Ordinary level paper deemed 'unfair'

LEAVING CERTIFICATE BIOLOGY HIGHER AND ORDINARY LEVEL:IT WAS a stressful day for ordinary level students of biology yesterday, with a paper that was rated "difficult", "unfair" and "in step with the higher paper in places".

Biology is the second most popular elective subject after French, with almost half of all Leaving Certificate students taking it at higher or ordinary level. The great majority, 23,500, take the paper at higher level.There are two female biology students to every one male.

Yesterday’s higher level exam was broadly welcomed.

“Some students found the short questions difficult, but the section on experiments was fine,” said Lily Cronin, a biology teacher at Meán Scoil Eoin Baiste in Kerry. “However, I think that some illustration would help a lot in this section.”

In the long section of the higher paper there was an ecology question on foxes, and a number of teachers welcomed the appearance of an Irish mammal.

The genetics question was described by a number of students and teachers as “difficult”.

“Overall this was a good paper but it was very long and there was a lot of reading required,” said Lily Cronin.

In Section C, the genetics, ecology and respiration questions were “excellent”, said Mona Murray of the Institute of Education in Dublin. “The human biology section of the course, which is a very large section of the syllabus, was represented by a question related to human reproduction, for the sixth year in a row.”

One teacher pointed out that in Question 15 a diagram of the eye was unclear and might have caused difficulty.

The ordinary level paper was criticised for its level of difficulty. “This was a very hard exam for the level,” said Lily Cronin. “The ecology question was not much different to the one that appeared on the higher level paper.”

The genetics question, on incomplete dominance, was described as “problematic for the weaker student”.

“This paper was quite difficult for ordinary level candidates, and seemed to be pitched at too high a level,” said Mona Murray.

A photograph of a stem section would have “caused difficulty for any candidate, at any level. The diagram was unclear and was unfair for an ordinary level paper,” one teacher complained.

There were two questions on the ordinary level paper, related to DNA profiling and viruses, that had previously appeared on higher level papers, according to commentators.

About 5,000 students took the ordinary paper.