EXAM DIARY:I WAS an absolute mess before the biology exam. Study the night before had failed me miserably.

My decision to ignore plant biology seemed poorly conceived in the light of day. So there was little to relax about 15 minutes before the exam when I sat outside the hall, alternating between study and self-loathing. Why haven’t I done more? Why don’t I have notes on these chapters? Why am I even here? I should be doing religious studies instead of biology. I’m supposed to be looking into a rabbit’s heart today, not my own.

People started making their way in and I followed, head lowered, into the darkness. This was by far the most anxiety I’ve felt before an exam, because there’s no waffling in biology. You either know it or you don’t. And I was convinced I didn’t.

But then I opened the paper. And it wasn’t so bad. I was lucky. It was respiration not photosynthesis, the nephron not the human defence system. I calmed down. I settled into it. I began.

At noon I was ready to hand up my paper, putting all the pages neatly together, with half an hour to spare.

When I walked out of the hall and into the rainwashed yard I didn’t exactly punch the air, but I felt a muffled satisfaction. That was not so bad.

And there was little time to dwell on the exam, because suddenly the atmosphere at school had changed. Some of us were free.

Not me, I have five days to learn the classics course. I’m torn between gratitude for the five days of study and resentment at this ancient obstacle to my freedom. But suddenly the impossibility of summer is no more. It’s actually going to happen. We are actually going to be finished.

If you’re one of the lucky few already off, I hope it went well for you, and if you’re still waiting like me, I hope it continues to do so.

This is a strange and surreal experience – six years of studying, uniforms, assemblies and lunch breaks coming down to a few weeks in June. It’s not a pleasant one to go through, but I’ve found that what makes it bearable is that we go through it together, that in one of the most stressful periods of our lives so far we can turn to our friends and know that they feel it too – they get it.

There’s a kind of camaraderie in the Leaving Cert. It’s the last time the plan set out for us is the one we have to follow. It might even be the last time we ever do a quadratic equation. Heartbreaking, isn’t it?

Carin Hunt is a student at Wesley College, Dublin. This is her final exam diary