KEY POINTS:
Callum Welch, 15, reckons his head is almost full.
And after studying for more than three and a half months, all he wants is to get some of his new knowledge down on paper so he can relax and start having weekends again.
The Westlake Boys' High student will be among thousands of teenagers sitting their first NCEA exam this morning.
Callum will start the first of his six exams at 9am with Level 1 biology, then join 46,000 others tomorrow for Level 1 English - the biggest exam in the country.
In total, 139,000 senior secondary school students will sit NCEA and Scholarship examinations in the next two and a half weeks. NCEA starts with biology and te reo Maori today, and finishes with Chinese, Latin and health at 5pm on December 3.
If Callum and his North Shore schoolmates are anything to go by, this year's students are no slackers.
Yesterday, he was at home in Browns Bay capping off more than 100 hours of study. Around the corner in Castor Bay, fellow Westlake student Heath Vinicombe, 18, reckoned he had clocked up 300 hours.
The keen sportsman had already been accepted to study engineering at Auckland University next year. But that hadn't stopped him putting in months of preparation for four Scholarship exams in maths and science, as well as the NCEA-alternative Cambridge exams in maths, physics, chemistry and economics. Those pupils sitting Scholarship had their first exams on Saturday.
Westlake Boys headmaster Craig Monaghan acknowledged not all students would be as prepared as Callum and Heath. But he said all pupils had had at least two weeks to study fulltime.
Education Minister Chris Carter said students should get a good night's sleep before exams.
He suggested taking a 30-second break to stretch and clear the head whenever students felt stressed or confused. His final piece of advice was to be confident.
Callum and Heath planned to start today with a plain breakfast - muesli for Callum and Weet-Bix for Heath - to settle any last-minute butterflies.
Their advice to others was to drink plenty of water, try not to thinktoo much about the next exam, and leave the hard questions until last.
Callum said it was worth putting off leisure time until after the exams. "If I was slacking around, I'd just feel guilty."
Once exams were over, Heath said, he would get back to playing soccer and tennis for the school, while Callum planned to start looking for a summer job. Neither had plans for a party, but there was one thing Callum was looking forward to: emptying his head of all that information.
The Qualifications Authority will release NCEA results by mid-January and Scholarship results by mid-February.
