LEAVING CERT APPLIED MATHS: The Leaving Cert applied maths exam was a marked improvement on previous years and should help encourage more students into the subject, teachers said.
"I was encouraged by the quality of the paper," Mr Christy Maginn, who teaches at St Declan's college, Cabra, Dublin,said. "I was very pleased with the style of questions; if this continues it should really open up the subject to more and more students."
He said the majority of questions were very accessible to students who had done even basic work in the subject. The new structure led the student gradually through each question and encouraged them towards the answers.
"Students were able to work towards an answer instead of working in the dark. This structure is not typical of recent years."
In many cases students were asked to show that one thing equalled another, which gave them a goal. "It gave them confidence that they were working towards something, where previously they would not know if they were anywhere near the answer."
Mr Maginn was pleased the questions were split into several parts.
"In former years if a question was a 'banker' and then they found they didn't understand it they lost everything. This time, they should have been confidently able to tackle at least one part of the question."
Question 10 was particularly well answered by his students. The only area they found really tough was question 5 on collisions. "They seem to beef this one up more every year."
While most students did manage to complete it, they did go over time.
The structure of the ordinary level paper closely matched the higher level, Mr Maginn said. "Students said they had no difficulty understanding any question. The clarity of the questions and the diagrams left them at least knowing what was being asked," he added.
Mr John McKeon, a teacher in the post-primary school in Maynooth, was happy with most of the paper except question 4.
"It was a major shock to a lot of kids to have harmonic motion and connected particles in the one question," he said.
