Moon landing features on Leaving Cert history while poor audio hampers Junior Cycle Spanish students

The State exams continued on Wednesday afternoon with Leaving Cert history and Junior Cycle Spanish.

It is important to remember history students will have already submitted their research project in April, worth 20%, according to Philip Irwin, subject spokesperson with the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI).

A teacher at the High School in Rathgar, Dublin 6, Mr Irwin said this year’s paper contained a good range of questions, however, some were “very challenging” given their range and the time limits of the exam.

Twenty-five years on from the Good Friday Agreement, this year’s document question was based on the previous attempt at power-sharing in the North, the Sunningdale Agreement.

“The two documents themselves that appeared were from two journalists; Robert Fisk from the Times of London and Olivia O’Leary from the Irish Times. We’d often say that journalists write the first draft of history, so in that sense, they were good documents.

“They were both eyewitness accounts of being in Belfast in May 1974 during the Ulster Workers Council strike which brought down the Sunningdale Agreement. The questions were good as well.”

After the document questions, students were asked to answer three essay-style questions across three different topics.

“This year, they are allowed through a covid concession which has continued to answer three questions from any two topics. In other words, if they saw the question suited them, they could take two from one area. That’s an advantage this year.”

In the Irish history section, a question asked students to write about how one or more of the following contributed to tensions in Ireland: the Home Rule Bill, 1912-1914; World War I; the 1918 election.

However, a question asking how well the government of Northern Ireland responded to challenges it faced during 1920 to 1945 was “a very long question to try and answer”, as was a question on how Cosgrave and Éamon de Valera handled Anglo-Irish relations between 1923-1945.

“That was challenging to get through it.”

Section three of the paper, Europe and the Wider World, included a great question on the characteristics of fascism, according to Susan Cashell, history teacher with the Institute of Education.

“Many students would have anticipated and prepared for this and been relieved," she said.

For those looking to stand out from the crowd by taking the road less travelled, there was a rewarding question on France, Ms Cashell added.

“While not appealing to everyone, if you had prepared that topic you really had a chance to shine. Those looking to answer on American history will have been well-served by racial inequality and the Moon landing.”

This year’s ordinary level history paper covered a lot of the major bases with “limited” surprises, according to Studyclix subject spokesperson Jamie Dockery, history teacher at Tyndall College, Co Carlow.

“Students will be happy to see topics such as the Sunningdale Agreement, Parnell and the Eucharistic Congress included.

“Interestingly there was a good bit of commonalities between the ordinary level and higher level exam which would have benefited students in mixed-ability history classes where both levels are taught together.

“Intriguingly, prominent women in Irish history such as Isabella Tod, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Evie Hone made an appearance at ordinary level but not in the higher level paper.”

Junior Cycle Spanish

Meanwhile, Junior Cycle Spanish was a “very accessible” paper, although poor audio quality on the listening test remained a problem again this year, and students may have been puzzled by the phrase ‘osos’.

This was the second year the common-level paper was examined.

“Overall, from what I could see, the paper was very accessible,” according to ASTI subject spokesperson David McArdle.

A teacher at De La Salle Secondary School in Dundalk, Co Louth, Mr McArdle said poor audio quality in larger exam halls again hampered the listening section of the exam, an annual issue with all language aural tests.

“I listened to the listening comprehension myself and it seemed to be very clear, but when I was talking to students afterwards who were in exam halls they found it very difficult to hear it with the echoing.

“This is an ongoing thing with all the languages over the last 10, 15 years.

“They need to look into ways of doing the listening comprehension; they are still using CDs.

“The room I was in it was very clear, it was a small room and played at a low volume but I was in contact with colleagues who were supervising in other larger centres and they found it difficult to hear the tape.

“When you raise the volume up very high on the CD it gets harder to listen. There has to be another way, I’m sure.”

The written section of this year’s paper was fine, he believed, and relatively straightforward apart from the appearance of one phrase ‘osos’ — bears.

“Students felt the word for bears in question 12, they wouldn’t have known.”

“Throughout the comprehensions on average were very straightforward,” Mr Mc Ardle added.

“Some of the students said the questions at the end were a wee bit weird, they weren’t questions they would have seen before. One particular one would have asked how did you celebrate your birthday last year.”

“It wouldn’t have been in the sample papers but they should have been able to answer it if they knew their past tense correctly.”

Like many of the Junior Cycle exams this year, a breakdown of each questions’ associated marks was not included on the paper.

Mr McArdle said: “Overall, it was a very positive paper. The only advice I can give going forward is that every question needs to be given the marks.”