Leaving Certificate English 2023: Paper 1

This morning candidates have headed into exam centres, out of the lovely sunshine of recent weeks. The English language paper has always started the Leaving Certificate; thankfully, the absurd idea that it would be taken one year earlier, half-way through students’ intellectual and creative development, was abandoned in February (temporarily, but…). English is also for the moment protected from the challenge to integrity that AI threatens, since 100% is still assessed in exams: I ran the 2022 paper through ChatGPT in December, and it did extremely well, particular in the first section of the paper. There is currently no sign that this challenge is being faced in other subjects: the 2024 RSR in History, anyone?

And so to this year’s paper [added: my look at Paper 2].

The overarching theme was ‘Between Two Worlds’, appropriately for candidates who are moving from the world of school after 14 years into young adulthood.

The first comprehension piece was an excellent choice, by the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose fine 2020 novel Afterlives I wrote about here. The extract was from Gravel Heart, first published in 2017. Like Afterlives, this explores the connections between Zanzibar (Gurnah’s original home) and Europe (here, London, described as terrifying, confusion and a source of panic). The Nobel brought a pleasing focus on Gurnah, but he still deserves to have more attention in this part of the world, so it is good to see him here.

The subsequent comprehension questions were straightforward (this year, the paper has not reached over to the Literature one, as has sometimes happened recently). Question B (the short prose response) was an imaginative piece based on ‘being’ Salim from Gravel Heart: certainly the original model pointed the way for candidates.

Text 2 was ‘This Must be the Place’ by Henry Eliot, creative editor of Penguin Classics, and also featured the famous photograph ‘The Steerage’, by one of the greats, Alfred Stieglitz (1907, migrants boarding a ship, below). The Eliot piece looked at literary locations - the Cobb in Persuasion, Prague (Kafka), the fictional Gormenghast Castle (Mervyn Peake). The first question was a straightforward information-retrieval one, the second asked candidates to examine the Stieglitz photograph. Question B was a ‘personal reflection’ for an educational history magazine on visiting a place of historic interest, which should have suited plenty of candidates.

Text 3 went straight to the issue of the moment, Artificial Intelligence (back to my first paragraph here). Patricia Scanlon’s piece was published a year ago in the Irish Times, well before Chat GPT brought the issue right into the lives and thoughts of students and their teachers. The other piece, by Ben Spencer, Science Editor of the Sunday Times magazine, ‘I’m better than the Bard’ (may be paywalled) was more up to date.

Again, comprehension questions were straightforward, though the second one asked profound questions about agreement with ethical approaches to AI - difficult to address in a very limited time in a public examination. The Question B asked candidates to write about technology in schools, but through the rather strained idea of a school website (how many students ever write these, how many formal school websites ever feature such writing?).

And so finally to the composition, back this year to 25% of the final grade, and still thankfully in its rightful place at the end of the course. There were two short story options, this time less contorted than some in recent years (a confused character in a mysterious setting, a complex relationship between two conflicting characters). A feature article on a home place (city, town, village, area) was a very accessible option, with candidates able to dive into long-lived personal experience. Two personal essays: on an occasion when you refused to be discouraged, and the things which you excitement/wonder - both easy to access. Finally, two forms of discursive writing: a debating motion on society and ethics, and one on influential individuals in the world today.

In short, no candidate could complain about this paper.

We have virtually no Ordinary Level candidates, so I have little to say here, but it was good to see the famous Syracuse University graduation speech by the great George Saunders there (I have written about his essential book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain). Everything in the paper was reassuring.