BY WEDNESDAY most Junior Cert students will have finished all but one of their exam subjects. Indeed, once the home economics paper is finished on Thursday, many Junior Cert students wills have finished their exams - entirely.

Others will have a break of a week before sitting a subject like classical studies on Wednesday week.

Several parents have posed a question to Exam Times over the past few days. Why, with two and a half weeks available for the exams, are so many Junior Cert subjects crammed into the first week? "The pressure of having two big exams each day is too much for younger students," one parent complained. "They are exhausted after the first three days."

The combining of history and geography with maths on the second and third days of the exams came in for particular criticism. "Maths demands a lot of concentration and it is very difficult for them to switch over to history and geography on the same day," a teacher complained.

Another parent wondered why the two maths papers were not on the same day, as is the case with English, Irish and business studies, which also both have two papers. "Once the student is in maths mode, it would surely be easier to stay with maths for the day rather than interrupting it to try to switch over to history or geography."

Maths teachers, however, do not agree. "Maths requires a lot of concentration," says John McKeon, who teaches maths at Maynooth Post Primary School, Co Kildare. "To do two maths papers on the one day would leave them absolutely exhausted. In fact the maths papers used to be on Friday and Monday, leaving a weekend in between. I regret that is not still the case."

The Department of Education seems to agree with the teachers. "Maths is generally regarded as a difficult subject by students and is spread over two days for that reason."

The Department has experimented with different timings over the years. Basically, the present strategy is to get the compulsory subjects which everyone is sitting over first - English, maths, Irish, history, geography. Most students do science and a high proportion take French and either home economics or business studies, so these all take place early. The "minority" subjects then follow.

On the whole, says a Department spokesman, this is responding to what schools and students want. "Most students want to get the exam over and done with as quickly as possible. I think there would be more complaints if we strung out the big subjects over two weeks." And it has to be said that some students we talked to favoured this approach.

There would be financial and logistical implications of spreading out the big subjects and sprinkling in some of the "minorities" earlier in the exams. The exams start with English, sat by everyone, followed by maths, also sat by virtually everyone. From then on the subjects follow in roughly descending order of popularity not quite exactly, but near enough. This means that the number of exam centres and the number of superintendents and exam centre attendants falls in parallel.

Thus there are 4,800 superintendents and as many assistants employed on the first day, but this falls by more than half later in the exams. A typical secondary school might start the exams with three or four separate exam centres by the end of the Leaving Cert it would only have one, requiring one supervisor.

IF THE minority subjects were scattered in among the big ones, this economy of scale would be lost. Still, perhaps it would be worth it? The costs of supervisors, examiners, exam hall assistants and travelling and subsistence allowances amount to £12 million at the moment. But an extra day for a supervisor only costs £34 plus subsistence. Would it remove some of the stress on students if money were spent spreading out the big subjects?

At Leaving Cert level, where more is at stake, the problems are slightly different. The numbers sitting history and geography are much smaller at this level; hence the average Leaving Cert student has a much gentler introduction to the exam than their Junior Cert counterparts - most would have had a free afternoon on either Thursday or Friday last week.

However, students sitting, say, economics, which does not take place until June 20th, would have an advantage over the students whose subjects are all crammed into the first week and a half.

The biggest problem for Leaving Cert students, however, is dual timetabling. This takes place next week, with Italian taking place at the same time as technical drawing on Monday, Spanish and art on Tuesday, construction studies clashing with Latin and classical studies on Thursday and music and engineering on Friday.

The official explanation for this is that very few students doing construction studies are likely to take Latin, etc. However, each year a small number of students are caught in the dilemma. Certainly there are construction studies students who want to take classical studies and art students who take Spanish.

What happens here is that the student taking art and Spanish sits the history of art paper in the morning, does the life sketching exam from 2 to 3 p.m. and then takes a break for a sandwich and a cup of tea - in the exam hall and under supervision. The supervisor then gives out the Spanish paper and she sits that. This makes for three exams in the one day. In some cases this can mean starting the final exam at 5.30 or 6 p.m. and not finishing until 8.30 or 9 p.m.

Kealan Andrews of Sutton Park School, Dublin, is taking Spanish and art. She call this "totally unfair. I will be at huge disadvantage as against students taking the same exam who have only one or two exams that day. There is no way I can perform at my best at 7 p.m. after doing two exams already." She reckons that there will be a knock on effect into the next day, too. "I'll be exhausted."

The Department of Education feels sorry for her, but if it were to abolish dual timetabling for minority subjects, it would involve going into a fourth week for the exams. They'd go on forever," a spokesman says. The policy is to contain the exams in the two and a half weeks. Perhaps the solution is to start on a Tuesday rather than a Wednesday.

Or are there simply too many subjects in the Leaving Cert?