First exam of new biology course criticised

AS with the first exam in the new senior cycle home economics syllabus last Friday, there were criticisms of the first test of the new biology course yesterday.

Many Leaving Certificate students found the higher level paper much more difficult than expected.

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) biology spokesperson Lily Cronin agreed the paper appeared to be very difficult. “As it’s a new syllabus, we only had one official sample paper and we had to source any other sample questions from different textbooks or the internet,” she said. “The paper was more challenging than the sample one, it was very wordy and there could have been more diagrams.”