A survey of Leaving Cert scores over the past four years has shown a remarkable stability in levels of achievement.
No matter how easy or difficult the exams appear to be, nearly identical proportions of students end up in particular points ranges each year in their best six subjects.
Performance overall is tending to edge slightly upwards, despite complaints about various exams being designed to test what students don't know, rather than what they know.
With the 2003 Leaving Cert results only four days away, the trend shown by a CAO analysis of attainment in students' best six subjects from 1999-2000 should reassure the 55,000 students who are waiting to log at midday next Wednesday.
Behind the scenes, marking conferences are still being held today at which supervisors in each subject are using scientific methods to adjust marks up or down.
The State Examinations Commission is awaiting reports from conferences before announcing which subjects are affected.
If the trend over the past four years is anything to go by, marking conferences have an uncanny ability to ensure the same proportions of students excel at the same level year on year.
So while this year's troublesome maths and chemistry exams, in particular, may have even the best students fearing lower scores than they had hoped for, the statistics show that overall scores don't change much from year to year.
Any marginal change is definitely for the better.
For example, the proportion of candidates scoring 600 points in 2002 was 0.2 per cent, the same as in 2001 and 2000.
This was up a full point from 1999, indicating either smarter teenagers or easier exams, or more lenient scoring.
These 100 or so super-brains are the exception, as are the 6.5 per cent of candidates who score in the 500-599 range.
Again, this proportion remained steady at 6.5 per cent in 2002 and 2001, but was marginally higher than in 2000 (5.5 per cent) and 1999 (5.6 per cent).
Students who score 400-499 points are also in the elite and, encouragingly, the proportion of young people in this category has steadily increased.
In 2002, 20.1 per cent of students reached these heights, compared to 19.7 per cent in 2001, 19.1 per cent in 2000 and 19 per cent in 1999.
If the trend continues, we will again see more than 20 per cent scoring 400-499 and a total of 26.7 per cent - or one in four exam-takers - scoring at least 400 points and above.
Another one in four students will score in the 300-399 range. This proportion has reduced slightly since 2000, presumably with more students moving into the 400-499 range.
When this group is taken into account, we should see more than half of students scoring 300 points and above.
Year after year, the proportion of students scoring 299 points and below is dropping, from 51.3 per cent in 1999 to 48 per cent in 2002.
The first round of CAO offers will be sent in the post on August 18th and put on the CAO website at 6 a.m. on August 19th. Fifty thousand students should receive offers of third-level places.
A total of 65,000 applicants will be awaiting news, when mature students, non-EU students and others are considered. Of these, about one in four will receive no offer either because they did not meet the minimum entry requirements for their chosen courses, or because their points were too low.