LEAVING CERTIFICATE/Business Studies: Students found this year's Leaving Cert business studies exam quite taxing, but it was a welcome change from previous years, teachers said.
"It was a tiring exam and students were writing up until the last minute," the president of the Business Studies Teachers' Association, Ms Rose Mary Lynch, said. "But, particularly at higher level, it was a much better paper than last year and they were much happier coming out."
The higher level paper was more straightforward than last year, she said, but was still quite challenging.
"Students were asked to give examples from real life. The questions favoured the students who applied case studies to their learning, but it did make the paper very long."
Section One, the short questions, offered a good balance of questions and covered many parts of the course, she said. Section Two was also broad and students found they had a lot to write.
"Questions 4A and 6B in the enterprise section were very welcome in style as they asked students to make assumptions, which shows the course is applied." Question 5C kept accounting students happy, she said.
Mr Alan Cashell, skool.ie expert in Sandford Park School, also found the higher level paper a welcome departure.
"The students were very pleased with a new development where in many questions the number of points required to write a full answer were clearly indicated," he said.
Part A of the applied business question was too general, Mr Cashell said, although parts B and C were fair. In Section 3, the question on the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court was difficult, he said, but it was a fair paper.
Mr Luke Glynn, who teaches in Presentation College, Athenry, found the short questions on the higher level paper "almost easy for honours level", but some students might have been confused by the term ROI, he said. "The answer is 'return on investment', but some students might have put down Republic of Ireland given the time that's in it."
There was some overlap in questions 4 and 5 in Section C which might have put some students off doing both, but most honours students would have been comfortable with the paper.
The ordinary level paper was more challenging, Mr Glynn said.
The language used in Section Two could also have been more straightforward, he said. "For ordinary level students, you want things to be as fair as possible; having said that, there was a good choice and the questions were topical enough."
Ms Lynch also thought the language used was difficult for ordinary level. "The word 'indigenous' in the short question 13 would be hard at ordinary level and I would have preferred 'service sector' instead of 'tertiary sector' in question in Section 2."
