LEAVING CERT CONSTRUCTION STUDIES HIGHER AND ORDINARY:STUDENTS WERE met with an "intelligent, topical, forward-looking" exam in Leaving Cert construction studies yesterday afternoon, according to lecturer, teacher and textbook author Trevor Hickey.
Some 9,000 students sat the construction studies exams yesterday. The numbers are down by about 400 on two years ago but it is still among the more popular of the minority subjects.
“The higher-level paper candidates had a real opportunity to engage in realistic problem-solving,” said Mr Hickey.
“For example, question three required students to demonstrate how they would redesign and upgrade a 30-year-old bungalow to make it more energy efficient and to optimise solar gain.”
Over recent years construction studies papers have examined various aspects of sustainable technologies. This year was no exception, with what would normally be classed as the “traditional” plumbing question updated to include a wood-burning stove and a solar panel, according to Mr Hickey. “Passive design, airtightness and mechanical ventilation heat recovery all featured again this year.”
The exam was not a walkover and some would have been thrown by a “particularly difficult” question five this year, Mr Hickey said.
Question five is normally very popular and this year “it required students to use both resistivity values and conductivity values, where conductivity values would be the usual values used in industry. The vast majority of students attempt this question every year, so this will have been disappointing to many.”
At ordinary level, a similar effort was made to keep the exam relevant to students. Insulation, plumbing for a boiler heated by a wood-burning stove and rainwater storage were topics that came up.