Leaving Certs left smiling after German paper on music festivals and airport chaos

Jack Somers, Caitlyn Coyne, Aoife Wall, Anna Hovenden and Ailbhe Whytee from the presentation college, Athenry, Co. Galway reviewing their exams. Picture: Hany Marzouk

Greener music festivals, mayhem at the airport and imaging not eating meat anymore appeared as topics on this year's Leaving Cert German exam, on a paper that left many students leaving exam halls smiling, teachers report. 

The State exams continued on Friday with Leaving Cert German, Junior Cycle Music, and Junior Cycle Jewish Studies.

The 2023 German papers were straightforward and included no major curveballs, according to teacher Clodagh Mackle, ASTI subject spokesperson.

“There were a lot of happy faces coming out of that exam, and as some students said: ‘it could have been worse’,” Ms. Mackle said.

“It was a very straightforward paper.” 

 The grammar question was “very straightforward” with no surprises, based on the cases in German.

“The second question, on conjunctions, was a gap-filled text, we’ve had that before about three or four years ago. Students would have practiced that style of question before.”

The first reading comprehension was based on making music festivals more environmentally friendly.

“It was geared towards their everyday experience. We also had a role play for the oral, based on Electric Picnic so students would have recognised vocabulary from that.” 

“That’s their personal experience, sure they’re all going to EP in September.”

Text 2 on the paper required students to tackle either Section A.

Section A asked students to write about festivals, if they are a fan, what they would bring with them, and some of the issues with drugs and alcohol.

Section B asked students about computer games, and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Ireland having many IT companies based here. 

This was more difficult, Ms Mackle believed. 

“None of my students did that section." 

There were also no curveballs either with the letter question. 

"It was predominately based on their own personal experience.” 

 However, the ordinary paper was “tricky enough”, Ms. Mackle believed.

“The first reading comprehension was quite vocab specific. The second comprehension, which was about city breaks, was more doable.” 

However, the paper’s last reading comprehension, which focused on getting away from your desk to improve fitness, talked about unusual sports such as bike polo.

“That was tricky enough. There was also mention of the online hula-hoop challenge. One of my students said she knew this sort of as she had seen it online.”

“Overall, every student said the exam was nicer than the mocks, even the listening which they usually dread.”

The only mention of lockdown was included in this year’s listening test, which gave the story of an engineer in Dresden who had so much time on his hands during lockdown he built a submarine.

“Dresden is landlocked,” Ms Mackle laughed. “But the students were relieved that they didn’t have to write about Covid or online learning and that it was only mentioned as part of a tiny little section during the listening exam.”

Students were all “very happy” with the 2023 German exam, according to teacher Pamela Conway, ASTI a fellow subject spokesperson.

“Both higher and ordinary level students came out really delighted and for some of them it was their last exam so they were doubley happy.”

“It was a very accessible paper. The topics that came up were predictable in a sense; The literary text was about friendship and love, they usually are, the journalistic text was about the environment, which was very topical and interesting for the students.”

“My students said the one section of the listening exam they found a little bit difficult was about the airport in Frankfurt where there was chaos at the airport because the bags were not being put on the planes.”

“Only a few would have thought that, we had the same situation here in Ireland not too long ago.”

“They mentioned strikes in Italy and France and that should have been straightforward because the German word for strike is ‘streik’ so they should have been able to get that too.”

“Overall, they were very happy. A lot found it easier than the mock exams, which you definitely want.”

“You want a challenge in your mock exams, get them thinking ‘oh I better do a bit more study’, and then they find it easier on the day.” “That’s the ideal way these things should go,” she added.

This year’s listening exam was “well-paced and well-pitched", according to Orla Ni Shuilleabhain, teacher with the Institute of Education.

The material was relevant, familiar and accessible with only the occasional tricky term, she added.

“There was more past tense than might have been expected in Section 1.”

“Much like the rest of the paper, it was a nice true-to-form examination of their skills.”

Exams continue this afternoon with Leaving Cert construction studies and Junior Cycle engineering.