Study Hub guest Jean Kelly, from Dublin's Institute of Education, is here to share her thoughts on the 2025 Leaving Cert Ordinary Level Maths Paper 1 & Paper 2 - this content is from their Leaving Cert Analysis series.
She says: "Students feeling uncertain about their performance on Friday's Paper 1 will have been relieved by Paper 2."
Download the exam papers here from examinations.ie:
Look back on Paper 1
Jean says: "This paper had everything thrown in or at least as much of the syllabus as they could possibly fit in to just 10 questions. Students would have been surprised by the sudden jumps between topics. A question could start in algebra in Part A, move to calculus in Part B and rates of change in part C. Many might find this lack of uniformity gave them a bit of whiplash as they had to quickly adapt to new areas of the course on the fly.
"However, parts of the paper were lovely; not inaccessible at all, but you really needed to think. Questions had wordy window dressing to mask simple techniques that students would have already known. If you read carefully and pieced out the relevant material, you were flying, but you needed to know your concepts to make that call."
"Students really did need to read the question over and over to get a sense of what they are asking. Each part of a question might have a new story element to be disentangled from central mathematics, so questions often didn't build on each other. As a result, some students will have found the more purely mathematical questions easier and so may have preferred the traditionally harder Part Bs to the Part As. One shock will be the appearance of Area, Volume and Nets of a 3D object in Q10 Section B as this is usually preserved for Paper 2.
"There were lots of opportunities to get marks and secure their grades, but it was definitely exam that, at first glance, might have fallen outside of some students’ comfort zones."
And here are Jean's thoughts on Paper 2...
Key points
- Unified topics within questions will help students build momentum
- Useful clarifications made the paper much more accessible than Paper 1
Jean says "Students feeling uncertain about their performance on Friday's Paper 1 will have been relieved by Paper 2. Gone are the questions that jump around topics or hide aspects behind the language of the question. The paper was snappy, cutting right to the point and unified in the topics examined. Question 1 was focused on statistics, Q2 on trigonometry, Q3 on the circle etc. 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.
"In general the paper was heavy on statistics, probability and trigonometry with Area and Volume having a lesser presence than previous years – likely due to a surprising appearance on Paper 1. 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. 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 1 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."
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