Education

Leaving Cert English paper 1: ‘Accessible’ paper with universal themes

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting appears in exam which gave students lots of room to expand in their answers

Leaving cert students (from left) Sarah Daly, Kelsey Scully and Sophie Williams after English paper one at Trinity Comprehensive School, Ballymun, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Peter McGuire
Wed Jun 5 2024 - 16:23

The first of this year’s Leaving Cert exams was accessible and included universal themes, with English paper one students guided through the paper by specific prompts, teachers have said.

Kate Barry, a teacher at Loreto Secondary School in Cork, said the higher level paper gave students a lot of direction, compared to previous years.

“The question A comprehensions provided direction around marks and the amount of points they should give for each question,” said Barry, a subject representative with the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI).

Clodagh Havel, an English teacher at the Institute of Education, said some of these prompts were more specific than expected, but that students would have lots of room to explore and expand in their answers.

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The paper focused on the theme of connections, and, overall, students would have been very satisfied with its accessibility, said Laura Daly, a teacher at St Benildus College in Dublin and subject expert with Studyclix.

This year’s paper gave students a choice of three comprehension texts.

They included an article by Irish Times journalist Fintan O’Toole, published in January 2023, on how an appreciation of the natural world can also help build connections between people; an extract from The Bee Sting, the Booker Prize nominated novel by Irish author Paul Murray; and an article from Financial Times journalist Monisha Rajesh on how travel can help us to build connections.

“English paper one sets the mood for the exams,” Ms Havel said. “The paper’s theme ‘connections’ was universal enough to allow students to draw in a wide variety of experiences while also sufficiently rooted in their world to give them something that they could really get their teeth into.”

“Each text had something in which students would likely be able to see themselves. “Tensions between teenagers and parents will be shared by all, even if the specific topic of tattoos wasn’t.

“Some students may even have been familiar with Text 2: The Bee Sting, which was fresh off the presses and adorned every bookstore window.

“Yet even for those who never experienced the text directly will find something universal and relatable: the dream of far away places. Young people, so connected with the wider world and on the cusp of a new phase of their lives will find something resonant here.”

Ms Daly, however, said that some of the part B questions were underwhelming.

“This was due to their lack of creativity,” she said. “Students had the option of composing a series of diary entries, a style reminiscent of more traditional examinations, and seen commonly at Junior Cycle level. Additionally, the paper included a dialogue and a proposal for a Tidy Towns committee.

“Notably absent were contemporary formats like blogs or podcasts, which could have provided a modern touch. Nevertheless, the absence of novel or excessively demanding tasks in this section would likely have been met with approval by the students.”

As for the essay questions, Ms Barry said some of the students may have been thrown by a question asking them to write a dialogue, but that they had other choices.

Ms Daly, meanwhile, said that the compositions revisited themes from previous papers, which would have advantaged those who used past papers.

On the ordinary level paper, Ms Daly said that it focused on the theme of challenges and was well within student capabilities.

“It offered students a variety of style of reading comprehensions to appeal a variety of learners,” she said.

“Text three in particular, which had minimal writing and utilised images as well, would have appealed to many.”

Ms Barry welcomed the inclusion of an extract from How to Build a Boat, the Booker-prize longlisted novel by Irish author Elaine Feeney.

“There was also a question in the essays asking the candidates to write a magazine article about the challenges of adapting to a new country, and that would have been welcome as many who are new to Ireland would have been able to write from personal experience,” Ms Barry said.

Try this one at home:

English, paper one, higher level

In [The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray, the character] Cass describes people who, “would stare at her a moment as if trying to solve a puzzle.” Write a personal essay in which you reflect on some of the aspects of life you find puzzling.

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