LEAVING CERT MATHS PAPER 1 HIGHER LEVEL:IT WAS a good end to the week for the students who opted for the higher-level exam, with a paper that was well received all round.

It may not have started well for some however, with examiners throwing something of a curveball in the very first question.

Students are supposed to answer six questions out of eight on the paper and two of those questions involve sequence and series. “They included sequences in question one,” said Asti representative Elaine Devlin, a teacher in De La Salle College, Dundalk. “I think that was unfair. You either give students a real choice or you take the choice away. You don’t pretend to give a choice.”

“I’d say about 40 per cent of students would have been thrown by that,” agreed John Brennan of the Ballinteer Institute. “It may not have been worth very many marks but I don’t think it’s fair to do that in the first question.”

The rest of the paper was reasonably straightforward, particularly the algebra questions, according to Aidan Roantree of the Institute of Education. “Question four was absolutely gorgeous,” Mr Brennan said.

“I was speaking to some of my students and they mentioned that they found some of the questions so straightforward, they went back to check that there wasn’t some snag they had missed,” said TUI representative Bríd Griffin.

Question 3 asked students to apply a particular method to solving a question – something that turned up in the ordinary level paper as well. “I just think it works against the principle that students must apply their own knowledge to the questions,” Ms Griffin said.

A couple of tricky part (c)s turned up, but nothing appeared to throw students too much, according to teachers. “In the final part of question 8 (c), a rarely used Trigonometric identity was required,” Mr Roantree said.

Overall, however few students would have regretted the decision to take the higher-level paper. “My students were very happy going home which is a good thing to see,” Ms Griffin said.