A student who achieved seven A1s in his Leaving Cert today said the focus on rote learning in the syllabus makes the examinations considerably more difficult.
John Lenihan, a student at Portmarnock Community School in Dublin, said there was nothing easy about the Leaving Cert cycle. He is one of only 44 students across Ireland to score seven A1s or better.
He said students could not get away with faking knowledge of a subject because of the level of rote learning.
"Because the Leaving Cert has so much emphasis on rote learning some of the subjects you can't fake. Some of the subjects, maybe maths or applied maths, you can get away with a bit less work but with Irish, English, French there is no faking it," he said.
He achieved A1s in English, maths, Irish, biology, chemistry, physics and applied maths and a B1 in French.
John (19) said he was very excited about his results and hoped to go on to study medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
For the time being, he was looking forward to forgetting about it all and intended to go to a friend's house tonight to have a good time.
Speaking at Portmarnock Community College, Minister for Education Mary Coughlan congratulated those who had received their results.
"This is the day of congratulations for all the young people who participated in their exams and were successful," she said.
