Thousands of students began their Leaving and Junior Certificate exams yesterday. Teachers praised Leaving Cert English paper one as a “lovely” exam, while there were no surprises within the ordinary level paper.
Home economics candidates were presented with a “challenging but fair” paper at higher level and a “student-friendly” offering at ordinary level, teachers said.
The second day of exams kicks off with engineering at 9.30am and English paper two follows at 2pm.
Key reads
Niamh Towey – 31 minutes ago
The Leaving Certificate exam papers for engineering have now been published on the State Examinations Commission website.
You can access the higher level paper here and the ordinary level paper here.
What do we hope comes up on English paper two? ‘Paula Meehan number one’
English paper two is up this afternoon and after a well-received paper one yesterday, teacher Sarah Doyle from Holy Family Community School in Rathcoole, Co Dublin, knows what she’s hoping for. “Simplicity, clarity, directness, accessibility. A chance to do well,” she told Jen Hogan this morning.
“Paula Meehan would be number one” when it comes to the poet students hope will appear on both the ordinary and higher-level papers, Doyle says. “Just because they love the poetry. It’s so accessible. It’s story-telling and she’s just so easy to identify with.”
Some students really enjoy WB Yeats and will be hoping he’s on the paper, she says. “Some of them would be history buffs. So there’s a huge historical context there.
“Macbeth is the single text for a huge amount of the higher-level students. You’re just looking for something with clarity. A question that’s easy to understand. A question that doesn’t have a really difficult word in it that’s going to throw them.”
“Usually you’ll get a character question and a theme question. So you’re just looking for a simple version of one of them. Because sometimes the concepts are actually not so difficult but the way it’s dressed up with words can be difficult for a lot of kids,” Doyle says.
She says the decrease in reading among young people means “they don’t have the same vocabulary skills”. This is something the English paper doesn’t always seem to reflect or take account of, she says. “The paper hasn’t moved in the direction that the students have moved in. It’s almost like it’s trying to catch them out the last few years. Any English teacher will tell you literacy levels have plummeted, and the paper hasn’t adapted in any shape or form to move with that.”
The comparative is sometimes considered the worst question, she says. The question itself is very long and can be very challenging for students with literacy difficulties or dyslexia.
Paper two is three hours and 20 minutes long, but this is no bad thing, Doyle says, as it gives students “room to think” and consider.
“Stay until the end,” she says.
Leaving Cert advice from a guidance counsellor
Niamh Dwyer.
Niamh Dwyer is a career guidance counsellor and a parent of three, with her youngest child currently sitting the Leaving Certificate exams.
As an expert professionally, and in the veteran Leaving Cert parent sense, she knows what awaits.
For the students, she says, “it’s about striking balance. A balance between what I’d call routine and rest.”
Students should really focus “on what they know” rather than what they feel they don’t, she told Jen Hogan today.
You can read the full article here.
Niamh Towey – 2 hours ago
Engineering has started, with the ordinary level paper finishing at 12pm and higher level at 12.30pm.
We will share the papers here when we have them and my colleague Jack Brady will have reaction from teachers when it finishes.
Niamh Towey – 3 hours ago
As for the A-levels? They don’t compare, according to Finn McRedmond.
“I remain full of praise for the Leaving Cert system – believing it to be of considerably greater value than its UK counterpart, the A-levels,” McRedmond writes in her column today.
“But my greatest criticism of the Leaving Cert? Perhaps it is not robust, rigorous or difficult enough,” she says.
Phew, that’s grand when you’re not the one sitting it.
What do you think about that?
Niamh Towey – 3 hours ago
You think the Leaving Cert is hard? Try the gaokao
Almost 13 million students in China will start the gaokao on Sunday.
It is the world’s biggest exam and by some measures the most psychologically challenging, according to our China Correspondent Denis Staunton, who wrote this fascinating piece about the exam.
“It’s very tiring. The competition is intense. Every day feels exhausting. The feeling is that it’s tiring and difficult,” one of the students said.
Students discuss the gaokao, China’s university exam
Niamh Towey – 4 hours ago
This is the first year that students who qualify for the Reasonable Accommodations at Certificate Exams scheme get an extra 10 minutes to complete their papers.
The scheme is designed to help students with special educational needs who have difficulty in communicating what they know to an examiner because of a physical, visual, hearing and/or learning difficulty.
Some of these accommodations can include reading assistance, scribes, voice-activated computers and being able to take the exam in a hospital.
Were you one of those students who got 10 extra minutes yesterday? Did you think it was enough?
Let me know by email niamh.towey@irishtimes.com or through our call-out here.
Niamh Towey – 4 hours ago
Day two of the Leaving Certificate kicks off with engineering at 9.30am this morning.
English paper two is in the afternoon, starting at 2pm.
Yesterday appears to have started off as smoothly as we could have hoped, with general reaction to English paper one being positive.
Home economics in the afternoon seems to have caused a little bit more of a stir, with some teachers calling it unpredictable.
You can read our full paper reviews for English here and home economics here.
We will be bringing you live reaction to today’s papers here, along with advice for parents and pupils.
I would love to hear from you as the exams go on – you can get me on niamh.towey@irishtimes.com.