JUNIOR CERT ENGLISH: HIGHER AND ORDINARY LEVEL:IT WAS all day English for Junior Cert students who sat both higher level papers 1 and 2 yesterday.

Paper 1 gained good reviews. TUI representative Alan Thompson said it seemed to settle students and set them up well for the rest of the exams.

Sport and music, two major teenage preoccupations cropped up regularly throughout the paper. Students would have had no problems writing about those two topics, Thompson said.

A comprehension piece extracted from U2 BY U2 in which The Edge spoke about his youth and his introduction to music was welcomed although a question that required students to trace the growing importance of music in The Edge’s life may have challenged some according to ASTI representative Christina Henehan.

The third question about autobiographical style was, more akin to a Leaving Cert question, Henehan said.

The personal writing topics were welcomed and gave a good range of choice to students, while functional writing required them to write about either a sports match or their favourite band. Those were good questions, Henehan said.

The media studies questions required careful reading according to Henehan, while a question that required students to analyse a review of a Snow Patrol gig (written by Irish Timescritic Tony Clayton-Lea) would have distinguished the best students from the others. It was a little deceptive to the casual reader, said Henehan. Students had to be fairly savvy to answer it correctly. The ordinary level paper was, a good paper but challenging in parts, Thompson said.

“The four core sections were pitched at an appropriate level according to teachers although, I would have liked to see one concrete title in the personal writing section,” said Henehan. Weaker students find the abstract titles more difficult to deal with, according to teachers.

“A couple of sticky questions raised some eyebrows. I felt the fiction question was a bit restrictive for students,” said Thompson. “It asked students to discuss a novel they had studied that dealt with terror, racism or betrayal which was fine but not all students would have studied a novel like that.”

There wasn’t enough choice in that question, agreed Henehan.

While ordinary and foundation level students called it a day at noon, higher level students returned to the exam halls for the second paper.

“Strong female characters featured prominently in both drama questions, while the poetry featured a piece from Roger McGough, in which an older father brings his baby daughter to a pantomime. There was a lot of feeling in that poem I think it might have tested candidates,” Henehan said.

An extract from Slam by Nick Hornby made for a “doable’’ fiction section, while a question that asked students to give a novel or short story a star rating was welcomed as a clever question that required students to justify their opinions. “I thought the first paper complemented the second paper very well,” said Thompson. “The same consistency was evident and students seemed very content coming out of the exam.”