Reaction to 2025 Leaving Certificate Physics (Higher Level) by Pat Doyle, Physics teacher at The Institute of Education.
- While there were many conventional elements to the paper, students were pushed by wordy questions and subtler mathematical twists.
- Some topics are more challenging than previous years.
Section A launches the paper with questions on experiments. While most were traditional in their approach, Question Two had an original twist on the conservation of momentum. Previous papers use the scenario of a moving object striking a stationary object while this year’s exam recontextualized to objects moved by a spring. This mimics the forces in a nuclear reaction in a clever way, but it will have thrown students who might have expected to auto-pilot through the opening pages of the exam.
In Section B, Question 6 is traditionally very popular as it is an assortment of short questions. Yet this year’s class will find themselves moving more slowly through this question as the scale of the questions has shifted: the questions were expressed in a longer manner that needed to be parsed out before they could get to the examined concepts. Even then some of the concepts examined were atypical for this section, most notably the speed of a galaxy would not have been anticipated as a short question which, while a nice question, would require a great deal more work to get all the marks. This novelty was balanced with an array of much more conventional questions. Question Seven on planets, Question Eight on light diffraction and Question nine on Photoelectric Effect and x- rays all fell within expectations and examples from previous years. Q10 on heat and temperature reinjected some twists back into the exam as the style of question on definition of temperature would not have been seen by students reviewing any recent papers. Those who ensured that they focused on the syllabus as a key guiding tool will know the material, but if you were looking for a repeat of previous exams this would have been a surprise.
For many, Question Eleven on electricity will already have been unpopular even before the exam started as the students are not often drawn to the topic. This question is unlikely to convert them or increase the popularity of the topic as it was quite tricky. What will have been appealing was Question Twelve on Particle Physics with a special appearance of Ireland’s only Nobel prize winner for Physics, Ernest Walton. Question Thirteen was a comprehension style question on electro-magnetism; neither the topic nor the style tends to appeal to students but for those who were prepared to attempt it they will be pleased with a rather nice question behind the text. Question Fourteen is a popular choice as it contains some internal choice. Here the sections ranged from the traditional to the obscure as the second section involved a tricky mathematical twist that skirts the edges of the syllabus. The third option demanded students read it very carefully to ensure that they approached the calculations correctly. Thankfully the paper closes with something more traditional and so students will have had the chance to conclude their time with the paper on more familiar territory.
This paper really required students to think beyond the modes of questions from previous years and really bring their understanding of Physics to these questions. Anyone hoping to have an autopiloted replay of the previous papers will be shocked. Perhaps the more novel elements of this paper will be most challenging for those who struggle with the subject as they would need to take on extra interpretative work in the pressurized environment of the exam.