Assessment

Junior Certificate Science will be assessed at two levels, Higher and Ordinary. At each level, assessment will be by means of a terminal examination paper and coursework. The assessment arrangements are illustrated below.

COURSEWORK A ­ MANDATORY EXPERIMENTS AND INVESTIGATIONS

Students must complete the mandatory experiments and investigations specified in the syllabus. Over the three years of the course each student is also required to maintain a laboratory notebook, in which a record of these experiments and investigations is kept according to specified criteria. This record must be available for inspection. As part of the assessment, marks will be awarded on a pro rata basis for the satisfactory completion of this required coursework.

COURSEWORK B ­ ADDITIONAL STUDENT INVESTIGATIONS

In addition, each student will be required to undertake two specified investigations in the third year and to submit a pro forma report on these for assessment. These additional investigations, based on the topics and learning outcomes in the syllabus, will be set by the examining body and will vary from year to year. Instead of the set assignments, students may substitute an investigation of their own choice that meets required criteria.

TERMINAL EXAMINATION PAPER

There will be separate Ordinary level and Higher level examination papers. At each level the examination paper will consist of three sections. These will assess students' knowledge and skills in relation to syllabus material and learning outcomes in the areas of biology, chemistry and physics.