Leaving Cert exams ‘fairer’ than last week
TUI spokesperson Andrew Carolan said higher level students should be happier than they were with the first paper.
“The (a) and (b) parts will give students a good basis on which to get a C but to get a higher grade, they will need to have been well prepared,” he said.
Mr Carolan said the two co-ordinate geometry questions were nice and the options questions, from which most students would probably choose further calculus, should not have drawn too many complaints.
However, ASTI spokesperson Eileen Scanlon believed that trigonometry questions in the higher level paper were too difficult. This is something that should be addressed because trigonometry is essential in other aspects of Leaving Certificate maths.
Mr Carolan said the questions on the ordinary level paper were very long but were answerable. The questions about the circle and the straight line, for example, each had seven parts.
Other than that, it was a standard paper, very much like those of previous years.
ASTI spokesperson Maria Kelly said it was a much better paper than last week’s Paper I, with the first question putting at ease any students who might have been apprehensive going into the exam. She said the inclusion of ‘k’ in the formula for a line in question 2(c) might have caused a little difficulty and that a note should have been provided to explain the frequency table, which might have caused some confusion.
Mr Carolan said the Leaving Certificate foundation level maths paper was much like the second paper in other years and there were no surprises.
In Junior Certificate higher level maths, TUI spokesperson John McKeon said any student who had done their work should have had no problems. He even thought that question 3 (c) on geometry could have been a bit more challenging,
“It was quite a straightforward exam, after Paper I which was quite challenging,” he said.
Ms Scanlon said it was a very satisfactory paper.
Mr McKeon said the ordinary level Junior Certificate paper drew answers very well from pupils. He did say, however, that a question asking about the price of a field per hectare might have referred students to the page of the log tables where they would find the relevant conversion formula.
Ms Kelly said it was a well-balanced paper with no surprises and students were led through each question step by step.
Geography students faced examination yesterday afternoon and ASTI subject spokesperson James Stuanton said the Leaving Certificate higher level paper was very similar to those of previous years. Many of the questions were very topical and students who read newspapers or watch television would have been well-equipped to answer the social geography question about location for a shopping centre and leisure complex.
TUI geography spokesperson Tom Hunt said well-prepared students should have done well in the higher level paper, which featured a number of topics that were expected to appear, with topical issues such as the environment, the decline of agriculture and conservation. He said the ordinary level paper provided plenty of choice of questions, with straight-forward questions on the ordnance survey map and aerial photograph.
Both Leaving Certificate papers were more than three hours long and left students exhausted, but Mr Staunton said there were no surprises on the ordinary level paper.
TUI spokesperson George Smith said the Junior Certificate geography papers were both well-illustrated but, while the ordinary level paper was very straightforward, the higher level exam was very long.
Mr Staunton said more colour might have been used in the diagrams for the short questions folder and the use of true or false questions was a new departure.
In the higher level paper, he was surprised that the word ‘aspect’ was not explained in Question 1, even though the much more common term ‘relief’ was explained in the longer Question 2.
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