LEAVING CERT GEOGRAPHY:NEWSPAPER READERS were delighted with yesterday's higher level geography paper, which included questions on financial services and unemployment. The paper was described as challenging, but rewarding for students who knew their current affairs.
“This is a subject that requires students to read the newspapers as well as textbooks,” said teacher Jimmy Staunton of Sligo Grammar School.
“Students had scope to talk about the Corrib gas pipeline, the flight of multinationals to low-cost economies and range of other topics that feature regularly in the news.”
Geography is one of the most popular Leaving Cert electives with 25,000 students sitting the paper this year.
The five-year-old syllabus has been widely praised for its topicality but criticised for its breadth. Teachers have complained that there is not enough time to spend examining topics in depth.
Some of the questions demanded in-depth responses, according to one teacher. “Some students may have found yesterday’s paper a little more challenging than in previous years,” said Dr Tom Hunt of Mullingar Community School. “Students were expected to display a lot of knowledge.”
The exam explored two topics for the first time: metamorphic rock and mass movement. “The message coming from examiners is that this whole syllabus will be examined over time,” Dr Hunt added.
Michael Doran of the Institute of Education welcomed the paper. “This was a very fair paper, an excellent mix of questions was presented. The well-prepared candidate would have had a very good choice of questions.”
The main topics appeared in the short question section, including landform development, he said. “However, this was balanced by the specific nature of some of the topics examined.”
Candidates were happy to see questions on culture regions and urban growth, but some of the elective topics were considered demanding. Students typically opt for the section on geo-ecology.
Mr Doran said: “The examiner has remained consistent, delivering papers that are fair with no attempts to ‘trick’ or confuse candidates.”
At Sligo Grammar School, where there are more geography students than Irish students, the paper was well-received.
“This paper was very outward-looking, as the syllabus is designed to be,” Mr Staunton said. “It touched on issues such as the Haiti earthquake and the effects of globalisation on developing economies.
“There was even a question on financial services – students who have been following recent news coverage could have examined the development of the IFSC and its impact on the Irish economy.”
Fair trade, environmental sustainability and the ethnic and religious implications of migration were also covered in yesterday’s two-hour paper.
“There were questions for the connoisseur, such as the invitation to apply central place theory to Carrick-on-Suir,” Dr Hunt in Mullingar said. “Some questions involved very deep understanding and some difficult concepts, such as ethnicity.”
About 6,000 students sat yesterday’s ordinary level paper, which was described as “agreeable.”
