Sir, - I write to register my protest at the History Paper Upper, Leaving Cert 99. My daughter, normally an A/B student, was reduced to tears during this examination as she saw her plans to study law go up in smoke. Luckily she had no examination the next day, as it took several days for me and my wife to console her and try to alleviate her despair so she could focus on the rest of her exams. This was by no means an easy task, and I have no doubt that it has affected her subsequent papers.
We are already working with an extremely flawed system with its complete dependence on the performance on the day - ill or not ill, depressed or not, stressed or not. The introduction of an unannounced change to the format of the paper can only add to the jaundiced view which I know many students hold of the whole exam process. Roll on continuous assessment!
I have no doubt that, given the controversy over this paper, it will be marked "easy", but that does not help the student who wrote little or nothing. You can't give marks for a blank page. Yes I know that all the questions were on the course, but ask any history teacher - it's almost impossible to comprehensively cover all aspects of the course in depth, so students are left with no choice but to try to predict in some way the content of the paper - a task that many got wrong this time.
I tried to warn my daughter about the vastness of the course and the amount of time needed to be spent on the subject and that perhaps she should consider dropping it. It's her favourite subject. She now thinks she has failed it, and of course the students who dropped it as a subject now have an unfair advantage in this crazy points race!
Needless to say, I will be doing everything in my power to get my other children to drop history. - Yours, etc.,
Norman Hewson, Bellevue Hill, Delgany, Co Wicklow.