HIGHER level construction studies student received a challenging paper which "gave them the chance to demonstrate what they know rather than what they don't know", a teacher said.
"That is to be highly commended from the point of view of students and teachers," said Mr Michael Cross, spokesman for the Association of Materials Technology and Graphics Teachers and a teacher in Abbeyfeale Vocational School, Co Limerick.
Question I (which was on a similar topic at both higher and ordinary level, giving both streams in a class a common starting point) was good but required a lot of work, Mr Cross noted, but both it and the similarly lengthy question 2 were fine.
The popular question 4, on U value and heat, came with a small twist in the form of part (b) which required some concentration and working out but was good to see, Mr Cross said.
In fact, only question 10 might have caused problems; it sought a description of the human hearing system and its response to sound - a bit outside the scope of the course, he said.
Mr Cross called the ordinary level paper "quite difficult, both in the way that some of the questions were worded and in the kinds of thinking they were expecting of students".
Question 2, on condensation, could equally have been a higher level question, he said.
Question 3 was a good question, he said, but was worded awkwardly, and there was a similar problem with question 4, though it was broad and its stipulation that sketches should be used would have assisted the ordinary level student, he said.
Question 5 was "in essence" a good question, focusing as it did on plumbing and heating, but could have been more sympathetically worded, he said.
The other questions were all quite suitable, Mr Cross said.