Omens are good for small band of Latin scholars

Only 152 students sat yesterday's Leaving Cert Latin exams, but according to teachers they had few, if any, causes for complaint. "My students were happy," reported Mr Robin Miller, who teaches at High School, Rathgar, Dublin.

"They felt that they had more time than they had expected. Question 2 talked about bad omens - I hope the fact that they finished within the time was a good omen."

The fact that the paper included a range of vocabulary translations was a bonus which students would have found helpful, Mr Miller noted.

Mr Joe Thuillier, who teaches at Belvedere College, Dublin, where eight students sat the exam, agreed. The paper offered a good choice of questions, he said. In question 1 most students would have opted for the comprehension piece - The Fortunes of Caesar as General - over the translation from English into Latin.

Question 2 required translations of works by Virgil, Cicero, Horace and Livy. "The fact that the vocabulary was included made this question quite manageable for higher level students," he commented.

Mr Miller noted that Latin was a wide-ranging subject and, language apart, included literature, art and history. The photographs in question 5, which covered architecture and sculpture, were well reproduced and extremely clear, he said.

Teachers also gave the ordinary-level paper the thumbs up. It was, they said, fair and straightforward.

Clarification: The poem referred to in relation to Wednesday's Junior Cert Latin exam has been on the syllabus since 1996, a Department of Education spokesman confirmed yesterday.