Sports themes feature strongly in Irish exams
June 13, 2012
For Leaving Certificate students of Irish, sports themes featured strongly at both levels on their Paper 2 exams.
Robbie Cronin, subject spokesperson for ASTI, said the higher level exam opened with an interesting article about Jim Thorpe, an Irish-American double-gold winner at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.
Although most questions were fair, he thought an opinion question about the mindsets of the American people and the International Olympic Council was too demanding.
He identified difficult vocabulary in a second piece, an excerpt from journalist Alex Hijmans’ novel Favela, such as words for “natives” and “guardian angels”. He thought the final question was unfairly difficult.
Mr Cronin said the comprehension passages for ordinary level Irish about sports journalist Evanne Ní Chuilinn and tennis player Dáithí Ó hEithir were interesting and the related questions were fair.
For Biology students, the ordinary level Leaving Certificate exam was considered quite fair by TUI subject spokeswoman Margaret O’Neill. She thought the language was a bit more technical than might be expected at this level.
ASTI’s Biology spokes-woman Ciara O’Shea said most higher level students would have been pleased. She thought part of an ecology question about introducing an exotic species to a new environment was quite challenging, as was the interpretation of a graph in relation to photosynthesis, but a full question on the nervous system was welcome.
Business studies was examined in the morning for Junior Certificate students, with those choosing higher level facing a second paper in the afternoon.
TUI Business Studies representative Ivan O’Callaghan said both morning exams were challenging enough.
ASTI subject spokesperson Pat Morris said yesterday afternoon’s exam was probably no trouble for higher level candidates with their work well done, saying it included an interesting question on credit sales and bad debts.
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