How to prepare for Leaving Cert 2022: “Three is my magic revision number”

Denis Lynch, 18, is a sixth year student at St Ciaran’s Community School in Kells, Co. Meath.

He plans to study Economics and Languages ​​at Dublin City University. Denis’ chosen language is French.

Here, Denis Seoirse Mulgrew shares his approach to study, which consists of allocating equal time to each of his subjects and creating flashcards for him to revise. “Three” is its magic revision number.

“Since April, I’ve divided the remaining time into three sections, so in the first section I’m just taking notes and getting all my work done with the textbooks.

“Then in the second section, I turn all my textbook notes and notebooks into index cards.

“And finally, I make questions with the flashcards and revise the topics I need to come back to.

“I’ve spent some time researching study techniques online to find the one that works best for me.

“This technique takes me through all the material about two or three times in total, which just reminds me of everything I need to know, and I find that works best for me.

“I think flashcards are really useful in subjects like economics and biology that are heavily keyword-based because you can have the keywords on one side of the card and the definition on the other side of the card, and I use that to to test myself.

“I need at least 450 points to secure my chosen course and I feel most confident for my accounting exam.

“I’m more nervous before the audit because it’s a completely new course. Hopefully it will be easier for the Leaving Certs next year.

“There are few sample papers that were added just last year and the questions combine many different chapters, so there is no situation where you can study a certain number of chapters and be guaranteed to work through all the questions.

“I do all higher subjects, my only regular subject would be math.

“The year has passed really quickly, but I think everything will be fine, the changes made by the state examination board are very good.

“The stages aren’t easy, but they’re not impossible, so it’s certainly doable.”

If you would like to share your Leaving Cert approach to study, contact Seoirse Mulgrew at smulgrew@independent.ie