published: November 3, 2014
• Post category: Durcan / English / Hamlet / Personal essay / Short Story / T.S. Eliot / Video

- How to write a strong introduction- How to craft impactful sentences- Common grammar, syntax and style problems- How to stay relevant to the question- Examples from Hamlet, Personal Essays,…

Personal Essay Revision Notes, Past Papers & Questions for Leaving Cert English

Join thousands of students using SimpleStudy to revise for their for Leaving Cert.

62368 happy Leaving Cert students

Study English Past Papers & Marking Schemes

SimpleStudy’s Leaving Cert English Past Papers cover all of Personal Essay. Revise past papers and marking schemes, or just Personal Essay questions.

Personal Essay Revision Notes

Study beautiful, concise and carefully crafted notes, for your Leaving Cert.

Personal Essay Questions

Past Questions, timed, divided by topic and automatically graded.

Personal Essay Quizzes & Flashcards

Make studying easy with multiple choice quizzes and fun flashcards.

Practice Revision Questions For Personal Essay

Test your knowledge! Try SimpleStudy’s interactive revision questions, made specifically for every topic and note so you’re properly prepared for your Leaving Cert English exam.

0% of students got this correct.

What is the benefit of having a plan?

Leaving cert english personal essay revision notes.

Personal Essay revision notes, study carefully curated revision materials, broken down into focused topics.

Learn how to study Leaving Cert English .

Leaving Cert Personal Essay questions and answers.

Reviewed by subject experts and top students.

Example Personal Essay answers

Example answers, on past Personal Essay Questions. Learn from other students with SimpleStudy’s example answers and essays.

Graded, marked example answers for every question.

Sample essays from A+ students.

Experiment write-ups, practicals, diagrams and more.

Scan your Personal Essay Homework to get instant feedback and grading.

Upload a photo of your Personal Essay homework or question and get feedback instantly using our AI.

Exam-focused quizzes for Personal Essay

Fun and easy Personal Essay quizzes based on Leaving Cert English past papers. Practice multiple choice questions, see explanations for every answers, and track your progress.

Over 129 quiz questions on Personal Essay.

94% of students improved their grades.

The best way to revise for class tests.

Try our Personal Essay flashcards, or create your own.

Join the leaving cert english students..., 97% of students.

Report Improved Results

98% of Students

Recommend to friends

Students Supported

Questions answered

Students love Leaving Cert English Revision

SimpleStudy makes revision simple, with easy to study resources and PDF’s for every level and every topic.

Google Reviews and Trustpilot

Other Leaving Cert English topics to explore

Reading comprehension, poetry - bishop (2023/24), poetry - dickinson (2023/24), poetry - heaney (2024), poetry - hopkins (2024), poetry - ní chuilleanáin (2024), poetry - plath (2024), poetry - rich (2023), poetry - boland (2025), poetry - donne (2023/24), poetry - yeats (2023), paper breakdown: higher level, style of question, style of language, approaching text qb, speech & talk, diary & blog, radio talk/interview, introduction, introduction to the composition, descriptive essay, discursive essay, personal essay, short story, frankenstein, the crucible, navigating the comparative modes, theme or issue (2025), cultural context (2025/2026), general vision and viewpoint (2025/2026), literary genre (2026), never let me go, all the light we cannot see, pride and prejudice, the shawshank redemption, derek mahon, patrick kavanagh, thomas s.eliot, emily dickinson, eavan boland, sylvia plath, elizabeth bishop, gerard manley hopkins, seamus heaney, eiléan ní chuilleanáin, william butler yeats, response strategy, where the crawdads sing.

1 Composition (Personal Writing)

Created by studyclix ( 2 ).

Videos from the community ( 0 )

Why not start the community off by adding a post or uploading a resource?

Notes from the community ( 0 )

Websites from the community ( 0 ).

