Students thrown off by mistake on music paper

MORE than 5,000 Leaving Certificate music students were confused by a mistake in part of a harmony question on yesterday’s higher level exam.

A box showing the keys of B-flat and D-flat should have read B-flat minor/D-flat, leaving students to wonder if they were reading it wrongly or if the paper was incorrect.

Teachers’ Union of Ireland music spokesman Noel Cronin said that this would have taken up quite some time for most students to decide, but said he would expect the marking scheme for the exam to take this mistake on the paper into consideration.

The same concern was raised by Ben Murray of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), who said that many students would never doubt the exam paper and that the question could have disrupted them significantly.

The relevant chords were among 20 in the question concerned, which is worth 15% of the total marks for Leaving Certificate music candidates. The State Examinations Commission said last night the error would be brought to the attention of the chief examiner for music and if it emerges as having caused difficulty when exam scripts are being marked, no student would be disadvantaged by the mistake.

Mr Cronin said questions on yesterday’s listening test for higher and ordinary level students were both appropriate to the different level of students. He said the ordinary level written exam was in line with those of previous years in terms of key signatures and composing.

Mr Murray said students were given a well-paced listening test, although he questioned the practice where ordinary level students must spend 12 minutes of the test doing nothing while higher level candidates answer an extra question in the Irish music listening section. He said the ordinary level was a reasonable test.

About 5,400 students sat Leaving Certificate agricultural science papers yesterday morning and Peter Keaney of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) said the experiments question at higher level was very limiting because students were asked just four of the experiments they might be expected to know from the whole course. One was about showing the effects of a selective herbicide, an experiment he said few if any teachers would have covered.

Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) agricultural science spokesman Seamus Hynes said the short answers questions were reasonable compared with previous years. He and Mr Keaney both felt the soils question was extremely difficult and he also agreed that the experiments question was tough.

Mr Keaney said the ordinary level paper gave students plenty of options and the genetics question, usually one of the toughest in this exam, was fairly straightforward.

ASTI’s Jim O’Dea said the higher level Junior Certificate classical studies exam featured very nice questions on Mycenaean life, Pompeii and the Roman army. He said students with artistic ability could have shown their skills in a question about the battle of Marathon, which allowed them to use a sketch.