A few challenges, but no surprises for Junior Cert students

Thu, 12 Jun, 2014 - 01:00

Niall Murray, Education Correspondent

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (Asti) spokeswoman on French, Eimear Holly, said higher-level students were given comprehension pieces appropriate to their overall ability. The written section might have proved challenging for some, she said.

A Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) spokesperson thought questions were challenging in places, such as one about a flu epidemic affecting a boarding school. But he felt the written section gave candidates a chance to show off their French as, although there were some challenges in the letter, the postcard and note were similar to what came up in previous years.

He said the ordinary-level reading comprehensions were also broadly in line with recent years, although sub-sections of one question was more challenging. Ms Holly said the ordinary-level exam was a fair paper.

The listening comprehension was deemed accessible by the TUI spokesperson, who said the speed was appropriate and the material similar to recent years. Ms Holly said it was manageable, although the final section was challenging.

nThe history exams taken in the afternoon were both fair, said TUI spokesman Michael Hogan. He thought the question about a soldier in the D-Day landings would have been expected by many in light of the event’s 70th anniversary last week, and the section on people in history contained no shocks.

Asti history spokesman Fintan O’Mahony said document extracts about Michelangelo and an RAF pilot were easy enough to understand, and short questions were very good. He thought the people in history questions were fairly predictable, but questions on the American, French, and Ireland’s 1798 revolutions were hard.

Mr Hogan thought the short questions in the ordinary-level exam were particularly nice. He said a knight in the middle ages or a religious reformer were old reliables in the people in history section, while a document question about a census extract was manageable despite a lot of detail.

Mr O’Mahony considered the document questions testing, asking for opinions about reasons for entries in the census, but the rest of the paper seemed fair and quite predictable.