The Irish Times - Wednesday, June 13, 2012

LOUISE HOLDEN

LEAVING CERT BIOLOGY HIGHER AND ORDINARY LEVEL:AN EXOTIC question on ecology came as a surprise to Leaving Cert biology students yesterday in what was otherwise regarded as a lovely higher paper.

More than 30,000 students took biology at higher and ordinary level yesterday and the response was very positive.

My students were quite happy with this paper, said Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland subject representative Ciara OShea. There was plenty of choice in the long question section. The experiment section demanded a great depth of knowledge but the students seemed able to handle it. They needed to know seven different experiments to answer just one question in this section.

A graph question in section 12 also demanded a bit of thought, teachers commented. Overall, however, the questions were well-scaffolded, leading students to check their answers as they went along, said Teachers Union of Ireland subject representative Margaret ONeill.

Every aspect of the syllabus was covered, said teachers, and the biology course is famous for its breadth.

Even the brain and nervous system came up, and this is a topic that teachers are stretched to get to within the teaching cycle, said Ms ONeill. Every element of the syllabus was examined, as usual.

Biology is the most popular elective subject on the Leaving Cert curriculum after French. Despite annual complaints about the amount of material that students and teachers have to cover, numbers taking the subject remain high. More than twice as many girls take biology as boys.

The higher paper featured flowering plant reproduction, genetic engineering and the function of motor neurons in the brain. A question on the introduction of exotic species to an ecosystem was considered unusual. The ecology question was a little difficult and might have thrown a few students, said Ms ONeill from Gorey Community School in Wexford.

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A 'lovely' paper with an exotic surprise