SENATOR Des Hanafin, licking his wounds following the defeat of his challenge to the divorce referendum in the Supreme Court, may take some consolation. Marital instability and family law turned up as topics for discussion on this year's higher level scientific and social home economics paper.
Both higher and ordinary level papers should have left few students with an unpleasant taste in their mouths, with teachers and students in general agreement on palatable papers at both higher and ordinary level.
"It was quite a straightforward paper," Ms Camel Costello, vice principal of Park College, Galway, said of the higher level examination, with both the scientific and social sections offering students a good choice of questions which were "quite specific".
Ms Kay O'Connor, a teacher in FCJ, Bunclody, Co Wexford, described the higher level paper as very fair and straightforward, though she stressed it was by no means easy. "The wording was very clear and it was a good test of the students' work," she said. "There was nothing they wouldn't have dealt with during the course."
Ms Carol Quigley, a teacher in Balinteer Community School, Dublin, said the only question which might have caused surprise to some students was question I, where students might have expected a topic other than calcium to come up. "Students with a thorough knowledge of nutrition should have had no problem with it," Ms Costello said.
Question 2, on special diets, was "a lovely question," Ms Costello said. Question 3 turned up an expected topic in the form of the nervous system. The last section of the question, on the autonomic nervous system, should have posed no problem if the student had the topic well researched, she said. Question 4, meanwhile, was not as straightforward as the other three scientific questions, since it involved a variety of topics, including cereals, flour, glut en and the baking and serving of an iced cake.
In the social section, question 5 tackled the subject of marital instability. Ms Quigley described it as "straight out of the book" and said it provided a good chance for people who had the work on the topic done. She noted that this question and question 6, on unemployment, required students to have done some outside reading. "There was not as much outside reading required this year, though," she said.
Ms Quigley also said that, in the absence of a marking scheme on the paper, students had to be familiar with the terminology used in the questions in order to assess the amount of detail required in each section. In question 5, for example, the "discuss..." question would have required more detail than the "summarise" section.
Question 7 included a slightly tricky last part on the cleansing action of one household detergent, she said, while question 8 included a straightforward first part on ergonomics followed by what Ms Quigley described as an "iffy enough" section on kitchen storage units and work surfaces.
At ordinary level, Ms O'Connor said the topics were fine in general but she was critical of the language in which the questions were couched, a recurring theme in criticisms of many of the ordinary level papers this year. "The level of English was quite high and students' cognitive skills would have to be good to interpret the questions," she said. For example, question 2 asked students to "classify fruit and suggest a range of dishes/foods that illustrates the use of each class of fruit". Ms O'Connor said that it was difficult for them to understand what they were being asked.
Question 1, on carbohydrates, made an appearance on last year's higher level paper and this may have thrown some students, Ms Quigley said. Question 3, on digestion, was usually associated with the ordinary level paper and shouldn't have caused many problems, while question 4, on cheese, was "very straightforward".
In the social section, topicality was once again the by word in question 5, which asked students to give their views on drug abuse and alcoholism. Once again, said Ms Quigley said, some outside reading would have aided students. Question 8 required some care since it asked students what would influence their choice of a central heating system for a new house in a rural area, so students would have had to be careful - natural gas, for example, might not be available in some rural areas.
Finally, question 9 was a question on fire safety in the home and would have been too specific for a student who hadn't researched it fully, Ms Quigley said. Ms O'Connor said that questions 8 and 9 were more difficult because they each pulled in issues from more than one area of the course.
Home economics (general)
Ordinary level students faced a considerably more taxing paper than their higher level counterparts in this year's home economics (general) paper. "The ordinary level was far more detailed," Ms Carol Quigley of Balinteer Community School, Dublin, said. "In general, the questions were more searching. They needed far more time to work it out and had to think about it more and there was a lot more writing required."
Section B, the dress section, required students to use a number of diagrams (including diagrams on interfacing and bias binding in dressmaking and a sketch and description of a two piece job interview outfit). "They needed a lot of diagrams, which were quite time consuming and would have been difficult for them if weren't good at art," Ms Quigley said. Section A, on nutrition and cookery, did include a question on fish that students would have welcomed, she said.
Ms Quigley described the higher level paper as "a lovely paper with plenty of scope for self expression, especially in the dress section. In the nutrition and cookery section, question 2, on protein, and question 3, on microwave cooking, were both good questions," she said though section C, on management of the home, required more thought. "All in all, a nice paper," she concluded.