Biology was humanised for this year's students with the skin, the skeleton, the sexual organs, the kidney and the eye featuring on the ordinary and higher-level papers.
Last year, many teachers were unhappy with the lack of human physiology on the papers, but the trend was reversed yesterday.
However, the increased human dimension seemed to squeeze out questions on plant life, which did not feature strongly.
Tim O'Meara, TUI representative in St Enda's school, Crossagala, Co Limerick, said the papers were "very fair" and covered a large part of the course. Lily Cronin, ASTI representative in Killarney, Co Kerry, said the higher-level paper was manageable and the short questions contained few surprises. "I was very happy with the layout, students were given plenty of space to write," she said.
In part 2, question 13 on changes in the moose population in Canada was not too popular. Cronin said the moose was not very familiar to Irish students and may have thrown some of them.
Ray McGough, TUI representative at Magh Ene College, Bundoran, Co Donegal, wondered why some native wildlife could not be included instead. The ordinary-level paper was challenging, said O'Meara. "It contained several questions which were not far off honours standard," he said.
Question 14 (c) on the paper was tricky, said Cronin. It asked for details on an experiment involving chloroplast extract. "It is a fairly long experiment, so it may have slowed some students down," she said.
Meanwhile, the agriculture science higher-level paper was fair, but tough, said Tom Gilligan, deputy principal of Banada Abbey in Sligo.
Question 3 (a), part iv, on embryo transplantation, was not on the syllabus, he said. "People who took short cuts would have been caught out on this paper."
A spokesman for the Irish Agricultural Science Teachers Association also complained about the paper yesterday on RTE Radio One's Five Seven Live programme