Leaving Cert diary: ‘I’ve made it through the first day. A lot of the stress has lifted’

Two papers down, six to go. And now that I’ve made it through the first day, a lot of the stress and pressure has lifted.

For all that stress, I was halfway through English paper one when I had to remind myself that this was really happening, that this was really the Leaving Cert.

Now I think: why do we put in our heads that this will be such a different exam, when we’ve been doing so many exams and papers since the start of fifth year?

The paper was good — not hard, as such, but different.

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Usually you have a speech as one of the three texts, but not this time. I answered a question based on an extract from Hugo Hamilton’s novel, The Pages, where the book itself is the narrator, and tells the story of how it was rescued from a Nazi book burning in 1933.

As part of this, I responded to a question on “cancel culture”, and said that everyone deserves to try to change their own world and has the right to speak, as long as it is something that affects them. People — particularly minority groups — have the right to oppose their own oppression.

There’s very little studying you can do for English paper one.

This might be one of the last years to sit paper one in sixth year, with a proposal to move it to the end of fifth year instead. I think this could be a good idea to relieve some pressure, but it needs to be approached carefully: you’d have to have enough time to be taught and pick up writing skills.

In the afternoon, I really liked the home economics paper. Many of my classmates were disappointed that carbohydrates didn’t come up, but I was happy to see vitamins appear.

Overall, happy enough with day one, but it’s a marathon not a sprint!

Ellen McCabe is a Leaving Cert student at Creagh College, Gorey, Co Wexford