THE real life approach adopted in yesterday's Leaving Cert business organisation exam was welcomed by teachers. The papers continued the trend away from rote learning to a real-life approach, said Mr Joseph Gallagher, TUI subject representative and a teacher in Firhouse Community College, Tallaght, Co Dublin. This was exemplified by the first three questions in the higher-level paper.
Question 1, the case study, which dealt with a new business, was student-friendly and in keeping with the increasing importance of enterprise, he said. Questions 2 and 3 were on the general theme of enterprise and they showed the changing emphasis of the syllabus with its increasingly applied nature.
Many of the expected topics, such as management, industrial relations, marketing and taxation, came up, said Mr Gallagher. But, students would need to produce very good answers to achieve high grades.
Question 4 on the higher-level paper, which was concerned with management and industrial relations, was very straightforward, he said. Students in Firhouse Community College were very pleased with questions 5 to 9, according to Mr Gallagher. They singled out question 7 - which asked for an explanation of a variety of business terms - as being particularly nice.
Ms Mary O'Sullivan, a representative of the Business Studies Teachers' Association of Ireland, said that the higher-level paper was straightforward. Parts of some of the questions were testing but, in general, it was a reasonable paper for the well-prepared student. "It was a paper requiring the application of knowledge rather than the regurgitation of knowledge she said. She praised the layout which was easy to read.
The case study was straight-forward as was question 2, although students would have needed to read part (b) carefully, said Ms O'Sullivan. "Part (c) of question 3 which dealt with the single currency was strongly tipped and of direct benefit to students doing economics."
Question 4, on management and industrial relation, demanded a textbook answer while question 5 was straightforward although the section on local authority rates may have tripped up some students. Questions 6, 7 and 9 were fine but question 8 was somewhat unusual in that it asked students to draft a memo and to write a formal letter, she added.
Ms O'Sullivan, who teaches in Scoil Mhuire gan Smal, Blarney, Co Cork, said that, overall, the ordinary-level paper was also a reasonable paper. Question 4(b) was difficult for the ordinary-level student and had a bias towards economics students, she noted.
Question 5(a), which asked how an employer might encourage good industrial relations in a business enterprise, was not specific enough for the ordinary-level student while the terms in question 7 were quite difficult for the level of student.
Mr Gallagher said that the questions on the ordinary-level paper were straightforward with a reasonable choice. Students in his school found it very fair but they had some reservations about questions 1 and 3, the calculation questions, which most of them avoided.