LEAVING Cert engineering (materials and technology) students should have been pleased with yesterday's papers, which "examined the broad range of the syllabus".
Mr Patrick Keays, ASTI subject representative and a teacher in Crescent College Comprehensive, Limerick, said both ordinary and higher level students were faced with the "usual, balanced papers. The average student in either paper should have been able to cope and there was enough there for the better student to show the breadth and depth of his or her knowledge."
There were no problems with the layout on the ordinary level paper, but in question 6 on the higher level paper the diagram was not referred to in the text.
Overall, however, the diagrams were very good, Mr Keays added. "In this day and age, with modern technology, there should be a little more colour," he complained. "It is used in subjects like geography and art. I think its use in other subjects would enhance diagrams, photos and sketches.