The higher-level design and communication graphics (DCG) paper was very manageable, but students faced a few curveballs, teachers have said.
Some students may have been disappointed that there was no question on perspective, said Eóin Ó hAodha, ASTI subject representative and a teacher at Meánscoil Gharman in Enniscorthy.
“If a student was well-practised and banking on a perspective question coming up, they would have been disappointed,” he said.
“Otherwise, the paper was reasonable but technical and hence challenging in places.”
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Rob Kiernan, a DCG teacher at the Institute of Education, said that the paper was manageable but that there were challenges to make the students think conceptually.
“Some students might have knee-jerk reactions to diagrams, but if they kept their heads screwed on, they would have found very approachable questions,” Kiernan said.
“Students will have started on a confident note with QA-1. True length and true angle should be in their arsenals since the beginning of fifth year, so this will be a nice familiar entry into the paper.
“It was nice to see a resurgence of Solids in Contact in QA-2, which is an area that really suits those that gravitate towards visualisation tasks or fields like architecture.”
A question on the interaction of the cylinder and sphere was unorthodox and so students might have had a negative initial reaction, Kiernan said.
“But the subject requires students to push their skills and solve problems, so this question reflected that value perfectly.”
In section B of the paper, students were asked for the axonometric projection of a cylindrical hot tub, Ó hAodha said.
“While the question may have seemed initially inviting and straightforward, it was one that students could have got bogged down with and struggled to finish on time.
“Question B2 concerned itself with the angles and projections of a golf chipping set. Although this question required less drawing, it was technical and could only be completed quickly and accurately by those that were well-practised in this area.
“Question B3 was perhaps the most familiar of the 3 core questions, and a spatially aware student who enjoyed working out dihedral angles with the aid of projections would have been happy with it,” said Ó hAodha.
Part C of the exam was more familiar and featured 2 interesting furniture designs within the C2 structural forms and C3 surface geometry questions, he added.
Kiernan said that, overall, the paper examined the real skills of DCG.
“Not just the numbers and lines but the core concepts at the heart of the subjects. “Those who could conceptualise the objects, think through the problem as well as follow the procedures should be very happy with that exam,” he said.
On the ordinary level paper, Ó hAodha said that it seemed fair.
“Perspective made an appearance in section A, question four. The three core questions in Section B dealt with the auxiliary elevation of a bank card machine, the axonometric projections of a greenhouse and the intersecting solids of a skate park,” he said.
