Students in today’s Leaving Cert higher level physics exam faced challenges such as “wordy” questions and mathematical twists.
Pat Doyle, physics teacher at the Institute of Education, said the paper required students to think beyond the modes of questions from previous years and “really bring their understanding of physics to these questions”.
“Anyone hoping to have an autopiloted replay of the previous papers will be shocked,” he said.
“Perhaps the more novel elements of this paper will be most challenging for those who struggle with the subject as they would need to take on extra interpretative work in the pressurised environment of the exam.”
Leaving Cert accounting: A very fair paper - but time was a real issue for some students
Leaving Cert physics: ‘Anyone hoping for a replay of past papers will have been shocked’
Leaving Cert chemistry: No room for waffle as paper gets straight to the point
Leaving Cert Spanish: A ‘good’ paper with lots of choice, despite some tricky moments
Leaving Cert physics, higher level:
John Conneely, physics teacher at St Flannan’s College, Co Claire and Asti representative, was that overall there was a good choice and the paper “maintains the tradition of accessible and challenging questions”.
Section A
Mr Conneely said that while there was good choice in Section A, question two may have posed challenges for students.
In a question on the principle of conservation of momentum, students were asked about two trolleys which had a light compressed spring between them.
When the spring was released, both trolleys moved with a constant velocity in opposite directions.
“This unfamiliar experimental set up will likely cause difficulties for many students,” he said.
Mr Doyle said the question “mimics the forces in a nuclear reaction in a clever way, but it will have thrown students who might have expected to autopilot through the opening pages of the exam.”
Section B
Mr Conneely sad there was a mix of accessible and challenging questions in section B.
Question six is traditionally very popular as it is an assortment of short questions.
But Mr Doyle said this year’s class will have found themselves moving more slowly through this question as the scale of the questions has shifted.
“The questions were expressed in a longer manner that needed to be parsed out before they could get to the examined concepts,” he said.
“Even then, some of the concepts examined were atypical for this section, most notably the speed of a galaxy would not have been anticipated as a short question which, while a nice question, would require a great deal more work to get all the marks.
“This novelty was balanced with an array of much more conventional questions. Question seven on planets, question eight on light diffraction and question nine on photoelectric effect and x- rays all fell within expectations and examples from previous years,”Mr Doyle ” aid.
Question 10 on heat and temperature reinjected some twists back into the exam, he said, as the style of question on definition of temperature would not have been seen by students reviewing any recent papers.
“Those who ensured that they focused on the syllabus as a key guiding tool will know the material, but if you were looking for a repeat of previous exams this would have been a surprise,” he said.
For many, question eleven on electricity will already have been unpopular even before the exam started as the students are not often drawn to the topic.
“This question is unlikely to convert them or increase the popularity of the topic as it was quite tricky. What will have been appealing was question 12 on particle physics with a special appearance of Ireland’s only Nobel Prize winner for physics, Ernest Walton,” he said.
Question 13 was a comprehension style question on electromagnetism. Mr Doyle said neither the topic nor the style tends to appeal to students, but for those who attempted it ill be pleased with a “rather nice question behind the text”.
Question 14 is a popular choice as it contains some internal choice, with sections that ranged from the traditional to the obscure.
Mr Doyle said the second section involved a tricky mathematical twist that skirted the edges of the syllabus.
“The third option demanded students read it very carefully to ensure that they approached the calculations correctly. Thankfully the paper closes with something more traditional and so students will have had the chance to conclude their time with the paper on more familiar territory,” he said.
Mr Conneely added that while the physics paper contained a good choice of questions, it contrasted with “very limited choice” in the sample Leaving Cert physics exam papers for the new physics syllabus due to be introduced in schools September 2025.
Leaving Cert physics ordinary level:
Try this one at home:
Leaving Cert physics, higher level, question 6 (b):
A car is driving up a hill, which has a constant steep incline to the horizontal. It travels at a constant speed against a constant frictional force. Draw a labelled vector diagram to show the forces acting on the car.
