LEAVING CERT REACTION
STUDENTS GIVE REACTION TO JUNIOR AND LEAVING CERT STATE EXAMS
IT wouldn’t be exam time without some sunshine and this year didn’t disappoint, with almost 1,700 students around the county starting the Junior and Leaving Cert state exams last week while the rest of us enjoyed the heatwave.
Just under 800 students began their Leaving Cert and Leaving Cert Applied exams with English Paper 1 and Home Economics first up on Wednesday, Engineering and English Paper 2 on Thursday and Geography and Maths Paper 1 last Friday.
Geography students got a pleasant surprise when several Sligo landmarks appeared on their exam paper last Friday.
“It wouldn’t have given them any advantage but I’m sure it was a psychological boost for them,” a teacher told The Sligo Champion.
Junior Cert Geography students at Sligo Grammar School felt the exam paper was harder than the mock: “The mock was quite simple, today’s paper was harder I’d say,” said Luke Lennon (15).
Rosie Wright thought the Junior Cert Geography “wasn’t too bad” either: “It was a bit harder than I expected but overall it went fine.”
“I think the content was a bit unexpected, the short questions were a bit different than they usually were, the way it was phrased was harder to understand than usual but they were still manageable,” said Genevieve Cox.
The Leaving Cert Geography had a few surprises also - instead of the usual two essay questions students noticed one of the essay questions had two parts to it, there was more choice, according to Ellen O’Dwyer.
“It was a change in the way it was presented, more awkward questions but it was fine, we had everything covered,” said Isabelle Lorris.
One word used to describe the Geography paper by one student was “rough”.
Ellen Smith said there weren’t as many questions on rocks this year. She was also shocked by how many map questions were on the paper this year: “There wasn’t as much about rivers or glaciers,” she said.
Michael Archer said: “Economic Geography was hard. The Johnson and Johnson question shook me up a bit. It was a fair paper though.”
In the English exam, Michael was expecting poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin to come up but changed tack when he saw the question: “That was a very hard question about contemporary Ireland so I had to go with John Montague,” he said.
Ten minutes to go before the exam Michael took out a random study note on Cordelia in King Lear and that very character came up: “Wrote five solid pages on that, as you do, lovely!” he smiled. Students face Irish Paper 2 and Biology today.