Leaving Certificate maths: ordinary levelRelieved ordinary-level maths students kissed goodbye to calculus for the summer after a "straightforward" and "reasonable" Leaving Certificate maths paper two yesterday.
The paper stuck to the pattern established in recent years with all sections, including the notorious section C items, considered fair and uncomplicated.
"Most students came out of today's exam beaming," said Aidan Roantree of the Institute of Education in Dublin.
"Today's paper was considered to be easier than Friday's and the students reacted very favourably. Many students had problem with the C sections of paper one and were relieved to encounter more straightforward questions today."
Students at Terenure College in Dublin also welcomed yesterday's paper as "decent" and "straightforward".
"The circle question demanded a bit of thinking on the part of the students as it was presented in a slightly different format to previous years," said Jim Healy, a teacher at Terenure College and a subject expert for skoool.ie.
"Students expect a formulaic approach to that section and might have been thrown by the format. Questions five and 11 were also a little testing. Overall it was a really good paper with some difficult moments."
In Ardee Community School, Co Louth, students were tested by the length of yesterday's paper but found its contents easier to handle than those of paper one.
"The diagrams on the Leaving Certificate ordinary-level paper are finally improving," said TUI subject expert and Ardee Community School teacher Andrew Carolan.
"This paper covered the entire course very comprehensively so you had to know your stuff. Having said that, there was nothing exceptionally difficult and the students should have been happy."
Sections on linear programming and trigonometry were welcomed as well-constructed and fair. "Overall, the paper would have presented a robust challenge to the weaker student, but nothing they couldn't deal with," said Mr Carolan.
Eighty per cent of Leaving Cert maths students take the ordinary-level paper.
