Will Differentiation be important in LC 2022?

Oct 19 / Eoghan O'Leary

The simple answer is Yes! 
Differentiation is always an important topic in Leaving Cert Maths and this year will be no different.

There are three reasons for this:
  1. It is highly likely to appear in Paper 1 Section A (Skills)
  2. It is highly likely to appear in Paper 2 Section B (Problem Solving)
  3. It often appears in Paper 2 also, even though it would be regarded as a Paper 1 topic.
Why does it come up so often? The answer relates to the structure of the papers.

There are 50% of the marks allocated to Problem Solving questions (Context and Applications).
Normal text.Differentiation lends itself very well to problem solving questions because it allows people to find the maximum and the minimum values of functions - values which are often needed in the real world. Differentiation also allows people to find how one variable changes as another variable changes. We call this the Rate of Change and it is often asked for in the Problem Solving questions. To be able to solve these types of questions, students need to use a large range of Skills which must be learned first. These Skills are tested in Section A of Paper 1 and therefore we can expect a question on Differentiation there. If Trigonometric functions appear in Paper 2, students are often required to differentiate in that question too!! 

This year, students will be required to answer 3 questions from 4 in Section B in both papers, so you can be sure there will be plenty of differentiation in there, so the only option is to try to master it!!