Leaving Cert Spanish: Pokémon Go features in ‘broad and balanced’ exam

Students of Leaving Cert Spanish would have been pleased with the higher level exam paper, teachers have said.

"Overall it was a broad and balanced set of papers," said Mark Walshe, a teacher in St Finian's Community College in Swords.

Areas covered on the higher level paper included a new train system in India and American-Cuban relations on a "topical" paper.

The theme of sport ran through the paper, which Mr Walshe said would give students the opportunity to use all the vocabulary they had learned over the six years.

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Comprehensions on the subject of drones also appeared, as well as a longer one on sport.

Opinion question

The opinion question at the end of the paper would have offered students a lot of scope to bring in different vocabulary.

“Students’ cultural knowledge would have helped them put questions into context,” said Mr Walshe, a subject representative for the ASTI.

The dialogue and letter-writing option in the exam also offered students plenty of choice, teachers said.

The ordinary level paper saw few surprises, with a broad selection of questions.

Students seemed generally pleased, with some amusement over the inclusion of Pokémon Go on the exam. Most students are now finished their exams, with only three days left.

A total of 7,219 students were expected to sit the Spanish Leaving Cert exam at higher and ordinary level, of which 4,043 were female and 3,176 were male.

Try this at home:

From Leaving Cert Higher Level Spanish Paper

"An article in a Spanish newspaper says that young Spanish people do not read books any more. You decide to write an email/letter in Spanish to the editor of the newspaper."