The vast majority of Junior Cert students have already run screaming into the sunshine, but 620 classical studies, 293 Latin, 454 Italian, and just 35 ancient Greek candidates trotted wearily into that exam hall one last time on the final day of this year’s exams.
Jim O’Dea, ASTI classics representative and a teacher at Rathdown School in Glenageary, commended the State Examinations Commission on the quality of the pictures used in the classical studies exam.
“The higher level paper was along expected lines and while there was the occasional difficult sub-question, the pupils had a wide choice of questions and could answer the required number of questions,” he said.
The ordinary level paper did not buck that trend, with “most questions not requiring too much information”.
O’Dea said the higher level Latin paper had some difficult constructions and questions, but mostly as expected, while the ordinary level paper had quite a lot of difficult sections.
Pizza
Robbie Cronin, who teaches both Italian and Irish at Marian College Ballsbridge, said the higher level Italian paper was “excellent, with a great range of questions. There were two particularly good reading comprehensions, one about pizza and its place in Italy, and another about Italian people who are domiciled in a foreign country and what they miss about Italy.”
The grammar section tested them on all of their tenses, while the most challenging part of the exam was a written expression about a student exchange; however, Cronin said they were well-prepared for it. The ordinary level paper was fine with nothing unfair or surprising, he added.
The 59,919 students who sat the Junior Cert are likely to be among last to sit the exam in its entirety, with a new English syllabus due to be tested in 2017, followed by a gradual rollout of other subjects. Teacher unions are due to ballot in September on whether to accept reforms that include the introduction of short courses and school-based classroom assessments.
Try this at home:
(i) Why is the site of Troy/Hisarlik so difficult for archaeologists to understand?
(ii) Who were the King and Queen of Troy at the time of the Trojan War?
(iii) Explain briefly why the city of Troy was invaded by the Greeks.
(From Junior Cert classical studies, higher level)
