Junior Cert: Well balanced second paper adds up after last week’s tough first round

After a very tough first paper last Friday, most higher- level Junior Certificate maths students should have been happier with Paper 2 yesterday. Tony McGennis of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) considered the second paper to be quite fair.

He said it was true to the Project Maths syllabus, with a lot of problem-solving and requiring students to understand the topics, rather than just being able to manipulate mathematical figures provided. Mr McGennis said some students might have found the requirement for three missing figures in a means and medians question was challenging.

He welcomed the full explanation of rules, stakes and returns on a question about a spinner game, following feedback about missing factors in a similar Leaving Certificate question in the past.

While a co-ordinate geometry question introduced elements of trigonometry and of area and volume, Mr McGennis said the questions themselves should not have posed any great problem.

A statistics question about changing numbers of women in European parliaments allowed students use their choice of graphic presentation, such as a bar chart or the more traditional stem and leaf diagram.

However, students might have found it tough to visualise a three-dimensional shape or to reframe the problem posed in a question about a triangle constructed inside two cubes.

For ordinary level Junior Certificate maths candidates, Mr McGennis was very pleased with the visual cues provided. They were used in statistics questions, for example, as well as questions on geometry or area and volume where they would be expected.

One question which might have caused difficulty to some students asked for a piechart based on a survey of shampoo users. Mr McGennis felt the sample size of 300 might have made the calculation of angles in a 360- degree circle may have been tough for some ordinary level students.

In the afternoon, the civic, social and political education paper featured some topical issues, including refugees, voting and the 1916 commemorations.

Brendan Greene of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland responded very positively to the exam, in which all students sit the same common-level paper. He said it was very well balanced, and all seven concepts of the course were examined.

For Donal McCarthy, ASTI subject spokesperson, there was also a good balance and it had a good range of options for students.

He said it was great that a question at the beginning of the paper asked them to identify the job titles of four women in public life. It could, however, have surprised some students who were expecting to see more mainstream political figures.

Mr McCarthy said a question about a refugee’s journey was welcome as so many teachers would have worked on helping classes to understand the refugee crisis.

Similarly, he said, a question on the 1916 commemorations was very appropriate. He thought it was a good way to reward all the schools who put huge work into education and commemoration of the Rising earlier this year.