Leaving Cert home economics: ‘Practical, topical, no curveballs'

Irish Times

2 days ago

The Leaving Cert higher level home economics paper received a thumbs-up from teachers who sad students will be relieved with an exam which featured plenty of 'nice' questions.
Megan Friel, Home Economics teacher at Mercy College, Sligo and Studyclix subject expert, said the paper was 'very practical, topical, student-friendly and contained no curve balls'.
Alice Quinn, home economics teacher at The Institute of Education, also said that clear nature of the questions allowed students with a solid grasp of material to get straight to the point.
'The appearance of predicted materials will help offset some of the more niche questions,' she said.
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Ms Friel said section B Q1 – which is compulsory – focused on the impact of food choices and eating habits of adults in Ireland.
'This was very relevant to students and gave them the opportunity to display their in-depth knowledge of the course,' she said.
'The properties didn't appear in Section A which is unusual, but students will be delighted, and the main nutrient on Section B Q1 was lipids. This hasn't been asked since 2018. The core question was also straightforward. Students are very comfortable answering questions about food commodities.'
Ms Quinn said students will have been cheered by the 'array of nice, clear short questions to start the paper'.
'There was no ambiguity in what was being asked, more so than previous years, and so students could launch straight into answering,' she said.
'The first question was a nice recall of nutrients: functions of carbohydrates, deficiency diseases – the real fundamentals of the subject,' she said.
'The fish question may have thrown some as many could have overlooked the differences in cold vs hot smoking in their revision, but with other options available they won't have lost momentum.'
Students will also have been pleased to see Family Resource Management as the question setter kept with recent trends in papers.
'Even though the questions were comparatively niche, this will have suited most students as the precision of the questions let those with a solid grasp get straight to the point and earn marks,' she said.
Over on Section B, she said students were again greeted with a 'nice entry point'.
'The pie chart was a nice way to access the data and the questions offered lots of scope. Students did need to read the question carefully to fully grasp it, but at the core was the baseline elements of that they should be familiar with,' Ms Quinn said.
'Many will be thrilled to see the predicted appearance of lipids and the sometimes tricky question (e) replaced with a familiar take on factors of choice and eating habits of adult.'
Question 2 was quite broad and spanned chapter lines but would have made a lot of sense to those who reflected on the interconnected ideas and key words of the syllabus, Ms Quinn said.
'In particular, those who anticipated the return of cheese (not seen since 2017) will be pleased,' she said.
She said Q3 was an unexpected aspect of an expected topic – food hygiene – so those who really covered the topic in detail would have been best suited to tackle it.
Overall, students familiar with the past papers and the fundamentals of the subject will have been able accrue marks effectively and efficiently. The occasional question on more niche aspects of the course will have surprised some but given others the chance to distinguish themselves.
Ms Friel, meanwhile, sad the ordinary level paper included questions that were 'very student-friendly and accessible.'
Section B Q1 featured a very user-friendly chart on soup, while students will be relieved that Section B Q2 followed the same format as previous years.
'Overall this was a very fair paper which will likely have brought a smile to the faces of students and teachers alike,' she said.