External Evaluation of the European Baccalaureate (Annexes)

points. The EB question required an instrumental knowledge of integration and the Irish paper required an
instrumental knowledge of implicit differentiation but both of these are comparable in the level of difficulty.
In the middle half of the range, the EB scripts seem to indicate a slightly better grasp of basic skills and
more of the question is completed on the EB scripts that in the Irish case. However, the demand for
algebraic manipulation in the case of the Irish question is much greater than in the case of the EB so that
students come to a satisfactory answer more quickly in the EB question. The considerable algebra needed
for simplification in the Irish case could certainly act discouragingly,
In the bottom quartile of scripts there was a clearer indication that basic skills such as finding the
derivative of a product was more evident in the EB scripts than in the Irish ones. The weakest of Irish
scripts showed very poor basic skills at this level even taking into account the distractor of the amount of
algebra.
Finally, one striking general feature of the review of these papers is the attention given by EB students to
presentation. Work was presented for the most part cleanly, line-by-line down the page so that the
sequence of the argument is evident. It would seem that marks are awarded for presentation and this
obviously has an effect on how work is shown. The presentation of work on the page by Irish students was
good among the high achievers but at times very poor among those at the lower levels of achievement. At
times these scripts are difficult to read with much crossing out and movement around the page.
It is not possible to conclude very much from this script examination exercise that could be generalised but
taking all cautionary remarks into account, it would seem in these samples that the middle and higher
achievers generally show similar levels of competency in the demonstration of the fundamental skills of
the course and in the bottom quarter of the samples there is some evidence of better basic skills among
the EB students.
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