Leaving Cert 2007 - Maths Paper II (OL)

I had intended on doing a lot of study for this… I really did. But then I got the bright idea to go on a short cycle on Saturday which quickly turned into a 30 mile endurance test! I slept for about 15 hours and had no energy to study yesterday! So I walked into the exam hall today having only revised 2 chapters - Area and Volume and Linear Programming - and hoping that the Probability and Statistics questions would be kind to me!

I turned over the paper at 9:30 this morning and flicked straight to the Linear Programming question - my strongest question - and was immediately faced with a question that was phrased differently to those of previous years and I really choked on the question trying to figure it out for around half an hour before conceding and flicking back to the other questions in the paper.

I flew through the Area and Volume question and thankfully the probability question was simple and I reckon I got 50/50 in those two questions. I dropped a few marks in the Statistics question by mistaking the ‘median’ for the mean but I should have got around 40/50. I then attempted the rest of the paper, trying to gain as many attempt marks as possible although there were several parts to the Trigonometry and Geometry questions that I couldn’t even attempt as I didn’t know where to start!

With the rest of the paper attempted, I went back to the Linear Programming question to see if I could make heads or tails of it. I attempted it in a few different ways but just gave up - my diagram was incomplete and incorrect. I was frustrated with the question because it’s usually my “banker” question. With 3 minutes left I attempted a part C to the Further Sequences and Series question which surprisingly had a Compound Interest slant to it!

I left the exam hall a few minutes late and feeling a bit hard done by. I feel as if the phrasing of the question was more cryptic than anything else. I know that equations in disguise are a part of maths but even Sherlock Holmes would have had great difficulty in seeing through this particular guise…