THERE are no practical exams for Leaving Cert home economics. However, ordinary level Junior Cert home economics students have already completed a practical exam and a project which together are worth up to 60 per cent of their total marks. At higher level meanwhile practicals and project are worth half the total marks.

This means that "a lot of students can feel confident that they already have a pass mark before they walk in the door to the exams", notes Maureen Rohan, home economics teacher at Our Lady of Mercy College, Beaumont, Dublin. "The written exam gives them the opportunity to get a good grade. The whole thing doesn't rest on one two and a half hour period."

Home economics is one of the few subjects at Junior Cert level that include practical exams. Music is another. The music practical exam is worth up to 100 marks, or one quarter of the total. At higher level in Junior Certificate metalwork, the practical and the project can contribute up to three quarters of the total mark. At ordinary level - where there is no practical - students can get up to 75 per cent of the total marks for the project.

Exams which contain large project and practical components give a wide range of students the opportunity to perform well says Dr Lawrence Smyth, engineering teacher at Falcarragh Community School, Co Donegal. "You can take it that if you do well in your metalwork project and practical you will do reasonably well in your written exam," he says.

There are, too, a number of Junior Cert subjects in which there are no practical exams but which include projects. In some subjects the project accounts for well over half the total marks. In materials technology, wood, at both levels, the project is worth two-thirds of the total mark - 200 out of a total of 300. In art too, the project accounts for 75 per cent of the total marks (300 out of 400).

The project is worth the lion's share of marks - 60 per cent - in the Junior Cert technology exam at ordinary level, while at higher level the project is worth half of the total marks. In science with local studies, the project is worth 20 per cent of the total marks at higher level and up to one-third of marks at ordinary level. Meanwhile, if environmental and social studies is among your subjects, your project could bring you up to 40 per cent of your total marks.