Many higher-level Leaving Cert maths students were left deflated by paper one, but it had many manageable elements and was less wordy than in previous years, teachers have said.
Eoghan O’Leary, a teacher at Hamilton High School in Cork and head of maths at TheTuitionCentre.ie, said while some students did find it challenging, it was not a case of “2023 all over again” - a reference to very difficult maths paper which sparked controversy.
“The paper was dominated by calculus, sequences & series and algebra,” said Mr O’Leary.
“Students who hadn’t revised sequences were in trouble because they featured in two long questions, so therefore could not be avoided.”
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Students also welcomed a return to more maths and less writing, he said.
In recent years, teachers and dyslexic students have repeatedly raised the wordiness of the maths paper, saying that it disadvantages them and is unnecessary.
Louise Boylan, a maths teacher at the Institute of Education, said that paper had an off-putting appearance, but was approachable.
“Students likely won’t feel triumphant as they leave the exam hall, but they shouldn’t feel defeated,” she said, adding that there were many novel elements on the paper.
“While there was a lot that was out of the box – logic puzzle style questions, material that hasn’t appeared since the course’s overhaul – there was much that would be welcome. Algebraic skills, rates of change, differential calculus, and sequence and series would all have fallen into the familiar,” Ms Boylan said.
Stephen Begley, Studyclix.ie subject expert and head of maths at Dundalk Grammar School, said that the paper was more prompted and scaffolded than usual, and didn’t appear as dense as it had in the past.
“While the short questions were rather delightful in ways, the long questions were a little light in parts and were heavily scaffolded,” Mr Begley said.
“Beneficial in ways, the examiner was generous throughout in pointing out what methods and techniques students should use to approach a question, for example by indicating to use a certain formula or technique.”
This view was echoed by other teachers, including Ms Boylan.
“Later in the paper, question seven’s wall of text will have caused some to pause, but once that was parsed, the underlying sequences and series were familiar,” she said.
Overall, Ms Boylan said it was a challenging paper for everyone sitting it as the question setter continues the trend of drawing from all corners of the course.
“As such there was material examined on the paper that simply wasn’t present in past exams and some students will rightly feel that they were pushed beyond their comfort zone. However, with much that will earn them marks, they shouldn’t focus solely on the negative – the marking will reflect the challenge,” she said.
Mr O’Leary said that some students were concerned that, with some students finding it too easy, there was concern that it would be harshly marked.
“I hope there will be fairness there,” Mr O’Leary said.
On the ordinary level paper, Mr Begley said that it was a fair paper spanning the usual suspects of financial maths, complex numbers, algebra, calculus, functions, patterns and area.
“While parts were certainly not without challenge, the short questions in section A were quite nice and students could play to their strengths answering any five of the six,” he said.
“Those who prepared using past papers would have benefitted from the familiarity of question styles from years gone by.
“The long questions in Section B had students answer any three of the four. The topics covered here were functions, differentiation, financial maths, number patterns and area. “Topic wise it followed suit with previous exams and students were well prompted and guided in parts.
Overall, a good start to the ordinary level maths exams and all eyes will be on paper two on Monday, for which I advise students to take a look at their statistics, trigonometry, coordinate geometry of the line and circle and probability over the weekend, as these are always the main players,” Mr Begley said.
Try this one at home:
Leaving Cert maths, higher level, Q6(a)
Write down, in descending powers of 𝑝𝑝, the first 3 terms in the binomial expansion of:
(2𝑝𝑝 +3)7
Give each term in its simplest form. For example, the first term should be of the form ap7, where a is a constant.
