Around 55,000 students across Ireland start their Leaving Certificate examinations today, while 60,000 will sit down to a test drive with the Junior Certificate. Inspired by #leavingcertmemories being shared on Twitter, we’ve compiled the memes that best illustrate the experience.
The Leaving Cert has been a rite of passage for Irish secondary school-leavers since 1924. Students sit exams in the core subjects of English, Irish and maths, as well as a selection of subjects they have elected to study, ranging from history and geography to Japanese and Latin.
The exam papers come in different levels of difficulty – higher (honours) or ordinary level. Once again, bonus CAO points will be awarded to students sitting higher-level maths this year, to encourage more students to aim high in this subject. As a result, 30pc of students are due to sit the honours paper on Friday and Monday – the highest number to date.
What’s most important for students to remember is that studying for the Leaving Cert doesn’t have to be a struggle. You just need a plan.
Well-prepared students will have been studying all year. Others (also known as ‘the majority’) will have left it to the final weeks to cram everything in.
But there’s always hope. And hopeful nanas.
Panic may set in, but you must try to keep a cool head.
Really, you just have to get the head down and put the hard work in.
I mean really, really study.
As the first day of reckoning approaches, students will probably have the timetable learned by heart – at the very least.
A new-found confidence takes hold.
Or is it something else?
It begins, as it always does, with English, Paper 1.
Both teachers and students can make their best guess at what will come up, but you really can’t be sure until you turn that page.
Time ticks swiftly by, and the invigilator informs you there are just five minutes remaining.
Once English is done and dusted, the next core subject is maths.
Piece of cake.
Followed by Irish.
That’s the conditional tense as Gaeilge, for our non-Irish readers
And, before you know it, you can see the finish line.
Though for students taking subjects that fall later in the timetable, it can still feel a long way away.
Until, go tobann, it’s all over.
After the overwhelming relief, comes unmitigated joy.
Followed by the realisation that your future hangs in the balance as you wait an entire summer for your results.
Best of luck!
