A recent scientific study shows that everything learned from the Leaving Certificate is forgotten within the first two-three weeks of beginning college.
A group of scientists from Science Inc. concluded, after their two-decade long study, that students subconsciously push the information out of their minds in a vein effort to recover from stress. The process was described as being similar to the suppression of psychological trauma a war veteran might encounter. When asked how volcanoes are formed students were quoted as “Not having a breeze”.
A local student shared his tragic story of needing to take a train to Galway with one train leaving later than the other but also being faster, not knowing how to calculate which one would get him there first despite doing this exact equation numerous times over the past year. Another student was asked in a pub quiz what the name of Hamlet’s uncle was only to write Romeo, despite having written a character study on Hamlet’s uncle
Scientist Doctor Hu stated that this study was done to understand why we forget everything we’ve learned in a six-year span within minutes of writing it all down in the exam halls. He was quoted as saying that it’s “Bleedin annoying”. Originally theorising it to be connected to the excessive post Leaving Cert drinking sessions, this was later proved to be false after it was argued that by that logic, most Irish students would have erased around 90% of their adult lives.
Ex Leaving Cert students gleefully receiving the results that they are now entirely free of any of the information they’d learned.
It’s believed to be done for mental health reasons but it does have the side effect of underpreparing students progressing through college, relaxing them to the point that they believe everything will “be grand” and won’t put in as much effort to the academic side of college life, recreating the stress.
It is unknown as to why this doesn’t affect regular examinations or school projects but scientists theorise it to be because the Leaving Cert is the most important therefore the easiest to forget because students tend to make their lives harder through subconscious cleansing and conscious choices.
Daniel Troy