House-hunting in Rome

Think of those estate agents in ancient Rome, trying to sell a domus or two. That's what Junior Cert students were asked to do in one imaginative question in their Latin exam yesterday. They loved the question and enjoyed doing it, according to Mr Joe Thuillier, head of classics at Belvedere College in Dublin. "It was very new," he said. "They liked it. It's a good idea. The paper was fair, reasonable and testing."

Mr Robin Miller, of High School, Rathgar, Dublin, said the same thing about this particular question. Overall the paper was "testing but fair".

The only complaint related to ordinary-level where students were asked to answer questions on a poem they had not studied. This was clearly a mistake on the part of the examiners, said Mr Thuillier. "Otherwise it was a good paper."