LC Business Studies: Topical issues make tests interesting

THE state of the Irish economy featured in both papers taken by Leaving Cert business studies students yesterday.

John McDonnell, of the ASTI and Jesus and Mary Secondary School, Gortnor Abbey, Crossmolina, Co Mayo, praised the inclusion of topics such as exports and how they were affecting by the global economy on the higher level paper.

Overall, he said it was a "very straightforward paper which examined core elements of the course".

William Murphy, business teacher at the Institute of Education, agreed it was a "generally fair paper", which rewarded students who had invested time reviewing previous papers.

After a reasonable short question section, Mr Murphy said questions 5 and 8 were generous while question 1 was "a little tricky and very specific".

"Many parts of this year's questions appeared on previous papers," he said, adding that the applied business question was "straightforward" and concerned a woman selling value-for-money clothing to the young consumer, something students could relate to.

"Any well-prepared student should have done well," he said.

Mr Murphy praised the ordinary level paper for addressing "many pressing issues facing Irish business" by featuring the Budget, the recession and the 2012 Olympic Games.

He said the short questions were "very approachable" but said question 1, part b (ii) would have caused most candidates some difficulty as they were asked to outline two functions of the Equality Authority.

He was critical of question 8 which was "very vague" and said some students struggled to understand where to start.

Mr McDonnell was glad to see fuel taxes and their impact on the economy make an appearance as it was such a topical issue.

He noted that many students were experiencing fatigue at this stage as they had already had five days of exams, with many facing French today.

- Grainne Cunningham

Irish Independent