Students get down to serious business with testing paper

Leaving Certificate Business: verdict: Some students were thrown by yesterday's higher level business paper, which was described as "not a bluffer's paper" by one commentator.

Students leaving the exam after yesterday's morning exam expressed concern about their performance in what is usually regarded as a very straightforward paper.

Mr Luke Glynn of the ASTI assured worried students that they probably performed better than they were giving themselves credit for.

"This was a testing paper in some respects, but the greater part was fine. Students may be dwelling on the odd awkward question and forgetting that they did well elsewhere in the section."

Mr Glynn expressed some reservation about question 6, on managing, which appeared in section 2. This question might have been more appropriate on the accounting exam, he commented. However, he was keen to point out that this was a "lovely" paper overall and that students should not despair because they struggled with some sections of some questions.

Ms Brenda O'Donovan of the Business Studies Teachers Association of Ireland (BSTAI) agreed that some terminology may have struck students as alien at first, but there was nothing on the paper that was not on the syllabus.

"Students may have looked twice at phrases such as 'organisational structure' but if they knew the syllabus they would recognise it. This was not a bluffer's paper, I'm glad to say."

Yesterday's paper covered such subjects as industrial relations, enterprise, human resource management, marketing and domestic and international business environments.

The ordinary level paper was considered to be long and detailed and students complained that the questions took a long time to read through. Ms O'Donovan of BSTAI believed that the format was "onerous".

She acknowledged, however, that the content was predictable and that because of the volume of material on the paper, students had plenty of choice.