Teaching notes · Example 3
Teaching notes: Science and religion in Dracula
Essay question“We gain many fascinating insights from Stoker’s exploration of the relationship between science and religion in his novel, Dracula.” Discuss this statement, developing your response with reference to Stoker’s novel, Dracula.
These notes sit outside the essay. Related candidate scripts belong to their examination boards and are identified by board, year and task. A reported mark applies to that script, not to the Estate’s example.
Chapter C: Leaving Certificate course guide, sources and reports · Board-published candidate-response catalogue.
Teaching notes and examiner feedback
Board-published responses
No official answer to this exact task has been located in the materials collected here. A useful comparison is CCEA’s 2025 commentary on how Dracula is defeated, clearly identified as a different board and question. It discusses technology alongside faith and collective effort.
What the examiners said
- The materials collected here do not include verified 2026 SEC commentary on this task. A gap in this collection does not establish that no document exists.
- Check the official 2026 paper and marking scheme in Chapter C before treating the supplied wording or any task-specific assessment claim as verified.
- Leaving Certificate English assessment is commonly described through Purpose, Coherence, Language and Mechanics (PCLM). Check the applicable official scheme for its precise allocation; this essay is a preparation example rather than a marked candidate script.
- Context is used here to clarify the text and the response to the question. The applicable SEC marking scheme, rather than another board’s objectives, determines assessment.
- Nearest labelled examiners’ commentary (a different board and question). CCEA’s 2025 Chief Examiner’s Report, AS 2, Q6(a), p. 18, on how Dracula is defeated. Strong answers read the typewriter, phonograph and telegram as symbols of rationality and collective effort. Weaker answers treated technology in isolation and missed how it works alongside faith, superstition, Van Helsing’s religious insight and Mina’s intelligence. On context (p. 12), the most effective references were concise and tied to the question’s key terms. That is the partnership argument made above.
Points to test
Does the thesis survive its strongest counter-evidence? Check every quotation’s chapter, speaker and context. Where could a different interpretation change the conclusion?
Prepared by the Bram Stoker Estate. Page last updated 8 November 2026. Report a correction here.