Students may have avoided a question related to spider webs in Friday’s higher level maths paper 1. Teachers reported varied reactions to the 2025 Leaving Cert exam.
Maths marked the third day of the 2025 Leaving Cert on Friday afternoon.
Niall Duddy, a teacher at Presentation College in Galway and ASTI subject spokesperson, noted “mixed reaction” amongst students after the exam.
He observed that each question had a challenging final part.
“But that is to be expected. There were a few students who were upset, and a few that were happy.”
“Looking at the paper as a whole, Section B was on the strange side, in particular question 7 which was to do with spiders’ webs.”
“It was about spiders building webs out of silk. A few of the students spotted the dangers with it and gave it a wide berth.”
Questions 7 and 10 focused on patterns and sequences.
“The tail end of question 10, which was about patterns, caught one or two them unawares.”
He found the ordinary level paper 1 more straightforward, although “a little on the verbose side.”
“We’ve noticed again the trend in keeping with previous years, where some traditionally paper 2 material appear on paper 1 again, with a question on volume.”
He advised students to take a break and reset over the weekend.
“It’s half-time, and they’ll have a good idea there how they got on.”
“My advice to everybody, I know one or two students here came out of the hall quite upset, I say to them ‘look, it’s over and done with, and there’s no need to panic about it’.”
