TEACHERS agreed that Junior Cert music students had to contend with a tricky, testing and somewhat unfair exam at higher level yesterday.
"There were a number of surprises," Ms Veronica O'Sullivan, a music teacher at the Ursuline Convent, Waterford and ASTI subject representative, said.
Ms Louise O'Connell, president of the Post- Primary Music Teachers Assocation, said the higher level paper departed from the syllabus in three separate questions. The paper, she said, was "vexing" for this reason and unfair in parts.
With regard to question 5(f), Ms O'Sullivan said: "I have never seen that type of question in the Junior Cent before. It's a composition question in a listening section. The students wouldn't be prepared for it. It's not, strictly speaking, on their course."
Most students, she explained, did not know how to approach this question. "We also have no knowledge of how it is to be marked," she added.
She also commented on the second part of question 6(c). "This is a place where an awful lot of students would be unable to do it." Question 10, too, was unfair and puzzling for many students, she said. "I felt overall that it was very testing."
Ms O'Connell also said 5(f) was "a bit off putting". With regard to question 6 she said there was "no area in the syllabus which instructs us to teach them how to do this".
She also called question 10 unfair. "They had to think very fast and use their wits in order to fit the prepared material into the answer" assuming they had to linguistic skills to understand phrases such as "oppressed people", she said. The ordinary level paper was said to be satisfactory.
Metalwork (Materials & Technology)
Appearances count in searching papers
By CATHERINE FOLEY
CRISP illustrations and sharply drawn designs characterised yesterday's materials and technology metalwork exam.
The higher level paper was "very well presented" and "one of the better looking papers" of the cert exams, according to Dr Lawrence Smyth, a teacher at Falcarragh Community School, Co Donegal, and TUI subject representative. In particular he praised the "mixed use of graphics the whole way through the ordinary level".
As for the content, he said yesterday's higher level paper was "slightly more searching than the previous year".
He liked question 6, about basic shapes for a pendant and a hair clasp, he said. He said this would appeal to girls and "we would be trying to encourage more girls to take the subject," he explained. He also liked question 7.
Mr Phelim O'Doherty, a teacher at Summerhill College in Sligo and ASTI subject representative, said the ordinary level paper "covered the course" and students "should be able to do it".
