Leaving Certificate German students had to wade through long but manageable papers yesterday afternoon. There was a lot of reading involved in the written production questions as well as the comprehensions.
ASTI subject representative Ms Eleanor Jones described the higher-level paper as "very fair. My students at St Angela's, Waterford, were delighted, although some were caught for time".
The language in the first comprehension - a mother deciding to leave her home - was accessible but there was a twist in the story in that the husband was also planning to leave. Those who didn't realise this, may have had problems with question 4(b), said Ms Jones. The other questions were relatively easy and she commended the new tabular format of question 3.
The second comprehension, on street art, should not have posed any problems. The vocabulary exercises and the synonyms were manageable although some students may have had problems with immerzu/standig. The grammar was fine, she added. The written production section was also very manageable. Students would have been familiar with the vocabulary for the Foto as they would covered generational issues for the oral, said Ms Jones.
Ordinary and higher-level students listen to the same tape for the aural but answer different questions. There were no problems with the tape and the questions at both levels, she said.
Mr Helmut Sundermann, a teacher in St Kilian's Deutsche Schule, Clonskeagh, Dublin, said the literary text on the higher-level paper was similar to texts used in previous years. St Kilian's caters for a mixture of native and non-native German speakers and this text would have taken some time to read even for native speakers, he said.
The questions auf Deutsch were "challenging but manageable" but some students may have had problems with question 1(a) which asked "Wo ist die Frau am Anfang der Geschichte? Woher wissen Sie das?
In the Auberung Zum Thema (Text 1) the instructions in question (a) were complex. Students had to complete two tasks where the first task would have sufficed, Mr Sundermann added.
The written tasks were fine, said Mr Sundermann. There was a welcome element of cultural awareness in the letter from an exchange student while the alternative, the photo, referred to generational issues.
At ordinary-level the first text was topical in that it pertained to racism. This was "challenging but not impossible".