Preparing for Leaving Certificate English 2024

[2024 version]. The Leaving Certificate English exams on June 5th and 6th are close.

So, remarks addressed to candidates heading into those exams right now. These are specific to English, though all the usual (and true) advice about how to prepare is important (resting, exercising, planning, not cramming). Here are some things in 15-20 minute ‘bites’ (rather than full hour-long practice essays). All of them are designed to generate thinking, not to learn by ‘rote’. Don’t reread your notes, a notoriously poor and ineffective use of your time which gives you a false sense of security (simple tweak: instead hand your notes to a study partner for testing you - that’s useful).

Of course you should read - if you’re a regular book-reader, then you’ll know how enjoyable and relaxing it is, but it will also keep you pleasurably swimming in language at just the right time, and often prompt fruitful thoughts, especially for the compositions. But even if not, seek out articles online and in magazines/newspapers. Keep stretching your reading muscles.

Use your phone, since it’s now part of your extended body. Then you can have immediate access at any time to useful material and resources for those in-between moments, like the 20-minute bus ride, waiting for a friend… BUT when you’re studying at a desk, turn it off and put it in another room (good luck) -

  • Download Quizlet, and try these Hamlet quotation exercises.

  • Put the whole text of Hamlet on the phone and re-read a scene every now and then - use that bus or car trip.

  • And/or put an audio version and listen to a few scenes at a time.

  • Type into a Notes app the texts of the poems you’d like to write on, so you can look at them easily. How about learning at least one poem by each poet off by heart? Then you’re totally on top of all its details.

  • Transfer ideas on the main composition onto the Notes app, revisiting them regularly.

And also …

  • Main composition: keep your brain alive. You should have notes and mindmaps on a range topics you would really like to write on: revisit them every now and then for 10-15 minutes and add to them. If a topic is a general public one (say, climate change), look for interesting and current articles online.

  • ‘Brain dump’ all your thoughts on a topic onto a large piece of paper without looking at any notes: this is also effective for the literary texts (say, one of the comparative modes in two or three texts). Then afterwards use your material to fill in the gaps (what did you forget?).

Some more Hamlet resources:

Poetry:

  • Here are 15 talks under 5 minutes each for thinking about literary techniques: may be particularly useful for the Unseen Poem.

  • My podcast on Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Mossbawn: Sunlight’, a fine option to kick-start a Heaney essay.