It was a case of writer's cramp for Junior Cert students at the end of yesterday afternoon's geography exams. Teachers said that both the higher and ordinary-level papers tested the students fairly but at great length. There were no surprises but "it did take a bit of time", said one.
Mr George Smith, TUI subject representative and a teacher at St Rynagh's Community College in Banagher, Co Offaly, said the ordinary level was "a fine, balanced, happy paper".
He was concerned that a couple of format changes to the paper may have thrown some students. "Ordinary-level students need to be grilled well for the exams and any changes at all in the format can upset them." He said the language used in the twenty short questions in section one was "difficult". In general, he said, the language was difficult throughout the paper.
The illustration of turf cutters which was used in question 18 of section 1 was incorrect, he said. "Nobody does it like that any more. They use machines nowadays. I'm from the midlands. Also they would use a fork to lift the turf not a slean," he said. "The slean is for cutting it."
Mr John Mulcahy, ASTI subject representative and a teacher at Bishopstown Community School in Cork, said the higher-level paper was "fair enough but pretty demanding". Students, he said, "had a lot to write about. They were examined right across the board. The paper covered a lot of sections but there was nothing controversial about it".
He welcomed the full question in Section 2 on aerial photography. "This part of the course takes up a lot of class time and it can be frustrating when it comes up as part of a question," he said.
As to the ordinary level, he said the multiple choice questions were "fair enough". He picked out a couple of aspects of the paper that he was not happy with. For example, he cited question 3 in Section 2 on towns and cities, which featured an illustration that was not referred to within the question. "I did not like the use of diagrams in front of the questions that had no relation to the question. It was very distracting," he said. "There was no follow-up to the use of the diagrams."
In general, he said, "there was a very wide spread of questions" but "I thought the language was off-putting".