Leaving Certicate Ag Science paper 2015 - how was it for students?

According to the students it was a “pure farming paper” and was “easy enough because there wasn’t a lot of science”.

“Eight out of the 23 in my class weren’t from farming backgrounds,” said Leaving Cert student Liam O’Keeffe from Kanturk, Co. Cork. “But they agreed that the higher level paper was ok so long as you knew your stuff. I found it handy enough because when you’re practising it at home it’s easier to write about it and there was a good bit of dairy on the paper.”

Siobhan Creane was another of the 7,870 students that sat the Ag science paper. She found the paper relatively good compared with previous years and didn’t find many “major surprises” upon opening it.

Question one is always short questions and carries the most marks, it focused mainly on ecology and plant chapters. Question two is always a question on soils but both Siobhan and Liam found the wording “a bit tricky” on it. Part of it asked the students to “Explain the terms cation exchange and cation exchange capacity.”

George Dennis, chairman of IASTA, felt that the paper was well balanced and asked questions from a wide range of enterprises which was good for those from a farming background. He also remarked that the ordinary level paper had some very clear pictures for identification which really enhanced the paper.

“Both papers had a wide range of topics and there were no major surprises in either of them so it wasn’t’ too bad,” said Mr Dennis.

In conclusion Liam O’Keeffe said “it was a nice exam so it was good to have it at the end of the Leaving to finish off on a good note.”