Sir, – Those facing into the state exams beginning this week face a crucial tactical decision before they even put pen to paper; whether to choose the honours or the ordinary-level paper.
Often it is a decision made in the last few days before the exam, sometimes even in the exam hall itself. A student taking the ordinary-level paper where much of their preparation has been at the honours grade will find much of their hard work to be worthless – or worse, that it leaves them ill prepared when the ordinary level and honours syllabuses don’t quite overlap. So why two levels? Why not three or four or six? Or just one?
Is it really beyond our ingenuity to devise a single exam paper in each subject that can be taken by all students?
Parts of such a paper would be intractable to weaker students, parts would be barely above trivial for stronger students, but yet it will be possible to discern an appropriate grade for all without them having to make this agonising decision before the exam. – Yours, etc,
EUGENE HICKEY,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.