Over three-quarters of candidates taking Junior Cert higher maths achieved As, Bs or Cs, according to data from the State Examinations Commission.
The results, released today, show an improvement in the subject at higher level. However, ordinary level maths results disimproved on 2014.
More than 60,000 students are due to get their Junior Cert results, with the overall numbers sitting the exam up 1.2 per cent on last year.
Results in the 26 subjects may be obtained online after 4pm or directly from schools.
The standard for students who took foundation level maths remained the same, at about 80 per cent achieving As, Bs or Cs.
Ordinary level maths results were lower than 2014, with just below 72 per cent getting one of the three grades, compared with almost 75 per cent in 2014, though there was a slight improvement on 2015.
Failing ordinary maths
The number who failed ordinary maths was up, from 4.6 per cent to just over 6 per cent.
When students sat the exams in June teachers had described the higher paper as “the most challenging one in recent years”. The ordinary level paper was described as “quite long”, “quite technical” and requiring “a lot of interpretation and analytical skills”.
Results in ordinary level English were down for the third year running, with just under 77 per cent of students achieving As, Bs and Cs compared to more than 79 per cent in 2014.
The same was true of ordinary level geography; 76 per cent of students achieved As, Bs and Cs, compared to 78 per cent in 2014, and 79 per cent in 2015.
In Irish there were improvements in grades at both ordinary and higher levels.
Dominant language
French continued to be the dominant foreign language of choice with 31,600 students sitting it. However, numbers were down; almost 34,000 sat the exam in 2014. And there was an increase in students taking German, up from almost 10,470 in 2014 to more than 11,800. There was also an increase in students taking Spanish and Italian. Grades improved in all four languages.
The subject that attracted the most higher A grades was Latin, with a third of the 269 students attaining the grade. Almost 30 per cent of those taking ancient Greek got As.
Among the core subjects, CSPE, with 21 per cent, and history, with more than 16 per cent, produced the highest volume of As. Geography and environmental and social studies proved the most difficult to achieve an A in.
The commission said results could be appealed up to 5pm on Friday, September 30th, at a cost of €32 per subject.
