HIGHER level Irish students may have found themselves tomb by the essay title on this year's Paper I that invited them to wax lyrical on the beauty of a scholar's life. After all, asking students in an exam to write about the beauties of scholastic pursuits is a little like asking a condemned man to scribble a few laudatory paragraphs on hanging.
Yet students at all three levels will have had few complaints about this year's examination which rang out the current format of Paper II and the old style grammar test on Paper I.
A wide range of essays, covering computers, Ireland's island status and international problems gave higher level students a good opportunity to ease themselves into the paper. Ms Maire Ni Laoire, ASTI subject representative and a teacher in Mean Scoil Muire Gan Smal in Blarney, Co Cork, welcomed the range and topicality of the essays.
"Though the essays aren't very exciting, students could write about almost anything," said Ms Treasa Ni Chonaola, a teacher in St Michael's College, Ballsbridge, Dublin. "On Fadhb idirnisiunta a bhfuil an spois agam inti, they could write about war, drugs, unemployment, anything. It allows students to interpret essays any way they want.
Teachers at Ballyhaunis Community School, Co Mayo, also applauded the range of essays and the international problem option in particular. "There was a wide choice of topics, unlike the past," said Mr Morgan Jennings, speaking on behalf of the teachers in the school.
This is the last year of the old style grammar question, a development welcomed by Ms Ni Chonaola. "I think the sentences as they appear on the paper are not spoken by anyone I know. They are the strangest sort of language. They are just grammatical." She suggested that there are other ways of testing grammar, including essay work, rather than the use of such "unnatural" sentences.
Ms Ni Laoire said "many students would note its demise with a sigh of relief" although she said it was "money for jam" for students once they understood it.
Both of the interpretation pieces, on the Great Famine and skiing in Andorra, were described as fine" and "very accessible" by Ms Ni Chonaola. Higher level students would have had no problem with the vocabulary, even in the skiing piece which was taken from a travel article in The Irish Times. "These are higher level students," said Ms Ni Chonaola. "You would expect them to have done quite a bit of reading, or to be able to guess words they didn't know from the context."
Ms Ni Chonaola described Paper II as a "very conventional paper with nothing that would intimidates nets. Ms Ni Laoire said he rose questions were "uncomplicated" and said the anticipated appearance of An Parlus in the try section would have pleased many students. Mr Jennings pointed out that four of the poems on the higher level paper came from the ordinary level course, which was somewhat unusual, although the standard of the questions was very fair, he said.
The listening comprehension, which included such topical subjects as the Olympics, New Age favourite Enya and Mel Gibson's Braveheart, would have given few problems to students who had kept abreast of current affairs, said Ms Ni Laoire.
At ordinary level, the essay choice on Paper I was described as "satisfactory". Of the two comprehension pieces, on Wolfe Tone and the French Armada and an adult education student, some of the questions relating to the Wolfe Tone piece were undoubtedly the trickier, said Ms Ni Laoire.
While the prose section on ordinary level Paper II was unproblematical, the appearance of Tuairimi in the poetry section for the second year in a row may have surprised students although the questions on the poem were very doable, said Ms Ni Laoire, and students we're delighted that all three poems in the poetry section were printed in full this year. As at higher level, the listening comprehension at ordinary level was not problematical, she said.
Mr Jennings welcomed that the answers to the questions set on the prose pieces on Paper I were actually contained in the piece "which is necessary for the ordinary level pupil", since last year's students I required to do a degree of Ms Kathleen McMullen, a teacher at FCJ Secondary School, Bunclody, Co Wexford, said both papers at ordinary level were "very straightforward", with a good choice in question 1. She did question the interest students would have in the prose pieces and their relevance to them. Paper II was "very true to form", she said.
She described the listening test as "very fair" and "topical". She did note that the dialects might have caused some problems, although that problem evens out nationwide.
The foundation level papers were fine and appropriate to the level in question, said Ms Sally Maguire, a teacher in St Raphaela's, Stillorgan.
Exam Times has received numerous complaints about Question 5(d) on Thursday's higher level geography paper, which seemed to err on the side of vagueness in its efforts to prompt a discussion of Western European core and marginal regions.
The question as it appeared on the paper read as follows. "Some regions of Western Europe are clearly identifiable as core regions while other regions are more marginal." Assess the validity of this statement, with reference to any TWO countries of your choice.
"The question was not phrased clearly and students took it up in different ways," according to one parent. Students appeared to be unclear about whether they should discuss both core and marginal regions in each country or instead discuss one country in terms of core regions and the other in terms of marginal regions, with a corresponding difference in the detail contained in their answers.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the way in which the students interpreted the question would be taken into account when the paper was being marked, and it was the quality of the answer, rather than the interpretation, which would count in the end.