Mostly fair, apart from inclusion of little-used 'reciprocal'

FAIR, but challenging in parts -- that was a teacher's verdict on the Junior Certificate Maths Higher Level Paper 1 yesterday.

Elaine Devlin of the ASTI and De La Salle College, Dundalk, Co Louth, took issue with question 3, where candidates were asked to 'write the reciprocal' of a number.

She said while 'reciprocal', in a maths context, was on the course, it was one of those words that had almost slipped from usage and hadn't come up on the paper for years.

'If you knew what it meant, it was easy but it is not used in maths any more,' she said.

She also thought that the (a) parts of two questions were a little confusing, particularly when these are supposed to settle the candidates. "In question 5, the (a) was too difficult and in question 6, the (a) was challenging". She said that while question 6 was not a bad question, she felt the presentation was poor.

Students are usually asked to draw one graph, and then another and then use the information in part (c). The way the question was presented this year, students may not have recognised that they were supposed to draw two graphs. 'A competent student would have no difficulty doing it, but weaker students struggling to stay in higher level, at D-level, may have had a problem,' she said.

Christina Kennedy of the ASTI and Seamount College, Kinvara, Co Galway, said the ordinary level paper was 'fine, with little cause for worry'.

- Katherine Donnelly

Irish Independent