JUNIOR CERT GEOGRAPHY:HIGHER-LEVEL students would have been particularly happy with a geography paper that was "nice and easily understood", teachers said yesterday.

It was a nice-looking paper, making “excellent” use of diagrams, photographs, maps and charts, according to TUI representative and teacher in Borris Vocational School Jacqueline Shiel.

The short questions should have posed few problems; the only minor issue in the section cropping up in the very first question.

“Students were asked to label the inside of the earth and some may have been taken aback by the fact that they were asked for the outer and inner core, but that was the only question to cause any concern at all. It was very minor,” Ms Shiel said. The longer questions also drew praise. “The topics ranged from earthquakes to migration and life expectancy, so they were good and current.” Students at ordinary level would not have been quite as delighted, although overall the paper was described as being both clear and fair.