Orla Houlihan, the most successful Leaving Cert student of 2008, concludes a two-part series by telling Gráinne Fallerabout the study techniques behind her extraordinary success

WITH a tally of nine A1s under her belt, Orla Houlihan knows a thing or two about exam technique. Now, as a medical student in UCC, she hopes the balanced and consistent approach to study and exams that she took in the Leaving Cert will stand to her throughout the years of her medical degree.

"I'm really enjoying the course," she says. "But I'm looking forward to college life as well. I've joined the dance society, and I hope to keep up my music and Tae Kwon Do. There's a great gym that we can use for free as UCC students too."

When it comes to exams, she seems to have an extraordinary ability to leave them behind her when they are finished. She believes this was an important part of her exam technique. "I did the exams and I made a conscious effort not to think about them once they were done. Why would you? You'll only start thinking about the mistakes you made and get all uptight about it. I just found it better to leave them be. Always focus on the next exam."

SUBJECT BY SUBJECT

IRISH

"I enjoy speaking Irish. I am lucky that my dad has the language. We don't talk it at home or anything but that interest in it definitely helps.

"I found the Irish course very broad. Without getting your mind into the language it could be very difficult to manage. I used to find things like watching the Nuacht on TG4 useful for getting into the language.

"Irish is almost a way of thinking so if you can get your ear in on it, you'll find it easier to cope with. In a similar way, I found reading newspapers such as Foinse really useful.

"I didn't have my finger under the words and a dictionary to hand to look up every word. I don't think that's necessary. You can get the meaning of a particular word if you read it in context, which is why it's useful to be accustomed to reading the language. That's sort of what I mean by getting your mind into it.

"I did build my vocabulary, though. That is very important in both Irish and French. If there were words that I didn't understand, I'd look them up. I just wasn't really regimented about it.

"You can be caught for time in Irish Paper II. There are loads of questions so you really have to be disciplined. Divide up your time.

"Give each question a certain amount and really stick to that. Leave the question even if you're not finished. You can always come back to it later. You have to know when to move on."

MATHS

"I really liked maths, but that didn't mean I found everything easy. Doing exam questions is the way to study maths. It's great to struggle with a question and then eventually get it out.

I found that often I'd get stuck on a question. If I couldn't work it out, I'd go away and do something completely different. The thing I found was that, in the middle of doing something different, all of a sudden, I'd realise how I should have done the question. It's almost as though if you give your brain a rest, the answer just comes into your head and I'd know how to do it.

"You have to stick with maths though. Obviously, you need to understand everything that's going on rather than trying to learn off methods. It takes longer to begin with, but it means that you can handle anything they might throw at you in an exam."

PHYSICS

"The physics course isn't short, but it's not as long as biology, so my teacher had covered it a couple of times over the two years. She was really fantastic and gave brilliant notes. Physics can be tough. It can be difficult to figure out what the examiners are looking for. The marking schemes are useful in that respect.

"There are a lot of marks going for definitions in physics. You have to make sure they're word-perfect. Get used to writing them down. They are worth a large portion of the marks and there's no catch with them. If you write the definition in the exam you'll get the marks.

"I was very interested in the mechanics aspect of the course because it was very similar to applied maths. Physics, maths, applied maths and even chemistry all overlapped to some degree. One almost provided some context for another - it definitely helps to have those kind of related subjects."

BIOLOGY

"There's a massive amount to learn in the biology course. I'm interested in how the body works and so on, so I didn't find it too much of a chore.

"I didn't take any risks. I tried to be well covered on all aspects of the course. I didn't want to leave anything to chance. There isn't any magic bullet with biology. You just have to commit it to memory. I read the book and read my notes and just tried to make sure that I remembered everything.

"Towards the end, I did lots of the short questions on the exam papers. They are a really good test of what you've learned because they really span the whole course. They test your complete knowledge."

