Topical subjects feature on 'good paper'

LEAVING CERT SPANISH: TOPICAL SUBJECTS featured prominently in yesterday’s higher level Spanish Leaving Cert paper with bullfighting…

LEAVING CERT SPANISH:TOPICAL SUBJECTS featured prominently in yesterday's higher level Spanish Leaving Cert paper with bullfighting, renewable energy, and care for the elderly among the questions facing students.

“All in all it was a very good paper,” said Robbie Cronin, subject representative with the ASTI. “The topics were very good, and the short comprehensions were varied, dealing with everything from noise pollution to how to choose sunglasses.”

Mr Cronin said the written section, although challenging, was fair and student-friendly. In particular, the formal letter, which focused on bullfighting, was more student-friendly than in previous years.

The blog/long comprehension passage was challenging but fair. It dealt with Spain’s record in the renewable energy sector and featured the electric car.

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Students were also presented with an opinion piece on either “The best invention of the 20th Century” or “Silence doesn’t exist in the modern world.”

Another teacher said that, while one or two elements of the dialogue section caused difficulty, most students were able to work around this. “The aural component of the exam was very well paced,” he added.

“Overall, there was a very happy bunch of Spanish students.”

The ordinary level paper was also well received, with a variety of interesting comprehension pieces on topics including a deaf-blind woman from Ethiopia attending university in Spain, an auction of Audrey Hepburn clothes, the death of a most intelligent parrot, and a Mexican student gluing himself to his bed so he didn’t have to go back to school after summer holidays.

However, Mr Cronin said that one comprehension piece, on the dangers of cycling around Madrid, was “a little too difficult for ordinary level students”.

Mr Cronin added that he hopes to see more students choose Spanish.

“It is lagging behind where it should be, but definitely growing in popularity,” he said.

More than 3,700 students took Leaving Cert Spanish this year.