Leaving Cert Papers, News, Notes, Tips and Resources

Higher Level Papers

2019 Paper 1 2019 Paper 2 2018 Paper 1 2018 Paper 2 2017 Paper 1 2017 Paper 2 2016 Paper 1 2016 Paper 2 2015 Paper 1 2015 Paper 2 2014 Paper 1 2014 Paper 2 2013 Paper 1 2013 Paper 2 2012 Paper 1 2012 Paper 2 2011 Paper 1 2011 Paper 2 2010 Paper 1 2010 Paper 2 2009 Paper 1 2009 Paper 2 2008 Paper 1 2008 Paper 2 2007 Paper 1 2007 Paper 2 2006 Paper 1 2006 Paper 2 2005 Paper 1 2005 Paper 2 2004 Paper 1 2004 Paper 2 2003 Paper 1 2003 Paper 2 2002 Paper 1 2002 Paper 2

Ordinary Level Papers

Higher Level Marking Schemes

2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003

Ordinary Level Marking Schemes

2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002

3 thoughts on “English”

no english marking schemes?

Excellent help and support for our country’s certificate exams which we are considering a review for. Thank you.

Would request a print out of the 2009 or 2010 exam paper please, for professional work at the Ministry of Secondary Education, Yaounde Cameroon. Thanks.

Comments are closed.

• Junior Cert
• Elizabeth Bishop
• Emily Dickinson
• Seamus Heaney
• Thomas Kinsella
• Derek Mahon
• All 2014 guides on CD
• Sylvia Plath
• Eavan Boland (LC 2012)
• Patrick Kavanagh (LC 2012)
• Adrienne Rich (LC 2013)
• Gerard Manley Hopkins (LC 2013)
• Cancelled Order
• Thank You for your order

Personal Essay

• A short story has a plot, setting and fictional characters!
• The style of writing is DESCRIPTIVE
• A short story could be ONE EPISODE of a TV show.
• A personal essay is a series of related ideas (or anecdotes) which reveal your personality, opinions, memories & feelings.
• The style of writing is up to you – you can use descriptive writing in one paragraph, rhetorical questions & lists in another, humour and exaggeration in another.
• Each paragraph uses ONE core idea.
• A personal essay COULD NOT be made into a TV show.

When writing a personal essay your personality must take centre stage – your attitudes, feelings, hopes, desires and beliefs are revealed. The quirkier the better – the last thing you want is to come across as the same as everyone else!

Follow the six rules of essay writing. Plan in advance, organise your ideas. Use some of the following techniques:

• Quotes from bands/singers, writers, philospohers, friends, calendars!
• Anecdotes from your past. Of course you can always describe an event that happened to someone else and pretend it happened to you.
• Descriptive style so the reader is drawn into the experiences you evoke.
• Reflection on your experiences/beliefs/attitudes – show an awareness of how you have become the person you are.
• Imagination – you are free to wander off on a tangent, letting your thoughts flow naturally…as long as you eventually return to the point.
• Humour – be as funny, sarcastic and brutally honest as you are in real life. It’s so refreshing because students tend to be puh puh puh puh puh puh puh puh pokerfaced and overly serious in the exam. (Then you meet them in real life and they’re a total scream but didn’t manage to get this across in their writing. So sad ;-(
• Hyperbole – take the truth & exagerate it. Make your writing dramatic.
• Observations about life, love, lucozade and lemonade. Here is your chance to muse about everything.
• Identify problems & offer solutions . Don’t be a Moaning Myrtle!

Here’a another discussion of the personal essay for a different perspective on it:

http://litreactor.com/columns/up-close-and-personal-a-personality-expose-of-the-personal-essay

8 responses to “ Personal Essay ”

Recent posts.

• A long slow goodbye…
• Lear’s journey
• Some themes in Lear…
• King Lear – Plot Chronology
• King Lear quotes (in translation!)
• Justice in King Lear – how to construct an answer…
• The Old Warrior and Me
• Single text options…
• Tackling the Comparative
• Reading Shakespeare (Othello)
• Game Based Learning
• Originality – Freshness – Energy – Style
• Discussions
• Comprehensions
• Comparative
• Studied poetry
• Unseen poetry
• Media Studies
• Uncategorized

Affiliations

Nominations.