Education

Junior Cycle English: ‘Challenging’ paper which explored a wide range of topics and skills

Dickens and Shakespeare make appearance while questions on stylistic language may have posed difficulties

Preparing for start of the Junior Cycle exams in Marian College, Ballsbridge, Dublin, on Wednesday. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Peter McGuire
Wed Jun 5 2024 - 17:31

Junior cycle students faced a challenging start to the exams, with the two-hour English paper examining a wide range of topics and skills, teachers have said.

“As always students would have found the timing of the higher-level exam challenging,” said Laura Daly, Studyclix.ie subject expert and a teacher at St Benildus College in Dublin.

“All four main studied topics appeared – Shakespeare and an option of the novel in section A, and Poetry and Film Studies in Section C. Unseen poetry did not appear, probably to the relief of many candidates.”

Kate Barry, ASTI subject representative and a teacher at Loreto Secondary School in Fermoy, said that the paper was in line with previous years.

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“Students would be happy enough, and there was good choice,” she said.

“But the course is much bigger than the old Junior Cert, so it is difficult to cover topics in a lot of depth. It would make more sense to cover less areas, in more depth.

“This is the second year in a row where candidates sitting the exam did not have to answer a question on the only compulsory topic, Shakespeare; instead, they had to choose between Shakespeare and their studied novel.”

The paper included an extract from Shakespeare’s play, Timon of Athens.

“In this question, they had to read an extract and write a speech proposing Timon as person of the year,” said Ms Barry.

“This assesses them on speech writing, making inferences from a text and their familiarity with Shakespearean language – and it is a lot of heavy lifting for one question.”

Ms Daly raised a concern over the distribution of marks, where over 40 per cent are allocated to Shakespearean drama or the chosen novel.

“Very specific questions around costumes illustrating character traits were challenging, but then balanced out with broader, student-friendly, relationship questions,” she said.

“The reading comprehension exercises in Sections B and C were deemed manageable for the majority. However, the subsequent questions on dialogue and stylistic language may have posed difficulties for some. The final question on Film studies question on a key scene would have been a welcome relief at the end of the exam.”

On the ordinary level paper, Ms Daly said that it presented a well-rounded selection of questions

“However, the paper offered some potentially challenging questions including the somewhat ambiguous poster: What to Wear in Antarctica. There was an unseen poem, which did not appear on the higher level paper. The imagery question in the studied poetry section could have led to confusion among some students due to the film terminology employed,” she said.

Try this one at home: Junior cycle English

Describe a scene in the film that you studied that has a powerful atmosphere and outline the ways in which the film makers created that atmosphere.

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