Students content with day one behind them

THERE was mixed but generally positive reaction among Leaving Certificate students at Christian Brothers College in Cork to yesterday’s English papers.

Most were satisfied with their performance in the morning, where there was a definite travel theme throughout many of the questions on the higher level paper.

English Paper I included questions about a series of pictures of faraway places and adventure. The same section included two extracts from travel writers and the essay titles included a magazine article giving travel advice.

Kieran Hallissey from Rathpeacon was more than pleased with his day’s work after finishing higher level Paper II yesterday afternoon.

“Everything I studied for came up in it and there was a good question on The Death of a Salesman. There was a lot of stuff on travel this morning, which was a theme in our mock Leaving,” said Kieran.

“It was grand all round, really, I’m very happy. The first day is done now, so let’s hope the rest of them go as well,” he said.

Likewise, Ciarán O’Leary said there were no surprises in most of the questions yesterday.

“It was okay, I expected all the kind of questions that came up, but the afternoon was hard enough,” he said.

He chose to write a short story about one of the pictures in Paper I, which included a picture of the solar system, a beach scene, a panoramic view of Florence, a snowboarder, a tent village, and camels on a desert track.

However, Ciarán found Paper II slightly tougher going, particularly in the poetry section.

“I had only studied one of the poets which came up so I had no choice and answered the questions on Sylvia Plath,” he said.