THIS year's chemistry papers caused generally positive reactions, with few deviations from the expected result.
Mr Gerard Nugent, a teacher in Youghal CBS, Co Cork, said that this year's chemistry paper threw up few surprises at higher level. "It followed the predictable pattern of previous years and most students seemed pleased with the paper," he said.
He described all of the questions as being of the standard type, with the exception being a change in format in the organic chemistry question. "The familiar reaction schemes were replaced by a more descriptive question requiring more writing than usual," he said.
Ms Marie O'Neill, ASTI subject representative and a teacher in St Mary's College, Naas, Co Kildare, said the higher-level paper was testing but fair. The students were reasonably happy. The paper is long and it manages to bring in most things, and they have a good choice."
Question 1, in which students must complete 11 parts out of 15, produced nothing unusual. Questions ranged from a definition of the heat of neutralisation two ways in which the properties of steel may, be varied and the meaning of heterogeneous catalysis.
Questions 2 and 3 were similar to previous years, Mr Nugent said, covering titration and an organic practical topic. "Again, these were old standards requiring information of a practical nature from students," he noted.
Ms O'Neill described these practical questions as "nice" and said they proved popular with students. "They followed the standard of what we expect from questions 2 and 3 and they would have been well-prepared for them," she said.
Questions 4 and 9, on water treatment and an experiment involving the liberation of carbon dioxide, were also favoured by her students, she said.
Physical chemistry featured strongly, as usual, with two-and-a-half questions on the paper covering this area. "The chemical equilibrium question, which usually scares most students, was straightforward," Mr Nugent said. "The question on chemical kinetics required the student to draw a graph and extrapolate information from it. Again, this was a familiar question from past experience."
Two questions appeared this year from the chemistry of the elements section of the course, which in previous years had not been adequately represented, Mr Nugent said. "Both questions, one on water treatment and one on aluminium processing, were straight from the standard texts."
In the past, the ordinary level paper has been criticised for being too difficult for students at that level, although there were slight improvements in 1994 and 1995. Teachers have welcomed in particular, the increased use of visual material on the paper, with four questions accompanied by illustrations.
Ms O'Neill said this year's ordinary level paper was "quite testing for ordinary students even on the difficult side" but she said there was nothing unfair on it or nothing that was not on the course.