LEAVING CERT: Ode to joy as Plath makes a return for candidates

The appearance of poet Sylvia Plath on Leaving Certificate English Paper 2 will have brought joy to a huge proportion of the 35,000 higher-level students yesterday afternoon.

While not much consolation to those disappointed by her unexpected absence last year, Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (Asti) subject representative Michael Doherty said what was better was that it was a nice question on her work. It asked about imagery and intense emotion, themes of her poetry that he felt most students should have covered well.

It was part of what he considered a very positive second exam for higher-level candidates, opening with a single text section in which most of those who focused on Macbeth should have had no complaints on a question about his character, or might have done even better with another about Shakespeare’s imagery in the play if they didn’t gloss over it. He felt the theme of values and attitudes examined on the comparative studies should have been well-prepared for by most, and even an alternative, asking to discuss social class, while more onerous, was an area many would have covered.