Junior Cert Maths: Students who took a gamble on their Junior Cert maths topics may have come in for a bruising yesterday as a "very comprehensive" paper left little to chance. The higher paper was described as "challenging and thorough" by students of Terenure College, and their teacher, skoool.ie subject representative, Jim Healy, concurred.
"Everything on the syllabus was on the paper, with few surprises," said Mr Healy. However, there were a couple of terms and expressions that might have thrown Junior Certificate students."
The word "reciprocal", which featured in question 2 on the morning's higher paper, is seldom used in junior cycle maths anymore, he said. "When students were asked to express the reciprocal of 7/2, they may not have known to put a 1 over it." The requirement to use algebra in question 5, section C2 may have confused some students as well, said Mr Healy.
The Teachers' Union of Ireland subject representative, Alan Monnelly of Newpark Comprehensive, who described the higher paper as "searching but fair", welcomed the emphasis on the language of maths. "Students need to know the proper terminology of maths and it was good to see it used on today's paper," he said.
The ordinary level paper was similarly thorough, with one tricky expression of a square root - as 49 to the power of a half. "The simple answer, seven, may not have been obvious to Junior Cert students, who may never have seen a square root expressed in this way," said Mr Healy. "I've never seen it on the Junior Cert syllabus before."
Mr Monnelly was happy to see a good mix of maths styles on the paper. "The ordinary level paper had a good balance of abstract algebra and number operations, which gives everybody a chance to shine," he said.
Both teachers noted the large number of students who left the exam before the time was up.
"I think that many students do not tackle certain questions because they lack confidence," said Mr Monnelly. "They hear so much from parents and peers about how difficult maths is that they are knocked before they even start."
