Relieved - that's how Mr Matt Bermingham, a physics teacher at St Colman's College in Fermoy, Co Cork, and ASTI subject representative on the NCCA course committee, described the reaction to the higher-level Leaving Cert physics paper. "It reflected the Department of Education and Science's policy of trying to make the subject more attractive for the students," he said. Teachers were "very pleased with it. The questions were straightforward," he added.
"In the past the paper tended to be too mathematical, but you could obtain 96 per cent in this exam without having to do any mathematical computations. There were plenty of descriptive questions there. "As physics teachers, we were relieved this kind of paper came out. The one difficulty students reported was that they found it long," Mr Bermingham said. The short questions in section A were easy and required very few calculations, commented Mr Gerard Nugent, who teaches physics at Youghal CBS, Co Cork.
Students were required to answer four questions in section C, he noted. Most students could have attempted three of these - numbers 9, 10 and 13 - without having to use calculations. "These were ideal questions for average students who would have difficulty with the more mathsy part of the paper," he said. The fact that the paper included a lot of descriptive questions gave students more scope.
The students disappointed with the paper had banked on certain questions coming up, Mr Nugent said. The questions were fair and gave students the chance to get good grades.
The ordinary-level paper was "a nice one", Mr Bermingham commented. "It was well illustrated with plenty of diagrams. There were one or two tricky parts to questions but that always happens. The paper was made user-friendly and for that reason we welcome it."
Yesterday's physics/chemistry higher-level paper was also the object of praise. "A nice paper with a few testing questions designed to sort out the sheep from the goats," asserted Mr Paddy Daly, who teaches physics at Rockwell College, Cashel, Co Tipperary. "There was enough for the average student not to feel too depressed."
Question 3 was easy enough, but students may not have spotted that 29 was a factor of 87. However, if students had not fully studied the refractive index, they would have been unable to do question 3(b). Questions on the ordinary-level paper were "not too difficult", but the diagram in question 5 was "less than satisfactory", he said. Questions on the chemistry section were good and students would have performed well there, he noted.
However, he concluded, "we felt that it was true to the syllabus, reflecting an appropriate level for this course."