How to Manage Your Time in Leaving Cert Exams

Time management in an exam comes down to one division. Take the total marks on the paper, divide by the minutes in the exam session, and you get a marks-per-minute rate. Every question on the paper then has a time it is worth, found by dividing its marks by that rate. Higher Level Maths Paper 1 in 2026 runs at 2 marks a minute, so a 30-mark question is worth 15 minutes. English Paper 2 runs at 1 mark a minute, so the 60-mark Single Text answer is worth 60 minutes.

This post works that arithmetic through for maths and English, using durations from the 2026 timetable and mark allocations from the 2025 papers. The rate for your own subjects takes about a minute to work out once you have both numbers.

Where the durations come from

The State Examinations Commission publishes one timetable a year, and it gives a start and end time for every session. These four rows are from the Leaving Certificate Examination Timetable 2026. Each row covers both Higher and Ordinary Level.

For these four papers, Higher and Ordinary Level sit in a single session, so the duration is the same at both levels. Other subjects split them. Business runs 9.30 to 12.00 at Ordinary Level and 9.30 to 12.30 at Higher Level on Thursday 11 June 2026.

Both English sessions are printed in red on the 2026 timetable. Note 1 at the foot of the page says those sessions "include 20 minutes over and above the time traditionally allocated for the papers concerned". So the 170 minutes for Paper 1 and the 200 for Paper 2 already contain that addition.

These are 2026 durations. The timetable is published fresh each year and session times have changed before. Take the numbers off the timetable for the year you are sitting.

Higher Level Maths Paper 1: two marks a minute

The paper is worth 300 marks and the session is 150 minutes long, which gives 2 marks a minute, or 30 seconds a mark.

The structure is set out on page 3 of the 2025 Higher Level Paper 1. Section A, Concepts and Skills, has six questions of 30 marks each, and you answer any five. Section B, Contexts and Applications, has four questions of 50 marks each, and you answer any three. Each section is worth 150 marks. Page 51 of the Department of Education's Assessment Arrangements for 2026 lists the same structure. The five-of-six and three-of-four choice carries into this year's paper.

At 2 marks a minute, the paper divides like this.

The five Section A answers and the three Section B answers use 150 minutes between them, which is the entire session. Nothing in that total is set aside for reading the paper, choosing which questions to drop, or checking work at the end. Paper 2 in 2026 has the same 300 marks in the same 150 minutes, on Monday 8 June, so the rate there is also 2 marks a minute.

English: 170 minutes for Paper 1, 200 for Paper 2

Higher Level Paper 1 from 2025 is worth 200 marks in two sections of 100 each. Section I, Comprehending, prints three texts with a Question A and a Question B on each, worth 50 marks apiece. You answer one Question A and one Question B, and they have to be on different texts. Section II, Composing, sets seven compositions worth 100 marks each, and you write one.

That is three pieces of writing in 170 minutes, which works out at 0.85 minutes a mark.

Paper 2 divides more neatly, because 200 marks in 200 minutes is 1 mark a minute. The 2025 Higher Level Paper 2 splits those marks across four required answers.

The unseen poem is worth 20 marks and so 20 minutes at this rate, against 70 minutes for the comparative answer. That ratio is set by the paper, and it is easy to lose track of at home, where nothing is timing you.

What running over a question costs

Because the rate is in marks per minute, minutes spent over on one question convert straight into marks available elsewhere.

On Higher Maths Paper 1, suppose a 50-mark Section B question takes you 40 minutes instead of the 25 it is worth. Those 15 extra minutes come out of the rest of the paper. At 2 marks a minute, the rest of the paper was going to earn 30 marks in that time. For the trade to come out even, the last part of that question has to be worth more than 30 marks. The whole question is worth 50.

On English Paper 2, the same arithmetic is simpler still, because a minute is a mark. Twenty minutes over on the comparative answer is 20 marks of writing time taken from the poetry.

That arithmetic assumes marks arrive at a steady rate inside a question, and marking schemes award them in fixed steps. The rate still gives you the size of the trade in marks, which is the number to have in your head while you are stuck.

Leaving Cert marking schemes award partial credit, so an answer you have only started can still score. On a 10-mark part, the 2025 Higher Maths scheme awards 2 marks for work of merit and 6 for an almost correct response. We go through those scales in how Leaving Cert marking schemes work. An unattempted question scores zero by definition. So the choice is between the last few marks of a question you have nearly finished and the first few marks of one you have not started. The rate tells you what each is worth in minutes.

Subtract reading time before you start

The figures above use every minute of the session, so any time spent reading the paper has to come off the total first.

There is a lot to read. Higher Maths Paper 1 gives you ten questions to look at before you settle on the eight you will answer. English Paper 1 puts three texts in front of you, plus six comprehending questions and seven composition titles. The paper itself tells candidates to "familiarise themselves with each of the texts before beginning their answers".

Decide the reading time in advance and recompute the rate on what is left. Ten minutes of reading on Higher Maths Paper 1 leaves 140 minutes for 300 marks, which is 2.14 marks a minute. A 30-mark question drops to 14 minutes and a 50-mark question to about 23. Five at 14 and three at 23 comes to 139 of the 140 minutes, so the paper still fits with nothing spare.

Timing norms vary by subject

The marks-per-minute method needs both numbers to be well defined, and some papers complicate one of them.

Sessions that include an aural test hand part of the time to a recording. On the 2026 timetable, Irish Paper 1 at Higher Level runs from 2.00 to 4.20 on Monday 8 June. It is listed as "incl aural", so the written part is shorter than that 140-minute session. French, German and Spanish print the aural as a separate window, so French on Wednesday 10 June 2026 is 9.30 to 12.00 written, then 12.10 to 12.50 aural.

Long single answers also behave differently from short ones. An 85-minute composition is one continuous piece of writing where planning early buys you speed later. A 30-mark maths question is several short parts you can price separately. The rate gives you the same per-mark number for both. How you spend it inside a single answer is a subject-by-subject question, and your own teacher is the person to ask.

Common questions

How long per question in Leaving Cert maths? At Higher Level in 2026, both papers are 300 marks in a 150-minute session, so 2 marks a minute. A 30-mark Section A question is worth 15 minutes and a 50-mark Section B question is worth 25.

How long should I spend on English Paper 1? The 2026 session is 170 minutes for 200 marks. The 50-mark Question A and the 50-mark Question B are worth about 42 minutes each, and the 100-mark composition is worth about 85.

What do I do if I am already behind? The rate still applies to the time you have left. Divide the marks still unanswered by the minutes still on the clock and work to that number, which will be tighter than the original.

Where do I check my own subject? The total marks are on the front cover of the paper and the session length is on the SEC timetable for your year. Both are free.

Practise against the clock

A timing plan you have never tested is a guess. Sit a full paper in the time the timetable gives it, with a clock in front of you. That is how you find out which of your own answers overrun.

The papers and their marking schemes are free. Leaving Cert maths 2025 and Leaving Cert English 2025 each put a year's papers beside their schemes on one page. To time single questions rather than a full paper, start from the strands in the most common topics on Higher Maths papers. Our post on how to study with past papers covers sitting and marking one properly.

Find a past paper and time yourself on it.