A 'nice' send-off with no nasty surprises

If the sunny weather didn't have Junior Certificate students already thinking about holidays yesterday, their final exams were certainly steeped in a Mediterranean theme.

There were no more than 1,400 students left - of more than 57,000 who started two weeks ago - sitting Latin, classical studies, Italian and Ancient Greek.

With no nasty surprises, teacher Jim O'Dea, of the ASTI and Rathdown School, Glenageary, Co Dublin, said the final day's papers were a good end to the exams.

There were fewer than 30 candidates doing Ancient Greek, and, according to Mr O'Dea, they had 'a very nice paper'.

In Latin higher level, he said the set-text questions were 'quite nice'. The first unseen question was a bit on the tough side, although the second unseen and the comprehension were fair.

In the civilisation questions, the diagram of a fasces (an ancient symbol of power) would have put most pupils off, but the questions were not too bad, he added.

He said students were more used to diagrams of something from everyday life.

There were no problems with the ordinary-level paper, he added.

Mr O'Dea said it was 'very fair, with the odd difficult question. But because they have such a choice, they can avoid the awkward questions and get good marks.'

He said students would have liked the way section B questions were broken up into smaller segments than usual, which could make it easier to build up marks.

- Katherine Donnelly

Irish Independent