Brian Mooney’s tips for Leaving and Junior Certs

The 2016 Leaving Cert and Junior Cert exams start on Wednesday at 9.30am for almost 120,000 students throughout the country.

Most Leaving Cert students will get some breaks over the next three days because home economics and engineering, which are more niche subjects, feature in the first two days.

More mainstream papers - English papers one and two, geography and maths paper one - are spread between Wednesday and Friday.

In the case of Junior Cert students, they will have two papers daily between 9.30am on Wednesday and Friday afternoon.

What is the most important thing I can do today to prepare for the exam papers I'll face over the next three days? Use today to organise all of your revision notes for the papers you will be taking until this Friday. Ignore next week's papers for now as you will have time over the weekend to organise yourself for next week's papers.

What do I need to do on Wednesday before I leave home for school? If you are sitting the home economics paper in the afternoon, or if you are a Junior Cert student, ensure that you have a nutritious lunch with you. You can and should bring water into the exam centre with you, and some sugar-based sweets for energy, but nothing which would create noise.

If you are using public transport to travel to your centre be sure to leave plenty of time for any possible delays in buses, trains, etc. You may also wish to take a set of revision cards with you for the subjects you will be sitting each day, just make sure to leave them outside the exam hall.

How should I manage the first 15 minutes of any examination paper?

When you sit into your seat, arrange your pens and other instruments on your desk. When the invigilator arrives at your desk he/she will offer you your paper. Always opt for the paper that you have prepared for. Never attempt to change levels at the last moment, as this is always a negative side-effect of exam nerves. Once you receive your paper, read it carefully and fully before you do anything else.

Start to sketch out at the back of your answer book the answers to every question you are planning to answer. You will not be able to fully complete this task in the first 15 minutes as your memory will need to work on many questions over the period of the entire examination.

When you have completed this process to the best of your ability, start working on the question you feel most comfortable with.

How do I ensure that I get the maximum out of the paper before I hand it up? If at the end of your last question you still have a few minutes left until you have to hand up your paper, you can without any extra effort increase your mark by at least 5 per cent. Simply go back over ever question and reread what you have written. Your first attempt at writing a piece is always improved by rereading what you have written.

To make this process easier, always leave at least a half page free at the end of each question to enable you to add extra material if you want to at the end of the exam itself. New ideas will occur to you as you read your answer. Don’t bother trying to Tippex things out. This is a waste of time. Just draw a line through any incorrect material and add the new content in at the end of that page.

If you don’t have space, just put it at the end of the answer book and clearly identify which question and section it relates to.

If you use any spare time you may have over the next three weeks in that way you will be at least 10-15 points better off when you get your results in August. They could be the difference between getting the course you really want or not, so don’t leave the exam hall without reviewing every word you have written.

How can parents help their sons and daughters successfully get through the next few weeks? Know the exam schedule. Pin the exam timetable up prominently at home, with each exam to be taken highlighted. Place in the diary the date and time of each paper your son/daughter has to take.

For parents who are both working, and leaving home early, ensure candidates are up and dressed before you leave home for work each morning. A small number of students fail to turn up for morning papers each year.

Listen to the story of their day each evening and help them to move on to the challenge of the next paper.

Study should end at least an hour before bedtime to allow the student to unwind before they go to bed. It is not advisable that students fall straight into bed from the study desk as their mind will be buzzing for hours as they attempt to fall asleep.