BOTH the ordinary level and higher level business organisation "papers were well received yesterday. Higher level students in particular will probably fancy their chances of obtaining high grades despite the non appearance of a number of topical subjects.
The Companies Act and the Building Societies Act were conspicuous by their absence, and industrial relations turned up in a more general form in the case study. Despite this, higher level students should have had a fairly good choice of questions, according to Mr Frank McKenna, a teacher at CBS Callan, Co Kilkenny, and the president of the Business Studies Teachers Association of Ireland.
Question 1, the case study, was slightly different from previous years, since all four questions related to the given text and all were accessible, Mr McKenna said. "Even though the case study is not a question favoured by a lot of teachers, this one was better than normal," he noted.
Mr Joseph Gallagher, TUI subject representative and a teacher in Firhouse Community College in Firhouse, Dublin, said the case study, centred around management, was "very good" and reflected the direction of the course over the last few years.
The three 90 mark questions (questions 2 to 4) were also good overall, with question 3 the best received, he said. "The weaker student might have been confused by the phrasing of question 4(a)," Mr McKenna said. The question asked students if the law "has overprotected the consumer, in Ireland", whereas the question "would more usually have been phrased around how the customer has been protected.
"The topics in the 90 mark questions were three of the more straightforward topics of the course and the parts students find fairly manageable, and the questions reflected that," Mr Gallagher said.
Students also studying accountancy would have found question, 5(b) in particular a bonus, though it will also have proved accessible to students who had taken Junior Cert business studies earlier in their academic careers, Mr McKenna said. Mr Gallagher described 5(a), on how wholesalers reduce costs for customers, as a "pass level question".
While Mr McKenna described question 6(a), on sources of finance for a new retail outlet, as "lovely", question 6(b)'s requirement of an explanation of "Bank Category of customer" could have troubled some students, he said, though it was a problem of phrasing rather than anything more difficult.
Question 7, the multiple choice question, was consistent with previous years while question 8, he noted, was "the nicest question on the paper". Question 9, on transport, was also "grand", Mr McKenna said, though transport was a topic not usually considered honours material.
Mr Gallagher said that there might have been some confusion in 8(a) between types of insurance (car, house) and insurance policies (comprehensive, third party).
Interestingly, the stock exchange and wholesalers turned up at both higher and ordinary levels, though wholesalers are likely to be phased out with the arrival of the new syllabus in 1997.
Mr McKenna described the ordinary level paper as "lovely" and most students would have got a choice of five questions from it. Mr Gallagher said the ordinary level paper contained the more straightforward topics on the course, including the stock exchange and the modern office.
"The reasonableness of the questions gave a good chance for the weaker students to pick up marks," he concluded.