THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN has now made its way onto exam papers for Leaving Certificate students with a number of the papers so far including questions that are related to the recession.
Last week, students sitting the Home Economics paper were asked to analyse the households budgets for four families on the dole.
Today, the higher level Irish Paper 1 included an essay choice on Poverty in Ireland, or An Bochtanas in Éirinn.
The higher level Maths Paper 2 also featured a question related to the downturn, with students given census data from 2006 to 2011, showing that our population of young people is growing rapidly, as well as our unemployment rate.
Students were then asked if they agreed with the statement that “the changes reflected in the data from 2006 to 2011 make it more difficult to balance the government’s income and expenditure”.
Luke Saunders, teacher and founder of Studyclix.ie said today that students sitting today’s papers will be “left in little doubt that we are in recessionary times”.
This year’s exams are certainly of their time; we’ve had Seamus Heaney on both English papers, dole budgeting on Home Economics and now “poverty in Ireland” as an essay title on today’s Irish exam, I can only imagine the doom and gloom the Economics paper must hold!
Over all today, students were pretty satisfied with the papers, though a survey afterwards found just 26 per cent of students think Irish should be a mandatory subject. There was a contrast between the reaction to last week’s difficult higher level Maths Paper 1, with students sitting the second maths paper describing it as either “fair” or “easy”.
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