My Leaving Cert: financial maths on paper two? That’s a mean move

Any moment now, the stress and panic will hit me. Or so I expected. But it’s the run-up to the exams that is tough; once you’re in the hall itself, you just get on with it.

I’ve been happy with most of the exams so far, particularly English paper one. I was really delighted with higher-level maths paper one.

Maths paper two, however, was awful.

We were all really surprised to see a financial maths question – which has only ever featured on paper one – rear its head on paper two.

Leaving Cert Maths Paper 2: Nasty surprise on higher paper

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Junior Cert science: pollution dominates on ‘approachable’ paper

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Junior Cert Maths paper 1: Wordy questions with some testing scenarios

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Marked for life – An Irishman’s Diary about my Leaving Cert English shame

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I couldn’t complete it. I understand that we’re expected to know the full course, but it seemed like a bit of a mean move.

On the plus side, I was very happy with Irish paper one. The aural comprehensions were very manageable even if some of the spacing between some of the clips left little time.

Reasonably confident

I’ve now done half of the papers and have five more to go. There’s a four-day gap between biology and Spanish and I will be glad of that breather.

I’ll have the music paper on Thursday of next week, and it’s fitting that this will close off my Leaving Cert because I’ve been provisionally accepted into the DIT Conservatory of Music.

I’d love to make a career in music, either as a teacher or writing scores. A few months back, I travelled down to Dublin for an audition and an interview at DIT.

I passed both and was awarded points. So now all I need to do is get 390 points in the Leaving Cert exams, and I’m reasonably confident I can do it.

I’m excited about college and life in Dublin. We all know finding accommodation is a nightmare but, through someone who knows someone, I’ve already found a place to live in Dublin. It’s an affordable digs in a good location, so I’m lucky.

I'm hopeful that, when I travel to and from Dublin to visit my family, I won't be stopped at a hard border going in and out of Northern Ireland.

It would cause so much tension and controversy that I, and most people I talk to up here, just can’t see it happening.

Dylan Donegan is a student at Carndonagh Community School