Leaving Cert German: About 8,000 Leaving Certificate students sat yesterday's German exam, which featured topics such as the smoking ban, the Special Olympics - and a woman who put her child up for auction on the online auction site eBay.

According to Neil O'Callaghan of the TUI, who teaches at St Thomas's community college in Bray, students were generally very happy with the higher-level exam.

The first comprehension piece is always difficult, and this year's piece - entitled "Curiosity killed the cat" - was in line with this, he said. Some students said that while the grammar exercises looked difficult, they were actually not as hard as they appeared.

Students also sat an aural exam as part of yesterday's test, which included a light-hearted piece about a woman who put her eight-year-old daughter up for auction on eBay. Mr O'Callaghan said he particularly liked the inclusion of this piece, which he said was very topical and relevant to students.

"There was a question in the written part which dealt with the Special Olympics . . . and the smoking ban in the letter-writing section, both of which students might have expected to have come up last year," he added, "but anyone who was in fifth year last year would have prepared for it well."

Pierce Purcell, secretary of the German Teachers Association, said the applied grammar section of the paper was less difficult than usual.

However, others said that the appearance of pronouns in this section may have been challenging for weaker students in particular.

"From what I could see students looked happy enough," he said. "Both the reading comprehensions were quite manageable,assuming of course that a student had a reasonable vocabulary.

"Overall, I thought it was quite doable and very reasonable."

Yesterday's ordinary level paper included a comprehension piece on the mobile phone, a subject matter which students would have been familiar with from their oral exams.

According to Orla Ní Shuilleabháin of the Institute of Education in Dublin, some students found the speed of the aural CD to be a problem. Generally they were "very happy" with the paper, which she said used language which was accessible to students.

"Ordinary level languages have got increasingly accessible and doable for students which I think is great," Mr O'Callaghan agreed.