They may be in the midst of what is supposed to be one of the most stressful times of their young lives, but Leaving Cert students in Wexford were a picture of calm following their exams this week. With the annual examination returning to normal, students were back to sitting in large halls, quietly trying to recall whatever details they could summon from the last two years of schoolwork.
t St Peter’s College Abban Moran and Cade Gardener had just finished their Maths Paper One and were content with how it had went. “I thought it was okay, the choice was nice on it, I didn’t have to look at everything I could just choose which ones I wanted to do,” said Abann, who took the higher paper.
Having made the switch from higher to ordinary level in the last couple of months, Cade was also happy with his work, saying he had answered most of the questions and “did more than I had to”. With neither of the pair seeming like the type to get particularly stressed about things, Abann explained how he was approaching the mental strain of sitting his exams.
“You don’t have a choice in the matter now you just have to get on with it, that’s the whole ethos, ‘get on with it, it’ll be grand’,” he said. “But it’s been going very smoothly, there hasn’t been any hiccups with any of the papers so I can’t really complain.”
The mood was similarly upbeat at the CBS where Kent Lam, Dylan Mann, Luke Dempsey, Daniel Leacy, Jack O'Connor and Ben Purdy were dissecting the merits of their Maths paper. Describing themselves as “all ordinary boys” the lads had chosen to taken the ordinary paper and were happy with how it went.
“It was grand yeah, no bother at all," said Ben who said that, in general, they were all marginally more stressed for Maths than English but were trying “not to get too caught up in it”.
With one of their number, Luke Dempsey, having endured surgery on his arm, requiring him to use a scribe for his exams, the focus was already turning towards the finish line and the celebrations which would follow.
“We’ll all be finished by June 27 and a couple of us have birthdays in the meantime so we’ll have double cause for celebration,” said Ben.
At the Presentation Lily O’Neill had chosen to take the higher level Maths paper and was also pleased with him how it went. “It was okay, it wasn’t too bad, not as bad as some of the papers in the mocks,” said Lily who added she was dealing with the pressure by ensuring she didn’t stay up studying late every night. Her friends, Saoirse O’Connor, described the ordinary Maths as a “nice paper” but was less pleased with the English exam, “the questions were very unusual for English, very strange,” she said.
As he walked out from his Maths Paper 2 on Monday Joey Wright couldn’t have looked more relaxed. And his outlook was to stay as calm as possible. “Maths Paper Two was a little bit harder than Paper One, I did higher for English and thought it was a cakewalk. I’m just taking it easy really, I finish on June 23 and we’ll have a big party then."
Ayden Saunderson meanwhile, was taking no chances with his papers. “Overall maths was pretty good, it was just a lot of topics crammed into a short period of time across the two years rather than spread out,” he said. “I took higher level English, most of it was pretty good, I felt confident in how I was doing, but on page one section two we had to compose a piece and the question I chose was write a short story about a song or lyrics, but then I didn’t think it would get me the full marks so I went back and did another one.”
Keeva Campbell was all smiles as she exited the Loreto following her second Maths paper, and with her exams finishing today she had good cause to be pleased with herself. “Paper two was good, it went well, it was handy enough. I’m sleeping okay, did a bit of revision so I’m not too stressed. I’m finished on Wednesday, I can’t wait, I hope to go on and do a beauty course in South East Technological University (SETU).”
Muireann O'Gara, Holly Rossiter, Gemma McDonagh, and Holly Dempsey were circumspect about the Leaving Cert in general, just happy for it to be finally here after months of anticipation. “I thought it would be more stressful but now that we’re doing it it’s almost relaxing,” said Gemma.
“You get so tired that you don’t have it in you to be stressed any more,” agreed Muireann.
With all four girls studying Japanese they faced a long wait before they could switch off. “We’re all in until the end because we’re doing Japanese, there’s nine days to wait before our last exam,” said Muireann.
