Students face 'good and fair' paper

Junior Cert history: Junior Certificate students faced what was described by one teacher as a "very good and fair" higher level history paper yesterday afternoon.

Gerard Moore of skoool.ie, who teaches at Glenties Comprehensive School in Donegal, acknowledged that some of the short answer questions may have posed difficulties for students.

But he welcomed the fact that social history did not appear as an essay question, but instead featured as an option in question six of the paper.

He also pointed out that several of the essay questions were "really good".

"I feel that it is important to make social history an important part of the exam as some students do tire of political and military history," he said.

"The question section on international relations was also very good and questions on the holocaust and the Cuban missile crisis should pose no difficulty for good honours students."

According to Dermot Lucey of the TUI, who teaches at Ballincollig Community School in Cork, some students may have been "thrown" by the use of a cartoon of a "glimmerman" in question one, which required very specific knowledge.

But overall, he said he was "reasonably happy" with the paper.

At ordinary level, Mr Moore said students had been asked to answer a "very fair paper" which gave them a chance to do well.

There were, he said, essay choices on topics that they liked.

Mr Lucey agreed that the ordinary level exam was a "nice paper" with a good choice of questions.

However, the quality of the print on the first photo was not very good, meaning students may not have been able to get all the information they needed.