4 Weeks to prepare to pass all of your leaving cert exams

So Christmas has come and gone, and there’s less than 6 months until your exams kick off. Maybe you’ve started to panic but there’s no need really! After you’ve read this post take 30 minutes to draw up a plan to assess exactly where you are.

photo credit: Jannemans_

What’s the best way to do that? Get the 2008 & 2009 exam papers and do them. No way, I hear you cry! But let’s break this down into manageable chunks and tackle this over 3 weeks. Don’t go thinking you’re wasting 3 weeks on this. It’ll help you out no end over the long term. So say you have 7 subjects on average and each exam lasts for 3 hours. Create a plan to complete the past exam papers for all of your subjects by dedicating 1.5 hours per night to a different subject. That allows you 4.5 hours to complete each exam paper and if try this with no text books it’ll give you an idea of where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Here’s our sample plan.

You may want to change you plan and dedicate 6 hours on a Saturday to free up some time during the week or even take a Sunday off but create your plan and stick to it. If you start this now, by the middle of February you’ll have a rough idea of where you really need to put the extra effort in. Give it a go, if you draw blanks move through the paper and do what you can and you can come back to it in your next session. Be very disciplined about sticking to your plan. In 21 days you’ll be able to get a great gauge on what is expected in your exams. Work with friends and your teachers to get through this and we guarantee you’ll feel a whole lot more prepared by February than you are now.

Training yourself to stick to a disciplined study routine like this gets things done and focuses on passing exams. Imagine in 21 days you know exactly (or at least very close to) what your facing in June. Just do this now and in 3 weeks you’ll be a whole lot more comfortable about all of your subjects. If you’re really struggling get your text books out to work through the answers, just use this time wisely and you will find things sooo much easier in March, April, May and those last minute cramming session in June!

This way sound like 3 weeks of hell but no one said it was gonna be easy… get the finger out and treat yourself after each session! It’ll soon become routine and get a lot easier!