Ordinary level paper 'fair and easy to manage'

JUNIOR CERT BUSINESS:THE ORDINARY level Junior Certificate exam was fair and easy to manage, said Pat Morris, convenor for the ASTI: "At Ordinary level, the answer book was prepared for every question. That's very helpful for students."

At Ordinary level students choose five questions from a list of eight, which Morris said gave a good spread for students.

Derek Lynch, Junior Cert exam spokesman for the Business Studies Teachers Association of Ireland, also praised the decision to allow students to answer all the questions on the paper, which he said was “very positive and a help for many students at the weaker end of the spectrum”.

This straightforward approach was echoed in paper one at higher level, which accounts for 60 per cent of the total exam.

Morris said: “It was on usual lines. I suppose the tricky part of this paper is section A, which is 20 short questions covering the whole syllabus. There was nothing unusual or difficult in them.”

Lynch noted that despite two mistakes in paper one, it was very fair.

“There was a mistake in question 4, which the examiners listed, and an incorrect figure was printed in question 7, which wasn’t spotted.

“It was only a four-mark question, but was just not vetted.”

In section B, students had six questions and could do any four.Morris said that they were similar to the previous years and that students would be familiar with the personal household budget and the question on club accounts.

The banking question was also praised: “Students were given a bank statement and were asked to interpret certain transactions on it, which I think is very practical,” he said.

Lynch said paper 2 was reasonable, but drew attention to question 5, in which students were asked to explain three terms, including “overtrading” as well as doing report writing, which he said was tough for 40 marks.

“It was the only question that might be challenging for students and may have been more suitable for the ordinary level Leaving Cert exam.

Students would be happy with the other questions, according to Lynch, who praised the “old reliables” of accounting and business documents.