LEAVING CERT CHEMISTRY: HIGHER AND ORDINARY:HIGHER LEVEL chemistry students were met with, a wordy but otherwise unremarkable paper yesterday afternoon.
“It required candidates to devote precious time to actually reading text,” said Tara Lyons, a chemistry teacher in the Institute of Education.
Almost 8,000 students sat Leaving Cert chemistry yesterday, the vast majority doing so at higher level.
A concerted effort has been made this year to make the exams topical and relevant to students and chemistry was no exception. “There was a lovely question six that related to the unrest in Libya and the Middle East,” said Pauline Nagle, Asti representative and teacher in Mary Immaculate Secondary School, Lisdoonvarna.
Those who knew their organic chemistry well were rewarded by a “greater than usual emphasis”, on that area according to Ms Lyons. “Of the 11 questions 4½ were organic, with two of the three questions in Section A also relating to organic chemistry,” Ms Lyons said.
“A good chemistry student would have been fine,” Ms Nagle said. “In the first three questions students would have had to have done their experiments and they would have had to know them well.”
The often predicted question on bleach finally appeared in question one, while atomic theory was also well represented, Ms Lyons said. In recent years, the exam has tended to focus on the more practical elements of the course, veering away from the more theoretical end of things. “Students needed to keep their experience in the laboratory to the fore,” Ms Lyons observed.
The almost 700 students at ordinary level were met with what was, “relatively a much tougher test,” Ms Nagle said. There was a real effort to link chemistry to everyday things which may have been tough for some, she observed.