James Cox
Leaving certificate students sat the second paper of their maths exam today and the experts have said the higher level paper was more difficult than the first, while the ordinary level paper included plenty of choice.
Maths teacher Alan Boal, of Royal and Prior Comprehensive School in Raphoe, Co Donegal, described it as “overall a fair and solid paper”.
Mr Boal added: “Today’s Maths paper two was definitely more tasking than paper one. A thorough competency of probability and statistics was required especially as they made up half of the long questions. Students confident with these topics will have enjoyed the long questions and the opening question 1.
“Trigonometry made up the remaining half of the long questions with the students favourite of trigonometric graphs thrown in for good measure! The line and circle questions seemed fair and if students remained calm should have made good attempts at working out the more difficult latter parts of the questions.”
Mr Boal said the ordinary level paper was fair two, with plenty of choice for students.
“The long questions covered all aspects of the course with a question on statistics, Trigonometry, area and volume and coordinate geometry. Overall, just as with the higher level, it was a fair paper. There were plenty of choices for the students with no one topic dominating the paper. Students could have afforded to leave topics out with most questions being restricted to a single topic.”
