Koko the Gorilla aces the Leaving Cert

Department of Education officials continue to strenuously deny that the leaving cert is getting easier and easier every year, despite the latest revelation of overachievement in the 2006 exam. Koko, the world's most articulate non-human primate, has shocked most observers by scoring 575 points.

Koko, who has an IQ of between 75 and 95 (the lower IQ estimate is still over twice that of George W. Bush), said that she decided to sit the Irish exam because it was well known, even among simians, that it was becoming "piss easy". The California based ape uses a sign language of 1,000 gestures and understands some 2,000 spoken English words. This apparantly was sufficient for an A1 in English, although she was disappointed with a B3 in Irish, despite never having seen or heard a single word of it. Koko says she hopes to continue her studies by correspondence in an Irish university as word on the street was they were also dumbing down on order to deal with the influx of "geniuses" from second level.