Junior Certificate history: verdict: Junior Certificate history students took on a "tough but fair" paper yesterday with a few surprises. The expected question on the Cold War did not appear and a question on social history turned up in the "wrong" place, in section 4.
"The Junior Certificate history paper has taken students into some dark corners of the syllabus in recent years," said Dermot Lucey, a teacher from Ballincollig Community School.
"The rate of A grades at Junior Cert level in recent years has swung back and forth between 14 and 20 per cent. There is a relatively large number of students taking ordinary level as a result, which is not good for the subject," he said.
"I believe it's time for a review of the exam format," he said. "At 2½ hours the exam is very long for this group. A two-hour exam would suffice and might encourage more students back into honours."
This year's ordinary level paper was deemed "okay" by students. The number of students taking ordinary level has risen from one in four in 1992 to one in three last year.
