The post-Leaving Cert holiday makes an early appearance

VERY fair, and providing a challenge to all levels of students was how teacher Kenneth O’Dea described the Leaving Certificate chemistry higher-level paper.

Mr O’Dea, an ASTI subject representative and teacher at Presentation College, Athenry, Co Galway, said question one, on water titration, “would almost have been expected” and made for a good start to the paper.

He said question five, on mass spectrometry, was another topic that had been tipped.

Mr O’Dea said for the very good students the question on benzene provided a challenge, but was “very fair”. He described the ordinarylevel paper as “very fair” and students with good general knowledge of chemistry would have thought it “very nice”.

Tara Lyons, a teacher at Dublin’s Institute of Education, said the higher level paper had “clear questions that required short, but precise answers”.

A topic familiar to all candidates – the postLeaving Cert holiday – featured in the Spanish listening comprehension.

Mark Walshe, an ASTI subject representative and teacher at St Finian’s Community College, Swords, Dublin, said there had been a stimulating variety of topics in the aural.

In the ordinary-level written paper, he said candidates who kept an eye on current affairs may have appreciated the question on President Michael D Higgins’s trip to South America.

Mr Walshe said higher level “required attention to detail, as it always does”.

Students would have had to use different tenses to express what they wanted to say. They also had to show some creativity in writing about the importance of travel, or life is an adventure.