Leaving Cert Maths Higher Level expert exam tips from Louise Boylan
Study Hub 2025 guest Louise Boylan from Dublin's Institute of Education has some great advice and tips for students sitting Leaving Cert Higher Level Maths.
With over 20 years of experience teaching Maths, Applied Maths and Physics, textbook author Louise consults on the content of Mock Examination papers for students at both Leaving and Junior Certificate Level.
Press play on the images below to watch her tell Study Hub host Maura Fay what to do (and not to do!) when it comes to Paper 1 and Paper 2.
For Paper 1 Louise says: "You can leave tougher questions to the end if you need to. You will get marks at the early parts of the questions so don't get in a tizzy." Press play on the image above for all her expert help.
For Paper 2 Louise looks at some of the very common topics - Trigonometry, Probability, The Normal Curve. Make sure to know your 3 Proofs! Press play on the image above to watch now.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
7 days ago
- Irish Times
Leaving Cert Mandarin Chinese: ‘A harder paper than previous years'
Today's Leaving Cert Mandarin Chinese exam was 'a harder paper than previous years' with more advanced vocabulary and language sklls. Yun Wu, Chinese teacher at The Institute of Education, said the goal of curriculum is to train students how to use the language in the real world. 'This paper reflected that more than previous years but as a result the amount of challenge posed by the paper increased also,' she sad. 'Students needed to have a broader sense of intercultural context, a more advanced vocabulary, and a greater awareness of the applications of the language in various contexts.' READ MORE Ms Yun said this will be welcomed by those who had already adopted this approach to covering the material but is also a clear sign to all that this is a trend for future papers. Comprehension The comprehension pieces of Section A were approachable, she said but the questions needed much more understanding and context to answer. 'Previous papers had 'true or false' questions but these were gone and replaced with questions that students couldn't just guess,' she said. 'However, many of the texts were simple and straightforward (eg a nursery rhyme on the seasons), so students should not have struggled here.' While previous papers might have focused on traditional Chinese culture through food and festivals, this paper was very modern in its topics. For example, the true cultural connection to 'night market' might have been lost on students less familiar with the life in modern China. 'This is also found in the broadening on the necessary vocabulary away from the basic names for objects in a way the reflects the energetic combination of parts in the Chinese language,' she said. 'The level of language skill necessary is definitely not what is typical for students only taking up the language in senior cycle. This exam was less focused on the theoretical elements of the language than practical analytic skills of the speaker.' Writing questions This increase in challenge is clearest in Section B's writing questions, said Ms Yun. 'Normally students would write one short essay and a more practical piece. However, the standard short essay didn't appear, and nearly all the tasks were practical in their nature,' she said. 'Students who had memorised essays on themes like family or hobbies would not have had the chance to use that here. Instead, the emphasis was clearly on using the language to reflect real personal experiences.' Students who had practised lots of different scenarios and styles will have been broadly happy with the options: thank you notes, invitations, information requests, etc. Question five offered useful tips on which style to use but question six was much 'more subtle'. All three prompts required the email layout but did not directly say that – students would need to know from context. As a result, students who rushed their reading of the question or wanted to write a short essay will lose marks. Aural The aural's questions and contents weren't particularly difficult with standard questions around food, times and locations. The final sections focused on the theme of travel through taxi and travelogues. However, the speed of the delivery was noticeably quicker than before. 'While not as fast as native speakers, it is still quick by the standards of students who are learning the language and so will be a challenge for some,' Ms Yun said. Overall, she sad both aspects of the exam focused on real life scenarios and a contemporary context, but the challenge will be to have the broad cultural understanding to pick up on the nuances.
