They weren't staggering but they were near exhaustion yesterday afternoon on finishing the Junior Cert classical studies. "They were glad to have it all over with," said Mr Michael Barry, a teacher at St Patrick's Secondary School, Cork, and ASTI subject representative, on the last day of the Junior Cert exam. "It was a very long paper. There were no great surprises. The questions were good."

The higher-level was "very wide and gave plenty of scope" - for example, in one question students were asked to imagine they were interviewing Socrates after a trial.

Overall, said Mr Barry, the papers at both levels were good in presentation and content.