IF ANYONE had been fearful neither of failure or of the unknown, it did not show. The students of Marlan College felt confident after English Paper I in both the Leaving and Junior Certificates.

Most agreed with Emmanuel Sherwin, sitting the ordinary level at Junior Cert, when he said the, ,exam was "easier than I had anticipated".

The biggest problem was not knowing what to expect," classmate Connor O'Sullivan said. "But there was a good choice of essays to that settled the nerves." Ciaran O'Connor was relieved, believing that the first exam was "the hardest mentally", and now he could "relax a bit".

In the Leaving Cert, students are of the same opinion. Many ,eft before the end. George Melms a German student sitting the ordinary level paper, believed the real thing had been easier than the mocks. "The essays were fine, so there was plenty of time for the rest of the paper." As a foreigner, he was "surprised that it had not been that tough".

Ronan Byrne was positively enthusiastic, again praising the choke of essays as much better, has expected. There was room to let your imagination go a bit.

If it was all smiles at ordinary, level, reaction to the higher level paper was more mixed. James Corr "found the media analysis question tricky", while Simon Beirne thought "the reading comprehension was difficult, but the rest was fine".

David O'Driscoll had a scare "When I first glanced at the paper Ii started to panic, but as soon as I ,composed myself and read through it properly, there were no problems."

"It was a fair paper," added Brendan Wren, "I felt well prepared, and nothing out of the ordinary came up.

Ciaran O'Gorman was more ,philosophical, and could not understand what all the fuss had been about it was basic enough, every bone has to go through it.

Another classmate, wishing to remain anonymous, ventured. "I've enjoyed watching my parents and the teachers get stressed out. I feel ,great." So far so good.

Meanwhile, at Collinstown Park Community College in Clondalkin, Co Dublin, Junior Cert student Pamela Reddin, managed to, "answer every inch of the paper". The consensus among the Collinstown Junior Cert students was that the papers were "fair" to "easy". Pamela seemed sure of herself though she had left early. "It all comes back to you on the day."

Her classmate Maria Harford thought "it was far easier than the mock. I will be back to do the, Leaving Cert."

Sarah O'Connor found there was a lot of writing involved. "My hand is killing me. Some of the questions were really long." The only Junior Cert student to express nerves, she added. "I thought I was going to get all the questions finished, but I ended up leaving two ,bits out."

Carl Cooney would only say that the paper was "all right". Keith ,Glennon didn't find the exam very stressful, but thought waiting for the results was going to be the worst bit. Mark Lee thought it was, "a bit easy. Yeah. There were a few bits that were too easy."

Headmaster Brian Fleming said, that the students are "very happy overall" with these first exam papers. "I think it's important that the first exam is reassuring for them. It puts them in good spirit", for the rest of them. Adults are more nervous than the youngsters coming out of the exam.

Collinstown Park has adults sitting the Leaving Cert under the VTOS programme. They had all found difficulty getting back into, studying, having been out of school for up to 16 years.

Barbara Gavagan, found the, English paper "well laid out". It was, she said, better in a way to do, the Leaving at this stage of her life because "you want to be here".