Sir, - Lies, damned lies and statistics - or should that be Statiscopes? The Statiscope diagram (The Irish Times, September 4th) proclaims the trebling of grade As in the Leaving Cert Honours Maths exam from five per cent of students taking it in 1987 to 15.5 per cent of students in 1997.
The problem with this analysis is that like is not being compared with like. The Leaving Cert Honours Maths exams of the 1980s were worthy of the label "honours". The revised Leaving Cert Honours Maths syllabus which has been examined since 1994 is a very watered-down version of its predecessors. Hence the removal of the extra points awarded to Honours Maths grades for CAO purposes.
It is unrealistic to compare an Honours Maths grade A of today with a grade A of 10 years ago. - Yours, etc.,
(Head of Maths Dept), Plunket College, Dublin 9.