Students were happy with both the higher and ordinary-level papers, writes LORNA SIGGINSin Galway
SUPERSTITIOUS types don’t like to talk of “easy” or “simple”, especially when it comes to Leaving Certificate mathematics. Yet these words were on the tips of many tongues as students emerged from Galway’s Coláiste Iognáid, better known as the “Jez”, shortly before lunchtime yesterday.
The smiles said it all: few furrowed brows and certainly no tears. So relieved were some of the higher-level mathematics students that they seemed to have forgotten all about lunch.
Thus it was with Rory Cunningham (18), from Daingean, Owen Binchy (18), from Salthill, Anthony O’Loughlin (18), from Tuam, and Keith Duffy (18), from Knocknacarra, who carried out their postmortem in the school hallway with colleagues Ronan Loftus (18), from Barna, and Jake Hansen (18), from Moycullen.
“It was easy enough,” said one of the group. We pretended not to hear the dangerous word. Question 4c, a trigonometry problem, was a bit of a stickler, they agreed.
“Basically, it was a ‘proof’ that we wouldn’t have seen before ...” Question 8 on further calculus was also “hard for some” and “not so bad” for others – there being “only one right answer”, they explained.
There followed a five-minute discussion among the group about this “one right answer”, which seemed to produce several variations on the theme. Most of the discussion was well over this reporter’s head.
Question 6 was “handy”, as was Question 7, they agreed, and there ensued several more minutes of animated discussion. Did they not find this type of post-exam analysis a little stressful – weren’t they even hungry? “Ah no, better to find out if you messed up now than later on ... and it’s great to find someone who has the same answer as you.”
Outside in the sunshine, a group of ordinary level students agreed that their paper was really quite fine. “Paper one was difficult for some people, so paper two gave a bit of a chance to pull back up,” Callan Qualter (18), of Knocknacarra, explained. His friends Paul Geraghty (18), Jomo Ruane (18), of the Claddagh, and Lorcan Doyle (18), of Salthill, concurred.
“I thought it went really well,” Shauna O’Connor (18), also of Knocknacarra, said of the second ordinary level paper.
“I found both papers fine, but several friends told me they felt some of the questions in paper one were a bit unexpected, so the second paper was on the easier side.” Fiona Cunningham (18), from Barna, agreed. “I did all the questions, but worked right up till 12. Quite a few people were happy enough to leave a bit early. It was that kind of exam.”
Coláiste Iognáid principal Bernie O’Connell noted that there had been positive feedback overall from both papers. He is master of the busy co-educational school, which dates back to the 1640s when Galway hosted one of eight Jesuit colleges in Ireland.
The first college’s progress was interrupted by Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, and the Jesuit community’s work thereafter was affected by the fall of Galway to William of Orange in 1692.
However, the Jesuits returned to Galway in 1859, opening a Catholic secondary school in premises close to Eyre Square and moving to the Sea Road location in 1863. Its “modern phase” dates from 1929, when it reopened as an Irish-medium school and reverted to English medium with an Irish stream from 1974.
