Sir, – The education specialists who composed a recent Higher Education Authority and National Council for Curriculum and Assessment report say: “The notion that Leaving Certificate questions are predictable has ‘resulted in reports of candidates memorising pre-packaged answers and essays . . . to gain the maximum marks and thus the maximum CAO points score’,” (Home News, December 22nd).
Leaving aside the question of how a notion can result in reports, the implication is that the much-lauded annual crop of students who get maximum marks are good at “memorising pre-packaged answers and essays”, and that that “memorising” is so undemanding as to be undesirable. Yet, if it is so undemanding, why don’t all the Leaving Cert students get maximum marks? – Yours, etc,