Higher paper adds up to sum of all fears

THE general consensus among Leaving Certificate students at Scoil Árd Rís in Limerick city was that yesterday’s higher-level maths Paper II was much harder than the first paper.

“It was extremely hard and many of my colleagues thought the same,” said 18-year-old David Holmes from the Ennis Road.

“I only got five of the six questions done because they were so difficult. This paper was the most difficult for many years.”

Richard Kiely, 18, of North Circular Road, thought Paper II was much more difficult than previous years.

“Part C of question eight was not the usual type and was much more challenging. It was more of an applied maths question. The paper generally was not as straightforward as in other years,” he said.

Ronan Callanan, 18, Ennis Road, best summed up the feelings of many.

“While the higher level Paper I was nice and raised our hopes, Paper II quickly brought us down to earth and was much more difficult. A lot of the students had difficulty doing the Part Cs of questions,” he said.

Many of the students doing the Leaving Cert ordinary-level maths Paper II were in a happier mood.

“The question about the circle was hard, but the rest were grand,” said Hugh Giriseto from the Ennis Road.

“It was all right, but a few parts were tricky.The linear programming question was difficult,” said Des Harnett from Ennis Road. David Daly from Caherdavin said it was “fair enough”.