Leaving Cert English paper one: challenging but plenty of choice

The first of this year’s Leaving Cert exams contained challenging elements, but provided enough choice for students to engage with it meaningfully, teachers have said.

“The higher level paper, which was based on the theme of ‘perspectives’, featured a nice balance between creative tasks and reflective or discursive tasks,” said Kate Barry, a teacher at Loreto Secondary School in Cork and ASTI subject representative for English. “This played to the strengths of different candidates.”

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Gillian Chute, head of English at TheTuitionCentre.ie, an online grinds company, said that the three section B questions tend to be consistently unpredictable.

“This seemed to be the case this year, where students were asked to assume the persona of a hotel manager and write an online response on the hotel website ‘in response to a disgruntled guest’s highly critical review,” Ms Chute said.

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Sue O’Sullivan Casey, Studyclix.ie subject expert and a teacher at Pobalscoil Inbhear Scèine, Kenmare, said that, overall, students would have been happy with the accessibility of English paper one.

“The three reading comprehensions centred on how perspectives can change either on a personal or societal level,” Ms O’Sullivan Casey said.

“Candidates would have been pleased with the variety of text types, which included an article on ‘underdogs’, a speech by novelist Margaret Atwood and a narrative extract from the Booker-prize winning novel, Orbital by Samantha Harvey.”

In the personal essay question, one of the more challenging options asked students to “write a personal essay in which you reflect on some of the factors that would influence your voting intentions in future elections.”

Ms Barry said that she hoped the State Examinations Commission would give clear instructions to examiners that students should be assessed here on their writing, and not on their political opinions, which any individual examiner may or may not agree with.

She said, however, that any of the other six essays offered a good choice.

Ms Chute said that the essay genres were predictable.

“There was one discursive essay, one speech, one article, two personal essays and two short stories,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan Casey said that students would have favoured the essay on disappointments which allowed for scope to demonstrate their reflective writing skills.

“Both short stories on offer allowed students to explore character in their narrative writing and gave candidates freedom to develop plots in a number of directions,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms Chute said that the speech titled ‘Truth has become a valueless currency in today’s world’ would have provided students with ample material to explore such as AI, social media and fake news.

Ordinary level

At ordinary level, Ms O’Sullivan Casey said that the paper was clear and straightforward, asking students to demonstrate their understanding of language and their writing skills.

“Candidates sitting the Ordinary Level paper would have been pleased with the

accessibility of the three texts to choose from,” she said.

“An article, narrative extract and a series of quotes, lyrics and images were all on offer and the Question As were easy to navigate and manage.

“The Question B writing tasks were familiar to those candidates who had diligently prepared. A pamphlet, letter and interview were available to choose from and the

tasks were clear in their requirements.

“The composition titles that appeared featured a good selection of choice for these candidates,” Ms O’Sullivan Casey concluded.

Try this one:

Leaving Cert English (higher level), section one, Q3 (b)

You are a contributor to a podcast entitled, Eyes Wide Open, where you reflect on how your perspective on a significant issue changed as a result of an experience or an encounter.

Write your reflection for the podcast in which you: identify the issue and explain your previous attitude towards it, describe the experience or encounter that changed your perspective, and consider some of the life lessons that you and others can learn from this reflection.