With one week to go until the Leaving and Junior Cert exams, it's time to  consolidate what you've already learned. Keep calm, heed some useful advice and rise to meet the challenge, writes Brian Mooney

It is a strange moment in the life of a 17- or 18-year-old student. The last month has seen a whirlwind of change in their lives. The tried and tested rituals of Leaving Certificate students in their last few weeks in school have been gone through. These involved religious rituals to celebrate a lifetime of schooling, presentations of awards for excellence in areas of academic, sporting or the extracurricular life of the school and less formal rituals such as the cutting-up of school uniforms on the last day or the gathering of signatures of classmates on school shirts. Now a week before the start of the Leaving - and not forgetting the Junior Cert - the task ahead comes into focus.

Questions flood into the mind. How to make sense of the mountain of notes accumulated over the past two years? What is the best plan of action to make use of the time between now and Wednesday week?

Some students, feeling the anxiety levels rising, may feel frozen in inactivity like a rabbit in headlights. Others may be tempted to start rereading textbooks. Neither option is very wise. Now is a time for calm nerves. The main body of work is behind you, so pull it all together in a format suitable for delivery from Wednesday week onwards.

The old rules still apply. Study in a comfortable, well-aired environment with good light by day and a desk lamp my evening. Don't exhaust yourself with six- and seven-hour, unbroken study sessions - they bring diminishing returns. Instead, have a good break after three hours in total and a short one after one hour in a single subject area. Continue to eat and sleep well and remember to take some exercise each day. It helps to keep your body in good shape for the marathon ahead.

The main focus in this last week has to be past examination papers. They are the Bible for every student, setting out the structure of questions to be attempted in the weeks ahead. In most cases, there are years of past papers to work from. In 2004 we have for example, a new syllabus in biology, which means that past papers are next to useless. In this case, the sample papers from the State Examination Commission, plus sample papers produced by educational publishers, should be the focus of students' work over the coming week and during the examination itself.

Students should not waste a moment of time in an examination familiarising themselves with the structure of the paper - the percentage of marks available for each section, which sections are compulsory, if any, or any other aspect of the paper. All this information is readily available before the examination starts and if not already clearly understood, this week should be used to remedy this deficiency.

The simple rule for the coming week is to harvest the fruits of your two years' work and apply it to the specific examination papers to be undertaken. But how does this translate into individual subjects?

Most students take maths, English and Irish as core subjects, so I will outline a few basic tips in each area before moving on to some of the other subjects available to students.

Maths

Every year we face the prospect of up to 20 per cent of students falling below a D grade in ordinary-level maths. This result has serious consequences for their chances to move on to a course of interest to them. A key focus this week should be preparing for the maths papers.

The first point to note is that the course is quite wide and students should work hard to master a number of specific areas at this stage, rather than try to cover the entire course. I would advise students to spend an hour per day from now to the maths exams doing two questions per day from past papers. Furthermore, students should write down on a single page the various maths formulae and read them once daily between now and exam day. It should be the last thing they read before entering the exam hall and the first thing to be written on the rough work page of their answer paper once they are given permission to start writing.

Finally, there is a lot of very useful information on pages eight and nine of your log tables, which you can use during the exam. Familiarise yourself with this information.

Irish

When it comes to Irish, it is important over the coming week to practise writing in Irish, so as to sharpen your focus.

As in maths, there are aspects of the exam you can prepare for over the coming week. You may have a number of essays written which could be adapted to titles that may appear in the exam. Practise re-writing a number of essays this week. It will improve the flow of your written work.

You should definitely practise your tape work for the aural aspect of the exam. Many students have CDs of past aural material that can be both listened to and read from the screen of a PC at home. Practise this at home over the coming week.

The same rule applies to comprehension work, practise past questions to sharpen your use of language. Ensure that you are familiar with the compulsory poems from both the higher and ordinary courses.

English

Over the coming week students taking English should revise the key moments in this year's play, Macbeth. They should also revisit their three comparative texts and practise questions on them.

In poetry, they should revise the work of the five poets they have studied. There can often be a misperception that there is no need to practise writing out questions from the English paper, because don't we all speak English anyway? This is a fatal error, as written expression always improves with practice.

Home economics

Students of home economics - social and scientific have already completed their journal, which is worth 20 per cent of their overall marks. Their written paper will question them on food, consumer studies and resource management.

Students of this subject would be well advised to revise the food section of this course in particular, where an exact knowledge of the composition of various food products is essential for a successful examination result. They should also revise their elective course.

Languages

When it comes to languages other than Irish, the same rules apply. Give some time over the coming week to practising your written skills in the language in question. Listen to past aural work so as to attune your ear to the spoken word and practise past questions so as to familiarise yourself with the paper.

History

History students having by now completed their general revision should concentrate on drawing up outline plans for specific essays, chosen from past papers, reinforcing the work already done. This exercise will help students to manage their time in the examination - a very important part of the preparatory process across all subjects.

Remember that in history the same or similar questions tend to repeat themselves over the years.

Geography

Students of geography should put particular focus at this stage on ensuring they are totally familiar with all the symbols that are used in ordnance survey maps - contours, roads, rivers etc. They should write out their fieldwork to familiarise themselves with this material again, as they will be questioned about it in the exam paper. They should also practise sketch maps of various countries, filling in the various geographic features.

Accounting

Accounting students should spend some time doing past questions on the interpretation of accounts, learning the formulae that apply in this area of work. As with all other subjects, constant practise of past papers is a must.

Science

Students of science subjects, be they chemistry, physics or biology students, should revise their practical work over the coming week. Chemistry students for instance have a mandatory two-year lab book recording their own practical work. Up to four to five questions in the examination will be based on this work. It is therefore essential that it is revised in great detail.

Biology students, on the other hand, have a new syllabus to confront, with the added problem of no past papers. The State Examination Commission's sample papers will provide a very good guide for what to expect in the real examination paper.

As in chemistry, revise the mandatory practical you undertook over the last two years. Know why a particular piece of work is undertaken and the precautions you took in conducting the practical.

And finally. . .

The above tips are simply a series of examples of very practical work students can undertake over the coming week to improve their chances of maximising their performance in their Leaving Certificate. It does not attempt to be comprehensive in covering all subjects, which would require far more that one article could hope to convey. It simply outlines that highly beneficial work can be undertaken over the coming days.

I will finish with one final piece of advice. As you undertake your final preparations in the days ahead, you may come across a question or questions that you cannot answer. Remember that your teachers are still in school, working with the non-State examination classes. Take a note of the problem and drop in to the school before the end of term, where your teacher will be more than happy to explain the solution to the question to you.

Your school days are behind you now and the future beckons. Rise up to meet its challenges.

Brian Mooney is president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors