'Little gems' ensure diligent students reap the rewards

LEAVING CERT ACCOUNTING HIGHER AND ORDINARY LEVEL.:ACCOUNTING IS always a long and demanding exam, and yesterday's Leaving Cert students would have experienced nothing less, according to teachers.

“Having accounting in the afternoon is demanding, especially for students who did the physics paper in the morning,” said ASTI subject representative Colette Lucey.

That said, both the ordinary and higher level exams, while challenging, were very fair indeed, she added.

Again, students who put the work in reaped the rewards.

“The diligent student would have had no problems,” said Arthur Russell, accounting teacher at the Institute of Education.

It started well. Questions one and five, in particular were, “little gems”, Mr Russell said.

“Most students would have been very familiar with the content and structure of both, which is always reassuring.”

Challenges presented themselves in the form of questions seven and nine.

“These may have thrown some students as they were slightly different from previous years’ questions on similar topics,” Mr Russell said.

“Question seven is the incomplete records question and this was longer than usual,” Ms Lucey said.

She said question nine differed from similar questions in previous years. “This could have been challenging for some students.”

It featured a cash budget in combination with a production budget.

“Typically, these topics would have been presented as stand-alone questions,” Mr Russell said.

Most of the approximately 7,000 students studying accounting take the higher level paper.

Just over 1,600 opted for ordinary level, and there were no surprises in store those students.

Overall, teachers were happy with what they saw on the ordinary level paper.

“The expected topics appeared, and the questions were appropriate for ordinary level candidates,” Mr Russell said.

Ms Lucey agreed. “This paper was very much along the line of previous years. There were no surprises in it if a candidate was well prepared.”