LC Engineering

ISSU Commentary (Higher and Ordinary Level)

While many Leaving Cert students across the country used this morning for some last minute English revision, engineering students returned to their exam centres to sit their Leaving Cert paper.Higher LevelThe Higher Level paper contained no major surprises with the first and only mandatory question on the paper being quite straightforward – students were given the option of outlining Steve Jobs’ contribution to technology and the outlining the benefits of the use of accelerometer technology in mobile phones among other more technical questions.Students then had to answer four of the following seven questions with questions ranging from the mechanical testing of metals to the use of heat treatment processes in lathe maintenance to industrial welding process and their applications. Some of the questions were tricky in places but students will have been relieved with a very nice final question which would have been quite manageable even for Junior Cert HL Technology students.Ordinary LevelSimilarly, the Ordinary Level paper’s first and only mandatory question was very fair with students asking to explain “broadband” and “DVD-R” among other terminology.The following six questions, of which students had to answer three, were manageable with heat treatment and welding processes appearing on this paper too along with the application of robotics in the car manufacturing industry among other topics and again an extremely approachable final question on this paper too.Overall, a nice start to the Higher and Ordinary Level engineering papers with some challenging questions in places but a very nice optional question to finish up with on both papers.