Leaving Cert maths paper two: A big jump in demand and difficulty

Paper two of higher-level maths paper was well thought-out but more challenging than paper one, teachers have said.

Louise Boylan, a maths teacher at the Institute of Education, said that some questions had a sting in the tail.

“Overall, it was a fair paper with some challenging parts, and enough in there to keep the high achieving students on their toes,” said Ms Boylan. “It would have benefited students to take time at the start of the exam and select their questions wisely.”

Eamonn Toland, founder of TheMathsTutor.ie, said that the amount of choice afforded to students would have ameliorated some of the difficulty for students, but that some students may have been disappointed that financial maths did not appear on the exam.

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“It was not on paper one, so some students might have hoped for it to appear in paper 2, but this did not turn out to be the case,” Mr Toland said.

Stephen Begley, Studyclix.ie study expert and a maths teacher at Dundalk Grammar School in Co Louth, said that higher paper paper two was more difficult than paper one.

“While many parts of each question were nice and relatively straight forward, as each question progressed, the paper certainly grew in demand,” said Mr Begley.

“Statistics and probability certainly dominated the paper with four of the ten questions focusing on these topics, so any student who prioritised the study of these will be quite content.

“With some relatively straightforward parts in questions, others demanded a deal of application and problem solving to tackle,” Mr Begley said. “While the opening parts of the area and volume question were promising, the examiner set some trapdoors in the latter parts.”

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Mr Begley said that students could take some comfort from the shorter questions accounting for 55 per cent of marks on the paper.

Ms Boylan said that question seven on geometry was mostly accessible but had a tricky end.

“The middle part of the question also involved trigonometry which may not have been obvious to students.

“Question nine was on trigonometry again. Parts a and b were lovely, but parts c and d looked quite complicated. There was a lot of text and some complicated diagrams in both, but actually the questions were more straightforward than they appeared.

On the ordinary level paper, Jean Kelly, maths teacher at the Institute of Education, said it was clear and precise. But teachers said that some students may have struggled with question nine on estimation skills.

“There was enough scaffolding to walk students clearly through each part of each question,” said Ms Kelly.

“Overall, this was a very manageable paper, which was very nicely written and had a good mix of topics within the questions.”

Ms Kelly said that all the short questions were well-phrased and approachable, while most of the longer questions were very manageable

Mr Toland said that ordinary paper was somewhat less challenging than paper one on Friday, especially given the amount of choice available to students this year.

“Question nine required estimation skills, as students were asked to compare the height of a shed with the height of a person, where the height of the person was not provided,” Mr Toland said. “This step could have been a little uncomfortable for the less confident student.”

Mr Begley said that ordinary level maths paper two was a busy exam.

“Overall, I think students will be content with the choice of questions offered but will remark on some elements of challenge throughout,” Mr Begley said.

Try this one at home:

From Leaving Cert maths paper two (higher level)

Three people are picked at random from a class. Find the probability that all three were born on the same day of the week. Assume that the probability of being born on each day is the same.