Biology exam papers thought ‘fair’
Although students were not examined on their ecology fieldwork, Lily Cronin of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) said a question about the effects of factory effluent on a river covered a good contemporary ecology issue. She thought the exam was fair but challenging, with precise details required in questions about DNA and a flowering plant, and a difficult diagram required of the liver and small intestine.
Tim O’Meara of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) said a short question about genetic crosses was longer than might be expected and some students might have been confused by two percentages that were the same. He said the higher level exam featured a wide mix of factual questions and others that required applied knowledge, and he thought the heart dissection experiment was probably difficult to describe for most students.
