English paper leaves students very happy

THE first Leaving Certificate English paper was well received among students at St Angela’s College on St Patrick’s Hill in Cork city centre yesterday morning.

Students emerged blinking into the glorious sunshine to compare notes with friends and offered a positive response to the first paper of the 2009 exams.

Some 68 students at St Angela’s sat the English papers, most of them opting for the higher level test.

Jennifer Barrett from Blarney said the paper was not as bad as she had expected.

“It was a nice enough paper, most of it is your own thoughts and understanding so that makes it easier. Paper 2 is more difficult so I’m going home to cram for that for the afternoon, though the hot weather does not make it easy,” she said.

Emma Horan from Montenotte finished the paper and left the exam centre 20 minutes early.

“I was expecting a horrible paper but this was actually grand. I finished early and read over everything and I’m happy enough about it,” she said.

Chloe Murphy from Tower near Blarney took the ordinary level paper and thought the essay titles were quite hard.

“But the comprehension questions were easy enough, we had a question about YouTube so that was easy enough to answer, it was fairly straightforward,” she said.

Few frayed nerves were evident, with students claiming they were relieved to get started.

“They were very calm coming in this morning, they have done the work now, they’re well prepared,” said St Angela’s principal Rosalie Maloney.

Also in Cork city, Adrian Field was one of the students at North Monastery secondary school to take the ordinary level English paper, which he said was easy enough. He was also pleased not to be facing into a second English paper in the afternoon, a change made to the timetable since last year.

“It was a bit hard all week trying to study in the fine weather, when I’d like to have been out with my friends,” said Adrian who hopes to take up a course in Cork Institute of Technology after the summer.

Aaron Morey from Churchfield was very pleased and managed to get the paper finished on time, and is looking forward to doing an apprenticeship in carpentry or mechanics after his exams are over.

The essay questions on the higher level English paper were very good, according to fellow North Mon student Stephen Browne.

“There was a good range of stuff to talk about, I wrote one about a decisive moment, with a young officer in the Battle of the Somme deciding whether or not to go over the top of the trench,” said Stephen.

He was glad to get the ball rolling after months of preparation for the Leaving Certificate and is hoping to study primary teaching in Limerick next autumn.

Another higher level student, Darren O’Sullivan said the paper was quite fair and he also liked the essay question. The Cork City soccer fan also wrote about a decisive moment, choosing to write about a young footballer moving to England.