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Leaving Cert Spanish: A ‘good' paper with lots of choice, despite some tricky moments
Today's Leaving Cert Spanish exam gave students lots of chances to get their marks although more nuanced elements of language provided some challenging moments.
Maria Fenton, Spanish teacher at The Institute of Education, said that overall students will have found lots of topics and themes that they recognise.
Section A contained a choice between two texts: a prescribed novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez or a journalistic text.
Ms Fenton said students tend to favour the latter and so most will have started their exam by jumping to page eight.
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'This year's piece was a lovely text on the distinct culture of Spain and how it causes a bit of culture shock on first arrival,' she said.
'Little details like kissing on both cheeks, later mealtimes and the late-night clubs were a nice reflection of the Spanish lifestyle and will be familiar to those who have had the chance to visit Spain.'
The most challenging part of this section, she said, was the synonym tasks which 'really required students to grasp the whole phrase in order to understand some of the necessary nuances'.
For example, she said, when looking for a match for 'aún se escucha' ('can still be heard') students might have parsed out the phrase and looked for words relating to hearing or listening.
Yet the correct answer was 'still exists', focusing on the enduring rather than aural quality of the phrase.
The same is true for 'asombro' (astonish) being matched with the word for 'surprise'.
'While stronger students will not find this an issue, those who are uncertain and thus try to dismantle the grammatical logic of the phrase will definitely feel challenged here,' she said.
Section B
While section A looked at more traditional takes on Spanish culture, Ms Fenton said section B was very modern.
'The long text was on an AI generated influencer which overlaps two areas that teachers will have likely prepared in class: AI and social media,' she says.
'Again, the synonyms were challenging here but this was balanced with nicer questions in English where students would have been able to comfortably gather marks.'
Question five's composition questions were all 'nice and on topics with which students will be familiar', Ms Fenton said.
'Previous Spanish papers have occasionally drawn on topics that might not have been particularly current or directly present in the lives of students (zoos, the value of silence etc.), but these prompts were based on things that they would naturally have an opinion on,' she said.
She said tasks on whether 'social media is better than real life' or the 'value of traditional jobs' connect with this digitally-savvy generation, so they will have had plenty to say.
Section C
Ms Fenton said section C has lots of choice, all of which were really viable this year.
'Initially students would need to choose between doing some translations of a dialogue or writing a formal letter,' she said.
'Traditionally students prefer translations as they are shorter and more direct, but this year's letter was a great option. It asked on the very topical issue of tourism in Spain.'
While this issue contained lots of important ideas, the prompts for the question allowed students to talk about really familiar themes like food, weather, festivals or learning the language, she said.
'More capable students could choose to push into the critical issue of housing supply, but this is something they would have encountered previously,' Ms Fenton said. 'The range of choice in the letter question allowed for the housing topic to be avoided completely. The exam closes with students either writing a diary or a note, both of which were a nice conclusion to this paper.'
The trend of mixing cultural background with contemporary topics continued into the aural, which students should have found 'very manageable', Ms Fenton said.
'Overall, this was a good paper with lots of chances for everyone to get their marks. However, some of the more nuanced elements of the language will really test the students' alertness of cultural nuances.'
