STATE EXAMS: ‘Traditional’ French questions, but history throws up surprise

Leaving Certificate French exams were on the morning timetable for students yesterday and featured many topical issues.

Susan Farrell of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) said she found nothing out of the ordinary in the written papers. The higher- level exam opened with an article about homelessness, a topic she said would have been discussed in a lot of classes.

She described as traditional a question asking students to tell what happened next after being woken in the middle of the night.

Many students would have found the topic of school uniforms suitable in another question, while another on French language and culture dealt with issues covered in the syllabus.

Amanda Quinn of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) felt students were happy with the higher-level exam, and she said the listening exam should not have presented many difficulties.

She said the reading pieces about homelessness and new neighbours were fairly straightforward and most vocabulary should have been familiar. Other topics like voting, mobile phones, pocket money, and uniforms were current and age-appropriate, Ms Quinn said.

She said the ordinary-level paper was along similar lines to that of previous years, and the aural test was paced suitably for students of that standard.

Ms Farrell said the first ordinary-level reading passage about selfies was very suitable and would have appealed to students.

Another piece about the role for French mayors fitted into elements of the country’s culture covered in classes, but one or two of the questions about it would have challenged students.

For higher-level history students, the TUI’s Tom Broderick said some students might have been surprised to see the 1932 Eucharistic Congeress appear instead of the Treaty in the documents section, but the related questions were fair and manageable.

He said essay choices on Northern Ireland politics were slightly tricky, but those on Mussolini and on the Montgomery bus boycott in the other sections would have kept students happy.

The ASTI’s history spokesman, Fintan O’Mahony, said old reliables like Butt and Parnell and Unionist opposition to Home Rule appeared in one section.

He said questions on British or German social and economic problems, and a choice of writing about the use of propaganda by Stalin or Mussolini, or both, were welcome.

The usual problem, Mr O’Mahony said, may have been for stronger students to write all that they knew in time.

Mr Broderick said the ordinary-level document questions were very fair and longer questions came up on key personalities and case studies from each section. On that basis, he said, those students who had revised all sections of the course well would have found the paper very manageable.