MUSIC

"If someone plays music and enjoys it, I'd really recommend doing music as a subject for the Leaving Cert. There is work in it; some of the theory is very tough. You would have to be interested in studying the techniques of different composers, but if that doesn't put you off, it's a great break to practise a piece after an evening of study. It feels different to the other subjects, but it's still a subject. I would have done about 45 minutes to an hour of practise every day. I absolutely loved it.

"I did the music practical around the time of the oral. I played six piano pieces from different genres. I played stuff such as Clair de Lune by Debussy and a piece by Norah Jones - just pieces from different genres.

"It was pretty nerve-wracking going into the room to play, but the examiner was nice, and I just forgot about her while I was playing."

TIPS AND TECHNIQUES TO GET YOU THROUGH EXAM TIME 

PREPARING FOR THE ORALS

While you need to learn your vocabulary, actually getting into the mindset of the language is the most important thing. I was lucky for Irish because my dad has an interest in the language and I practised with him.

For French, I practised with anyone who was willing. You can't really study for the oral by reading notes, but I learned off loads of phrases and made sure I had gone through every scenario that might come up. Speaking a language is almost like a way of thinking. If you practise enough, you begin to think in the language. That's what you want when you go into the oral exam, because although you can go through every possible scenario in your head, it's a conversation at the end of the day.

On the day, I was careful not to let the nerves get in the way. In the end of it, the examiners are very nice and they want to give you marks and if you blank out with nerves, they can't give you what you deserve.

I came out and forgot about it. I had absolutely no idea how I did. I knew it wasn't disastrous, I figured I couldn't change it, so I didn't think about it.

APPROACHING THE MOCKS

"It's so important to have a practice run. I learned a huge amount about how to approach the exams when I did the mocks. They teach you about timing, which questions to do first, how much you can write in that sort of situation.

The mocks had a huge effect on how I approached the Leaving Cert itself. They taught me that it's very difficult to study during exams. If you try, you'll make very little difference to your mark and you risk burning yourself out.

I also learned that you're better off forgetting about a paper once you leave an exam hall. You have to keep looking forward and move on.

The post-mortems of the mock exam papers are really important. I looked over each paper in detail. I made sure I knew what mistakes I made and how not to make them again. It's all about figuring out how you could have got a better mark.

The teachers were great. We got each marking scheme, so we could really see where we went wrong.

EXAM TECHNIQUE

Coming up to the exams, I didn't do much at all. That's why I'm saying that if you can do a bit every day rather than cramming at the end, it'll be much less stressful and you'll do because of that.

Of course, when you're stressed, you're liable to forget the simple things. Have everything you need for an exam ready in your bag for the following day. There's no point in raising everyone's stress levels if you've forgotten your pencil case or your calculator.

Burnout is a real danger during exams. If you've been studying like mad since fifth year, or even if you're studying really hard at this point, you do need to be careful. Doing too much study can be as damaging as not doing enough.

Stay to the end of the exam. You've spent so long working for this and it has all been leading up to this. The least you can do is give yourself the best chance. Even if you blank out, you will remember things as the exam goes on.

Leave as soon as the exams are finished. Don't talk to your friends about how it was or what you did. Whether the exam went well or not, talking about it will not help.

I kept focusing on what was ahead of me rather than what I had done.

Positive thinking is important. I tried not to think about repeating or anything like that. I just knew that if I did my best, that would have to be good enough.

TIME MATTERS

Know your exam papers and know the amount of time allowed for each question. It's so important, even if you're really on a roll, to leave a question when your time runs out, whether you have finished it or not. Go back to it but don't continue.

There are two things about timing in exams. Firstly, adrenaline and nerves mean that you write faster. You will be surprised at how much you can write in an exam. Secondly, adrenaline and nerves can make plans (such as the amount of time you allocate to a particular question) fly out the window. There is no point in having three pages of perfect work written for one question if you leave out another. You're much better to get a B for both questions than an A for one and nothing for another.

Make a time plan and stick to it.