Students sitting yesterday's LCA exams in Irish and hotel, catering and tourism enjoyed a relatively pleasant day - if exams can ever be enjoyable. The Irish paper was described by Ms Anne Weber, who teaches at Liberties College, Dublin, as well laid out, with a format with which students were familiar.

There were no surprises and everything that was expected came up, she said. Students did however balk at the tape which, they reported, was difficult to understand. This year, the tape contained a variety of accents, which was a positive move, Ms Weber explained. Nonetheless, students found some of them difficult to understand. Hotel, catering and tourism students at Liberties College came out of the exams "smiling and skipping", according to teacher Ms Pauline Stack. They were pleased and happy with the paper. The really hard work had been done in the practical exams which had taken place the previous week.

LCA students sitting mathematical applications on Thursday were less fortunate. "Difficult", was how students at Ard Scoil na nDeise, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, described the exam. The people who set the exam paper also came in for some criticism. "We had nine students sitting the exam, but only one girl said that she found it easy," commented the school's LCA co-ordinator, Ms Margaret Dennehy. .