The higher-level physical education (PE) paper was fair and had lots of choice and popular topics, although students were pushed for time with the longer questions.
Brian Gregan, a PE teacher at the Institute of Education, said that there was more choice than in previous years.
“Entering into this exam, students will have already completed two projects and have 50 per cent of their grade locked in,” he said.
“This final push will see students racing through some sections only to be faced with more daunting long answers that will keep them writing until the final second.”
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In section A, which focuses on short questions, Mr Gregan said that there was a great range of ideas but Students with a slight emphasis on topic five (promoting physical activity).
“While not always a popular topic, the questions were clear and to the point meaning that few will struggle to have something to say,” said Mr Gregan.
“Topic five synthesises well with topic seven, inclusivity which was a prescribed topic for this paper, so everyone should be prepared for these ideas.
“Questions on coaching will be popular with those who are up to speed on their principles of training, and the ever-popular topic of doping appeared twice. Tricker topics like vectors and scalers were absent or while others like stereotyping were avoidable through lots of internal choice.”
However, Mr Gregan said that section B’s compulsory case study will have ground some student momentum to a halt.
“The text was denser, and students needed to pay attention to every aspect of the pages to ensure they had the correct material,” he said.
“You couldn’t simply skim the text on move on - the details really mattered. As a result, some will feel that time ebbed away in this section. Overall, the case study on throwing was a good mixture of Topics one, two, five and six – all of which will be familiar but the fact there was little choice meant that they really needed to know their stuff. Skipping sections wasn’t an option.”
Section C’s long questions reiterated the previous two sections’ relationship in miniature: a swift start that loses speed in longer essay questions, said Mr Gregan.
“PE isn’t like other subjects that are heavily essay based, but long questions do demand the students cover a good amount of material in order to safeguard against any ambiguity in the marking scheme. In terms of the material, there was nothing unexpected here: questions on components of fitness and principles of training would all have been banker topics heading into the exam.”
Mr Gregan said that, while all the questions were viable, question 15 was a great balance of principles of training, ethics and coaching that will draw many people in.
“This was a fair paper, but students will find themselves in a sprint to the finish to fill everything in,” he concluded.
