The surprises on yesterday's higher level geography paper were few and far between, according to Leaving Certificate students at Castleknock College in Dublin.
The paper was generally well received, with questions on soil, volcanoes and India all making an appearance.
Gavin Leneghan from Dunshaughlin in Co Meath hopes to continue studying geography when he leaves school. “Overall it was an easy enough paper, I was delighted with it. The regional section was a bit of a shock, to be honest with you – a sub-continental region came up twice . . . the rest of the paper was fine.”
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Geography is also one of Owen Power’s favourite subjects and he’s hoping to maintain or improve upon the B1 grade he got in the mock exam. “It’s one of my better subjects,” he said. Power, who is from Lucan, said he was “ very happy that a question on soil and vegetation came up” in the biome section.
Stephen Quinlan from Ratoath in Co Meath is finding the recent spell of good weather particularly difficult as he recently bought a convertible that will remain parked in the garage until he finishes the exams. “It’s a Mazda MX5 . . . I worked and saved up last summer [for it]”. As for the geography paper, it was “better than expected”.
Quinlan said: “The biome question was about characteristics, which was what I was hoping would come up, the regional geography questions were easy – there was a lot to do with volcanoes and earthquakes.”
He added that their teacher Mr Smith had prepared the class well for the exam.
David McMurrough, from Navan Road in Dublin, felt the paper went well overall. “The regional question threw me off a bit, but it wasn’t too bad.”
Chan Bin-kim is originally from South Korea but has been living in Castleknock for the past three years. He had studied a lot for the paper and “expected it to be a little bit easier”.
Aaron McNally also lives in Castleknock and was “a bit shocked” no question relating to animals came up in the biome section, but was “pretty happy” with the paper apart from that.
The students had analysed erosion at Glencree river in Wicklow for their field study, which is worth 20 per cent of their overall grade.
To celebrate the end of the exams, there are a number of group holidays planned – Magaluf and Zakynthos seem to be the most popular destinations.
