Q&A

Your questions answered by Brian Mooney.

Our son has received all the results of his mock Leaving Cert exams. He is taking seven higher-level subjects plus the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP). He secured 340 points and is very disappointed. He passed all the exams, but only secured two honours in the process. He needs a minimum of 455 points to secure his first choice of engineering in TCD. He has alternatives on his CAO application, but this is by far his preference. The question is how realistic are his hopes of obtaining the additional extra points? He is working very hard and is demoralised by his mocks. From your experience how good a gauge are the mock exams? I worry these results are having a very negative effect.

Your son should not be disheartened by the mock result he has just received. Mocks are intended to be a trial run, in which students get to experience what it is going to be like when they take the Leaving Cert in June. If his results are relatively even across all subjects, you can take it this is a fair reflection of where he stood back in February when he sat the mocks. He can make major advances across all subjects over the next 10 weeks if he adopts the correct approach.

You say that your son is working hard for his Leaving Cert. Sadly, good results in the Leaving are not necessarily the fruits of hard work alone but of effective strategic planning as well. The Leaving Cert does not measure hard work, or how much you know about a subject, or even how intelligent you are. It measures your ability to duplicate on your answer book the information that is printed in the correcting examiner's marking scheme, which will be lying on his or her desk at home, in mid-July as they plough their way through their particular sack of scripts. All teachers have copies of previous years' marking schemes, and they are freely available on the State Examinations website, www.examinations.ie.

The first thing your son should do is to ensure that he downloads the marking schemes for every subject he is taking in June, going back for as many years as he has past papers. I am presuming that he is following a study timetable, covering all his subjects every week, and that he is concentrating on attempting to answer past questions in the time allocated. You can calculate that by dividing the number of marks for the question into the overall marks for the paper. Divide the total time allotted for the paper by that fraction and you will then know, the optimum time that should be spent answering that question. Any more time spent will eat into the time needed to answer the other questions on the paper.

Between now and June, he should check his answers against the marking scheme each time, and very quickly he will begin to realise what exactly he needs to write in the 20 minutes available to answer the average question in a way to attract the maximum marks. Ultimately, written examinations are exercises in technical expertise.

It is very possible that your son may achieve his goal of securing a place in Trinity to study engineering, but you must plan a course of action if he does not achieve this in 2006. Engineering is one of those disciplines that has multiple entry routes - from both institutes of technology and universities. It can be taken at levels six, seven and eight, with the option of progressing to a higher-level degree and beyond in all cases. Using the CAO change-of-mind facility, ensure that your son gives himself the widest option of commencing his engineering studies this year by listing a full range of courses in the order of his preference, on both level eight and level six/seven.

Brian Mooney is president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. E-mail questions to bmooney@irish- times.ie