LEAVING CERT MATHS PAPER 1 ORDINARY LEVEL:THE FIRST maths paper was regarded by teachers as a fair test – although tricky in parts.
The vast majority of students – more than 40,000 of the total 53,000 who sat the exam yesterday – took the ordinary level paper yesterday and many stand an excellent chance of doing well according to Christina Kennedy Asti representative and teacher in Seamount College.
However, some difficult part (c)s in questions would have left all but the best students struggling to reach an A standard according to Kennedy.
“The first and second parts of the questions were very straightforward, very much in line with previous years,” Kennedy said. “But some of the (c) parts were very difficult. The aim of those parts are to distinguish the As and Bs from the rest but I do think they were probably trickier than previous years.”
Maths teacher John Brennan agreed. “Some of the questions like part two of question one (c) were a dead loss,” he said. “A lot of the students just wouldn’t have been able for that.”
TUI representative Bríd Griffin praised the language used on the paper which she described as very straightforward. “Students knew exactly what was being asked of them, which is a good thing,” she said.
She was less pleased with part of question two – one of the algebra questions. “It happened in the higher level paper too, but students were asked to apply a particular method when solving a problem,” she said. “That’s fine but really it goes against our efforts to encourage students to apply their own knowledge to a problem. Handing them a particular method doesn’t give them that scope.”
“I think the paper was probably a bit more difficult than last year’s,” Kennedy said. “Not because of the (a) or (b) parts but because some of the (c) parts were that bit more difficult. A lot of students spent quite a bit of time on part one (c).”
Jean Kelly of the Institute of Education agreed that the exam was trickier in parts than previous years. She said, “Unusually, the exam presented two questions that required candidates to draw two different graphs, these questions are generally time consuming. Candidates did not expect this.”
A question on functions and differentiation drew no complaints while the complex numbers question was described as, “easy enough.”
“Despite the difficulties, the examiner struck a balance between ensuring that candidates could demonstrate their mathematical ability while allowing those with an aptitude for maths to shine:” Kelly said. “In general candidates left the exam happy.”
