The absence of a question about a tillage crop on the higher-level agricultural science paper may have upset some students.
Mr Tom Gilligan, ASTI subject convenor and deputy principal at Banada Abbey, Co Sligo, said tillage would be seen as a very important part of the syllabus. Tillage aside, the paper covered a wide range of topics.
Question 3 dealt specifically with pigs, said Mr Gilligan; in the past students would have had a choice between pigs and sheep. This would have been fairer on students from non-pig-producing backgrounds.
Mr Padraig Brennan of Roscommon Vocational School echoed this point.
Mr Gilligan said "questions 8 (a) and (b) and question 4 (i) were pure biology."
Overall, the higher-level paper was reasonable: "Questions were couched in language which the students found intelligible."
The ordinary-level paper was testing and a wide range of topics were covered. Most ordinary-level students would have been happy, he said.
Mr Brennan agreed that the ordinary-level paper was student-friendly, while the higher-level paper was quite fair. Question 9 was quite difficult, he said, and some of the terminology may have been off-putting.