Irish Times
13-06-2025
- Irish Times
Leaving Cert German: a demanding exam which pushed students to ‘think outside the box'
Students were forced to 'think outside the box' for a Leaving Cert German exam at higher level which contained some steep linguistic challenges. The exam started well, says Orla Ní Shúilleabháin, German teacher at The Institute of Education. The first comprehension on the rise of a 15 year old gaming star was 'accessible with straightforward questions'. [ Classroom to college: our essential Leaving Cert guide for parents, guardians and students ] 'It was an enjoyable story with some humour and some students will relate to the final question's theme of periods of change,' she says. READ MORE 'However the grammatical tasks based off this text were notably harder than previous years as students were asked on labelling tenses and adjectival endings. While there is choice in this section, neither would lie within the comfort zone of the average student and weaker students will find themselves challenged.' Leaving Cert German, higher level Second comprehension The second comprehension was on a much more 'alien' than students might expect, she says: life as a research assistant in the Antarctic. 'This was tougher as the vocabulary was dense and very specific to this scenario,' Ní Shúilleabháin says. 'This then has the knock-on effect for the opinion pieces that followed as one option asked students to see themselves within such extreme circumstances.' While some of the necessary vocabulary could be plucked from the text, students may have struggled to adapt on the spot. 'The piece on diaries was much nicer and will be more popular with students but again demanded them to be inventive,' she says. Students would likely have the requisite vocabulary to discuss the value of a diary in modern life, she says, but would need to take the time to arrange their thoughts creatively in order to convey this effectively – something that is easier said than done during a stressful, time-tight exam. Schriftliche Produktion The final Schriftliche Produktion was 'definitely challenging', she says. The first option of the letter to the German friend had manageable tasks but peculiar framing devices. 'The only thing that really made these prompts cohere was the underlying linguistic challenge as the topics ranged from 'breaking' in the Olympics to a morning techno club and on to automated shops,' she says. 'The odds of any of these being part of a student's prepared work are low and while they should have been able to adapt, they really needed to draw excerpts from disparate areas of their vocabulary.' The other option focused on the elderly and modern living conditions. Some students may have prepared pieces on voluntary work or the housing crisis and so will be in relatively familiar territory, says Ní Shúilleabháin but again this needed to be applied creatively. Aural The aural was nice and accessible to all levels, she says, and used broad and general vocabulary delivered at a comfortable pace. The first topic was BrotZeit a volunteer organisation providing breakfasts to underprivileged children – promotes community and integration. Section 2, the note, tasked them with finding language expressing happiness, and they would have 'found loads of options,' says Ní Shúilleabháin. Section 3 had the 'quirky' topic of a clothes exchange party and a typically interesting angle of the topic of sustainability. Section 4's news items covered a range of accessible topics with the occasional challenge mixed in. 'This paper will certainly push students to think outside of the box more than they may have anticipated based on previous years,' concludes Ní Shúilleabháin. 'While some of the questions may have been standard or straightforward, the linguistic challenges posed by novel topics make for a very demanding exam, particularly for the weaker students.' Leaving Cert German, ordinary level Try this one at home: Leaving Cert German, higher level, page 19 -Answer any of the five bullet points which related to the photograph:
Irish Times
09-06-2025
- Irish Times
Leaving Cert maths paper 2: Students seeking H1s or H2s find paper particularly challenging
Higher-level maths students who were anxious about their performance in paper one did not find comfort in paper two, but ordinary-level students will be pleased, teachers have said. Aidan Roantree, a maths teacher at the Institute of Education, said that students looking for H1s and H2s will have found the paper particularly challenging, especially towards the end. 'The paper continued the same mixture of the familiar and the quirky, but on a larger scale with more of both,' he said. 'The question setter is consciously creating papers that are unlike previous years by adding novel questions that would have been hard to prepare for,' Mr Roantree said. READ MORE 'Upon opening the paper, students will have felt an initial confidence boost to get them going. Section A's Q1, Q, 2, Q3 offered a reassuring and familiar start to the paper. This will have allowed students to accrue marks before venturing into the trickier sections. 'At Q4, the quirkier aspects of the paper emerged with questions that were evocative of pre-2015 statistics: interquartile ranges, averages, and later stratified sampling in Q10. Section B followed a similar pattern with approachable opening questions followed by mounting difficulty. In particular, Q9's part C was a very challenging probability question which would have tested the abilities of even the highest achievers. 'Indeed this paper contained some of the hardest questions on either paper, so students will leave the exam with a sense of having really pushed themselves,' Mr Roantree said. Niall Duddy, ASTI subject representative for maths and a teacher at Presentation College Athenry in Co Galway, agreed that higher-level paper two was more testing than paper one. 'But students didn't say they couldn't do it, and paper two is traditionally the trickier of the two,' he said. 'On the plus side, it was user-friendly and contained hints here and there, such as where to use sine and cosine. 'The topics were quite focused, except for the trigonometry question which included some algebra; this is part of a recent trend of amalgamating the topics on the papers. 'Questions on statistics and probability would be familiar. Some students didn't like the look of question eight, which included a 3-D problem, but the question itself wasn't unusual. 'Overall, my students felt that while it was trickier, it was doable.' Conversely, on the ordinary-level exam, Jean Kelly, a maths teacher at the Institute of Education, said that students who felt uncertain about their performance on paper one will have been relieved. 'Gone are the questions that jump around topics or hide aspects behind the language of the question,' she said. 'The paper was snappy, cutting right to the point and unified in the topics examined. Question one was focused on statistics, Q2 on trigonometry, Q3 on the circle. This helped students stay focused on the task and feel like they are being helpfully scaffolded as the questions got harder. This feeling of momentum will help them get through the paper and feel much more assured in their performance.' The paper was heavy on statistics, probability and trigonometry, with area and volume having a lesser presence than in previous years, which was likely due to a surprise appearance on paper one, Ms Kelly said. 'While there were enough challenging pieces on the paper to distinguish those striving for the O1, even those who struggle to pass will find themselves in a good position,' she said. 'The paper was often helpful, either through tips or by combining topics into a useful grouping. For example, the appearance of constructions in section B was new, but the helpful pairing of dilations and area and volume helped ease students through the material. 'While paper one needed students to constantly, even anxiously reread the questions, there was a nice snappiness to this paper. Students who had the fundamentals were able to quickly get their marks without fuss and frustration,' said Ms Kelly. Mr Duddy said the ordinary-level topics were laid out clearly and that the paper was user-friendly with lots of helpful hints.
