AFTER a mixed reaction to Thursday's maths papers, yesterday's second papers elicited for more positive responses at both ordinary and higher levels.
Ms Deirdre Quin, a teacher at Park College, Galway, said her pupils were "very happy" with the higher level paper. "It was much easier than last year." She said that question 8(c) in section B might have posed a bit of a problem, particularly since the higher level maths course is so long that students may have prepared only one topic in that section. There were difficulties too with part (b) of the vector question and question 7(c).
The nature of yesterday's higher level paper did raise questions about consistency, she said and the standard expected by the Department's examiners from year to year. Mr Sean O'Brien ASTI subject representative and a teacher in CBS Secondary School Tralee, Co Kerry, described the higher level paper as "fair but challenging" and said that students regarded it as more straightforward than paper 1.
Inevitably, there were some students who encountered difficulties with the paper, especially after Thursday's long, testing paper. A number of teachers commented that students who encountered problems with individual parts of questions should remember that only a very small amount of marks may be involved in the component parts.
Mr O'Brien said the ordinary level paper was a "standard" paper and said that it was generally well received by students. Ms Quin described that paper as "an absolute gift".
Ms Bernie Chambers, a teacher the Bray Institute of Further Education, Co Wicklow, said the ordinary level paper was "fine", though there were a few dissenting voices from students. Again, question 6 proved popular with students as did question 7 on permutations, combinations and probability. "They were very happy with them," said Ms Chambers. The final part of question 3 was "a little tricky" but other than that it was very straightforward, she concluded.
Correction: Yesterday's column on the Leaving Certificate ordinary level maths paper contained a reference to "functional equations" in the comments attributed to Ms Bernie Chambers. This was an error on our part the reference should have been to "equations involving fractions".