'Fantastic paper for pupils to get teeth into'

JUNIOR CERT HISTORY:"OUTSTANDING PICTURE quality" and fair questioning combined to create a favourable history paper for higher-level Junior Cert students yesterday.

More than 33,000 students sat the higher paper, which included documents on the Great Famine and the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement Manifesto.

Students were also asked to appraise the value of primary material in historical analysis.

“Any paper-follower should have been happy with yesterday’s history exam because there were repeats of questions that came up in 2006, 2007 and 2008,” said Michael Hogan of Deele College in Raphoe in Donegal.

In a section on modern Irish history, students were asked to identify ways in which electricity had changed life in Ireland and to examine developments in air transport since the 1930s.

They were also asked to consider changes in education, housing and religion in Ireland since 1945. A question on the Civil Rights Movement in Ireland was welcomed on the day of the publication of the Saville Report.

They were also asked to give an account of the Holocaust. The paper was described as “interesting” with lively documents for students to “get their teeth into”.

“This was a fantastic paper,” said one teacher. “There were no complaints.”

The ordinary paper asked students to describe the changes in Irish social and cultural life since 1900 through the eyes of an older person. They were also asked to give a reason for the outbreak of the second World War.