In just five weeks some 63,000 Leaving Certificate students will be biting their pens, straining their brains, quoting Shakespeare and spouting mathematical theorems in a frantic bid to impress examiners.
The compression of five or six years' work into three weeks of examinations makes for a tense time. The views of more than 3,000 students prior to sitting their examinations in 1998 were canvassed by transition year students as part of the background research for the Commission on the Points System.
One of the most telling quotes must be: "Family life is affected - the atmosphere in the home is made tense as parents feel the duty to constantly remind their children to put in hours of study." Parents, who have not sat the exams themselves, worry whether their actions and reactions will help or hinder.
Should they sit back and hope all will be well? Or is it time to unplug the TV and simply insist their sons or daughters swot their way to good grades?
Joining me in studio this evening is Brian Mooney, guidance counsellor and author, who will address some of these questions. One of the tenets behind the book How to Get Your Child Maximum Points (The parent's guide to surviving exams) is that parents should empower their children to make their own decisions.
Written by Kevin Flanagan and Brian Mooney, it puts forward the scary proposition that parents can actually help students fail exams. It says unconditional love, rather than cajolery or threats, works. The problem is that many parents are now suffering as much examination stress as their children.
"It is vital that parents learn about ways of dealing with this stress, otherwise they will only project it onto their children, causing them to do less well. If we don't deal with our own parental exam stress we can actually help our sons or daughters fail their Leaving."
The findings of the study for the Commission on the Points System are depressing, but hardly surprising: life before the Leaving Certificate is almost all work and very little fun. Some 71 per cent spent more time on study and 37 per cent spent more time on prescribed homework than they did 15 months previously.
A very high percentage of students spent less time on reading for pleasure (73 per cent), leisure activities (59 per cent), part-time work (74 per cent), games (69 per cent) and extracurricular school-based activities (73 per cent).
Most students feel that the points system had a negative effect on family life and social life. "Key words used were pressure, stress and tension with regard to family life and school life. The points system creates competition between brothers, sisters and friends. It is a constant topic of conversation.
"They are totally obsessed by what is needed to get to college. They describe their social life as non-existent or destroyed . . . some students report tiredness or a sense of hopelessness."
Students who have decided to focus on the Leaving Certificate to the exclusion of all else should consider the following scenario:
"Imagine you had a pet dog and all you did with it each day was take it on the bus with you in the morning, make it sit by your side in the evening and stay in all night with it while you studied or watched television. How would that dog feel after a month of this? How would it feel after a month without a run in the park or a chase down the road? It would probably be on tranquillisers!"
This extract from Flanagan and Mooney's book graphically makes the point that "your body literally carries your brain on its shoulders. If you look after your body, your mind will function more effectively. It will be able to study better, think more clearly, and for longer, take the pressure of exams more in its stride and achieve better exam results."
Try to maintain a little perspective as you begin to revise. The good news is that, with a booming economy, there are lots of options for everyone, whether you achieve 25 or 600 points.
More than half of those doing the Leaving Certificate will go on to higher education with a further 20,000 entering the further education sector. Then there are other options - such as apprenticeships, Teagasc, CERT and direct employment - beckoning.
The options have widened considerably in the past few years, so students and parents should remain optimistic.
Whether you are sitting the exam or you are the parent of a Leaving Certificate student, tune in to www.ireland.com/education/el for some good advice.