This article is from page 3 of the 2006-06-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
SUMMER has arrived at last – so it follows that the exams are about to start.
More than 2,700 Clare teenagers from all over the county are counting the hours of sunshine left until they begin their Leaving and Junior Certificate examinations this week.
1,344 students will sit the Leaving Cert in Clare, with 132 of them opting for the Leaving Cert Applied course.
More females than males will take part in the three state exams. Just two more female students than male have registered for the Leaving Cert exams, with 75 female students taking the Leaving Cert Applied exams as opposed to 57 males.
As many as 1,359 Clare students will face a state exam for the first time when they sit the Junior Cert. In total, 702 female students and 657 males will take the exam.
Tomorrow (Wednesday), the Clare students will join 113,500 candidates who will take their seats at 4,500 examination centres countywide to begin their exams.
Over the bank holiday weekend, the 4,500 superintendents involved in supervising the written examinations took possession of the boxes containing the three million examination papers that are required by candidates over the 13-day examination period. Almost 4,000 examiners will be involved in examining the work presented by candidates.
There will be a number of changes to the assessment of some of the examination papers this year.
The most significant changes in this year’s exams will be in the revised syllabuses in Leaving Certificate History and Geography and Junior Certificate Science. Candidates in these examinations have already completed practical coursework leading to their final grade.
For Leaving Certificate candidates taking History and Geography, the final written examination is worth 80 per cent of the overall mark.
Candidates taking the examination in the revised Science syllabus may have already accumulated up to 35 per cent of their final grade through the completion of the practical coursework element of the exam.
The examinations run until Thursday, June 22 for Junior Certificate subjects and Friday, June 23 for Leaving Certificate subjects, and then the partying can begin.
The written examinations in the Leaving Certificate Applied programme finish on Thursday, June 15.
The results of the Leaving Certificate examinations will be available on Wednesday, August 16.
Results of the Junior Certificate will be available in mid-September.