Leaving Cert numbers add up for ‘fair’ maths paper

The weekend finally arrived for Leaving Certificate students after the afternoon maths exams in which record numbers are expected to have taken the honours paper.

That higher-level Paper 1 was described as fair by Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (Asti) subject spokesman Tony McGennis.

He said it followed Project Maths syllabus principles, integrating different parts of the course into practical situations, such as a question on the rate at which boiled water cools for use by a father preparing food for his baby.

He thought a question on calculus, which is a new part of the course, was fair and set in a traditional manner.

One complaint he had about the paper was that the use of the letter A in a sequences and series question might have misled some students, as it usually has a special meaning in this area of maths.

Mr McGennis said most ordinary-level students he spoke to were quite pleased with their first maths paper.

He thought the first part of many questions on the exam were quite easy, in some cases just requiring multiplication or addition, giving students a straightforward introduction to those questions.

There were the usual tougher final parts to most questions, but this is to be expected. He said it was quite a fair exam overall.

nLeaving Certificate geography in the morning had a good range of fair questions for higher-level candidates, according to Asti subject spokesman Neil Curran.

He said the honours exam was very well-balanced, with some final parts of long questions quite hard, but this was not unusual to help decide who gets top grades.

He thought weaker students might not all have been able for a question about landscapes and rock types, or another one about central place theory.

Marie Kennedy of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland was disappointed with the exam, which she said had some testing questions. She felt the physical and regional sections asked for more examples than in previous years.

However, she felt that students who had revised widely would have managed OK with some careful reading of the paper.

Mr Curran thought ordinary-level geography students could have been given bigger and clearer photographs and images on their exam.

But he said the paper featured many good topical issues, such as a small earthquake felt in counties on the east coast last year, and there were standard and fair questions on regional geography and economic activity.

Ms Kennedy said the ordinary-level exam was fair and predictable, and should have pleased most students.