Leaving Cert geography: More choice, and more challenges, than usual

Teachers gave a cautious welcome to a Leaving Cert geography paper which offered more choice, but more challenges, than usual.

Lesley Aslin, a geography teacher at the Institute of Education, said that the paper was fair and had excellent choice, but that the topics were unpredictable.

“The reappearance of topics from very recent years on the paper shows how risky it can be to predict based on previous question patterns,” said Ms Aslin.

Luke Saunders, co-founder of Studyclix.ie and a geography teacher, said that the higher-level paper offered more choice, but more challenges than usual.

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“Students would have found the physical Geography questions on today’s higher level paper challenging,” he said.

“Overall the difficulty level of questions was slightly harder than in previous years but the fact that students had more choice as a result of only having to answer three long questions would more than compensate and most well prepared students would be happy with today’s paper.”

“Unlike in previous years there was no single question that would have been seen as straightforward. Each of the three questions had at least one tricky part with fluvial landscapes, physical weathering and the effect of tectonic activity on the Irish landscape all making an appearance.”

Ms Aslin said that human interaction with surface processes appeared for the second year running in Question 3c.

“Question 2a on isostasy, made an appearance for the third year in a row. Volcanoes were expected to make an appearance on the paper due to recent events [but] did not come up.”

Ms Aslin was surprised that certain topics did not appear.

“Geography is so evident in the news at the moment and it was surprising not to see that reflected more in the paper, with topics such as climate change, the impact of Covid and recent tectonic activity not appearing,” she said.

“Education seems to have been a theme, with some nice questions on third-level education appearing in both the short questions and in question 6a.

Ms Aslin was happy with the spread of short questions, which she said were “fair and very straightforward.”

Mr Saunders said that a question on the effect of population movements on donor and receiver countries was prescient, even though the paper was drafted prior to the war in Ukraine.

“Students familiar with current affairs would have been able to apply their knowledge of migration policy adopted by the EU in relation to the movement of Ukrainian refugees,” he said.

On the ordinary level paper, Mr Saunders said that students would have welcomed the large amount of choice on today’s paper with them being required to only answer two out of a total of 12 long questions.

“Students who had worked through any past exam would have found a lot here that was familiar. Human interactions with surface processes, landform formation and drawing sketch maps all appeared and would have been very straightforward for students,” he said.

Try this one at home:

Leaving Cert geography, higher level

‘Empowering people is a way of linking economic growth with human development.’ Discuss this statement with reference to land ownership patterns and their impact on development.