Maths gets mixed reaction as binomials make return

Yesterday's Leaving Certificate maths papers were met with a mixed reaction by the pupils of Presentation Secondary School in Ballyphehane in Cork city who found that the tests combined the good with the tricky, particularly in the ordinary level paper.

Rachel Morley (18) from Turners Cross was sitting the higher level paper and she was quite pleased with how it went and reckoned it was one of the easiest maths papers that she had come across.

"There were a couple of things I could have dusted up more on - binomials hadn't come up for a number of years - it wasn't a very hard question but nobody was expecting it - the integration was lovely and the differentiation was OK and the algebra was simple," she said.

Joy Lyne (18) from the Lough was less happy with the higher level paper, describing the paper as "deadly" and the question on binomials as "evil" while Victoria Kelly (18) from Mahon said the paper was OK with the exception of the question on binomials.

Sarah Tetrault (18) from Ballyphehane was sitting the ordinary level paper and as with many of her classmates, found the lay-out of the paper a bit confusing while she admitted that the question on sets was a surprise as it had been a while since they had come across them.

Vicky Taubone (18) from Togher was also sitting the ordinary level paper and reckoned that the it was easier than the Pre-Leaving Certificate while her friend, Gillian Burke (18) from Togher said that she found the sequences question tricky.

Aisling Holland (18) from Togher thought the ordinary level paper was all right even though "the compound interest question was disappointing because of the way that they phrased it - I knew all the formulas but it wasn't phrased quite as I expected it."

Her friend, Michelle O'Donovan (18) from Togher was also critical of the way the question was posed but she found both question eight on the graph and the question on differentiation satisfactory and was happy with the way she answered both.

Both Alison Meldrum (18) from Togher and Christina Keating (18) from Togher were a bit surprised by the way the question on compound interest was phrased and found it a bit tricky but they still managed to answer it.

Sara Vargiu (18) from Grange had been doing higher level until March but was glad she had dropped down to the ordinary level paper. "It was actually grand - I skipped the question on compound interest but the differentiation question was easy," she said.