Yesterday's Leaving Cert Greek exam lived up to its reputation: it was tough. Indeed, the higher paper was far more difficult than the previous day's Latin paper, according to Mr Daniel O'Connor, head of classics at John Scottus School, Ballsbridge, Dublin. And the ordinary paper was more akin to a higher paper.
Greek is tough, challenging and one of the least popular subjects on the curriculum. Only a handful of schools still offer the language as a Leaving Cert option. In the past, Greek played a central role in education - you simply weren't truly educated unless you had a knowledge of Greek. Even today, teachers of Greek argue that it is one of the most useful subjects around. Yesterday, however, only 11 students sat the exam.
On the higher-level paper, question 1's comprehension piece was extremely difficult, said Mr O'Connor. Even very good higher-level students would have had problems with it. "It was hard to find the answers to the questions in the text," he said. "You would have to know your Greek extremely well to answer."
Question 2 - the unseen translations - were equally difficult. Students would have found the texts by Xenephon, Herodotus, Euripides and Homer arduous. The vocabulary translations certainly helped, but far fewer words were provided than on the Latin paper.
Question 3, however, which offered a choice between translation pieces by Herodotus and Euripides, was straightforward enough. Diligent students with a good knowledge of the text and the authors could achieve nearly full marks on this one, Mr O'Connor observed.
Question 4, which covered history, art and architecture was similarly fair. The photographs were adequately reproduced and hence reasonably clear.
There was nothing ordinary about the ordinary-level paper, Mr O'Connor stressed. "Ordinary-level students would have found it far too difficult," he said. This, he said, must reflect the fact that so few people took Greek and those who sat the ordinary-level exam were usually students who had cold feet about the higher-level paper.
