DAY ONE DOWN: What came up for Tipp students in the first Leaving Cert exam?

Day one of the Leaving and Junior Certificate Exams is now done and dusted and students can take some relief in knowing that at least one day is now out of the way.

For those sitting the Leaving Cert exams, today's timetable saw all students sit English Paper 1 with an additional group sitting for the Home Economics exam.

English Paper 1 is always the first one down of the two English papers. Out of the two papers, paper one technically has less to prepare for. There is no prepared texts like in Paper 2 and instead the test is divided into two parts, comprehending and composition, with excerpts from three texts provided on the page across the two parts.

The theme of these texts in the higher level paper was 'Connections'. The first text an edited article from The Irish Times, by Fintan O’Toole entitled, ‘We have taken flight from our deep link with birds', it was published in January 2023. The second was an extract from the acclaimed novel 'The Bee Sting' by Irish author Paul Murray and the third text was an edited article from the travel section of the Financial Times by Monisha Rajesh, journalist and travel writer, entitled To Istanbul by Train. It was published in March 2023.

Candidates will have had to choose between a series of questions that followed each of the texts. 

Those that said the Ordinary Level version of the paper will have faced a similar structure but with the theme "Challenges" instead. 

The provided texts on the Ordinary Level paper included: extract from the novel, “How to Build a Boat” by Elaine Feeney, a text based on an article by Ian O’Riordan which appeared in The Irish Times profiling Irish sprinter Rhasidat Adeleke and an unauthored text based on a series of quotations about challenges and how we face or deal with them.

In a Leaving Cert "reaction video" published online, Clodagh Havel, English teacher at The Institute of Education, said "Elements of the paper may have startled the anxious student" but that "most students will have had lots of room to explore and expand on questions right up to the bell."

Tomorrow, Thursday June 7, will see Leaving Cert students sit English Paper 2 as well as Engineering for those that study this subject.