LEAVING CERT HOME ECONOMICS: HIGHER AND ORDINARY LEVELS:IT WAS a very long, searching day for more than 12,000 Leaving Cert students yesterday who, after sitting English Paper 1 in the morning, returned to the exam halls for the home economics exam in the afternoon.
The papers were very well received by students, said Maura McCaul, Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland representative and a teacher in Loreto College, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. It was a broad assessment of a long subject.
The first section of the higher-level paper consisted of short questions, which have created difficulties in the past. This year, however, they were straightforward and topical, according to McCaul. Food poisoning and the recession featured. Papers at both levels featured topical, modern questions with strong relevance to the Ireland of today and the economic situation, said a Teachers’ Union of Ireland spokeswoman.
The compulsory question in section B asked about dairy products and the dairy industry, McCaul said, and was accompanied by a graph which made the question easier to read and break down than in previous years.
It was a good integrated question, said Sandra Cleary of the Institute of Education. It was the type of question for which candidates should have prepared.
Subsequent questions were very much by the book, according to McCaul. Diabetes, home industry, family and the economy and the family unit gave students a broad range from which to choose. The question about the impact of the economy on the family repeated the emphasis on finance of last year.
Students may have been expecting another area of the syllabus to be covered in this section, Cleary said. Notwithstanding that, the question was sufficiently broad to enable candidates to provide comprehensive answers.
The elective question was deemed to be straightforward, with housing making an appearance for the eighth consecutive year.
Students with a good comprehensive knowledge of the course would have been able to reap the rewards of their hard work, Cleary added.
The written part of the examination is worth 80 per cent of the exam to students, while their home economics journals account for 20 per cent.
While the higher-level paper was widely welcomed and praised, the paper at ordinary level was not without its difficulties, with some challenging short questions, Cleary said.
She added that the compulsory part of section B, a question about essential fatty acids, was described as tricky. Only exceptional candidates would have been comfortable with this part of the question.
TRY THIS AT HOME: HIGHER LEVEL
THE ORGANIC, home-made food trend may have grown rapidly in the past decade, but in the recession many consumers have returned to cheaper, processed food.
(a) Give an account of the factors that affect a consumer’s choice of food.
(b) Profile a food of your choice that has undergone extensive processing.
(c) Outline the protection provided to the consumer by the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts (1875, 1879, 1899 and 1936).
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