WWN Guide To Dropping Honours Subjects

WITH the pressures of the Leaving Cert bearing down on you, you may be looking for any opportunity to get a little bit of breathing room. Dropping higher level subjects is an enticing proposition; the exams get easier, the pressure dies off a tiny little bit. However, you will face the wrath of family and teachers, who want you to stick with it because they believe you’re fit for it, and it’s not like they have to do any of the work. Our advice? Drop ’em. Here’s how.

1) Just drop them and say nothing.

You’re almost a grown adult, you don’t need anyone’s permission to drop higher level subjects. If you badly need the points to do a college course you’re completely in love with, then by all means stick with it. If you’re sticking with honours maths just because your brother did and you don’t want to look like the dunce of the house, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Just drop it and say nothing, if you get questioned when the results come out, say that it was a clerical error and you got the wrong paper or something.

2) Change your name

Change your name by deed poll, assume a new identity, register as a new student, and do the Leaving Cert you want to do. On paper, you didn’t drop any subjects; your old identity is still a student doing all higher level subjects, your new identity is doing the amount of work they’re capable of without cracking under the pressure. Simple.

3) Scribble out ‘ordinary level’ on the paper and write ‘higher level’.

Put yourself down for ordinary level everything, but when you get your paper, change the title with a biro. Correctors have to mark hundreds of these, by the time they get to you they’re more than likely to see ‘higher’ and put it in the higher pile. Worth a shot, anyways.

4) Just do higher level.

To hell with it, let’s do higher level everything. Let’s absorb the pressure like some sort of awesome pressure sponge. Let’s try and cram 12 years of schooling into a week, and see what happens. Let’s just go crazy! Givvus them higher subjects! We can take ’em!