A Keane response to 'slippery' maths test

LEAVING CERT/Maths: The opening Leaving Cert maths paper got a warmer reception than English the day before, though students and teachers were rather lukewarm in their praise.

Fuzzy and unfamiliar language did not help matters, said Cammie Gallagher of St Jarlath's College, Tuam, Co Galway. He said words students were used to were replaced by terms not seen in the exam for a while.

John Evans, TUI subject representative from Mount Temple school in Dublin, agreed and ruefully reflected that the rediscovery of something mathematical can often be a painful experience.

"Some of this year's higher-level maths students at Mount Temple were pained to re-discover the integer and the rational in the tough questions 1(c) and 2(c). Questions 3 to 7 were open to robust tackling and judged fair enough by most students," he said.

He said question 8 on integration was always a problem for the examiner - how to make up a full question based on the rather thin amount of integration set out in the syllabus. This year's question solved this problem in a very nice way, he said. However, he conceded that some students disliked it immensely.

Jim Healy, a maths expert with skoool.ie, said the higher-level paper was "very fair" with plenty of opportunity for the students to display their knowledge of the course.

Questions 1 and 2 had tricky parts and could have caused problems for the many students who regard these questions as "bankers", he said. But, overall, students declared themselves satisfied with the paper.

The ordinary-level paper was regarded as highly challenging by all.

Healy who teaches at Terenure College, Dublin, said question 1, in particular, caused real problems for some weaker students. He said it was very "wordy" and needed several rereads. The (a) part sounded scientific and was off-putting. Questions 3 and 4 had long part (b)s and difficult part (c)s. Many students found it difficult to finish on time and are now dreading paper 2, he added.

Evans said the paper turned out to be "a game of two halves" with half the students able to do the part (c)s of each question and the other half not.

"Many a ref would have gone pale at the Roy Keane-isms uttered by some students concerning this feature of the blue exam paper. Printable terms included 'slippery', 'disgracefully hard' and 'weird'. Quieter souls standing at the touchline said they found the paper to be grand or fair," he said.

Evans said the foundation paper in "its attractive apricot strip" found few supporters. However, he said question 6 was about mobile-phone tariffs and this was a topic of some interest to the text addicts.