There were smiles all round, mostly, after the Junior Certificate maths papers yesterday morning. Testing, well-constructed and well-thought out papers was the general consensus from teachers and students. Mr Mark Slocum, a maths teacher at CBS School, Youghal, Co Cork, said Junior Certificate students were happy with the papers. They were difficult in parts but overall they were satisfactory. The introduction of the a, b, c, structure, comprising progressively more difficult parts, in some of the questions at higher and ordinary level was welcomed by Mr John McKeon, TUI subject representative and maths teacher at Maynooth Post Primary School, Co Kildare. This initiative, he said, means that the a part of the question is easier and "gives the child a chance to get into the question" while the b part is a little bit harder and the c part is fairly hard. Overall he said all three maths papers yesterday morning were good and well-constructed. Although the students thought the higher level paper in the morning "could have been easier" they were able to "handle most of the questions", Mr Slocum said.

While there were one or two difficult parts in the paper, there were no problems with the algebra question on the higher level "even though this question is normally difficult". They were "very happy" with it, according to Mr Slocum. They found some of the questions on area and volume "confusing", he added. The question on statistics, which is always popular, was different in that students were asked to draw a histogram rather than the usual ogive gram. Ms Eileen Scanlon, ASTI subject representative and maths teacher at Salerno Secondary School in Galway, agreed that students liked the higher level. "It was testing but fair," she said. She also welcomed the introduction of the a, b and c structure, where c in particular is more testing. Mr McKeon also said the higher level was "grand". He listed some questions that were difficult but "the high fliers can take a bit of testing", he said. It was the same story for students who sat the ordinary level. "They were very, very happy" with the paper, Mr Slocum said. And according to Mr McKeon, the ordinary level was "very nice and well constructed". For those who sat the foundation-level maths paper, it was "straightforward" apart from a couple of challenging parts that may have confused some students, such as question 5 which involved two triangles. Ms Scanlon said the paper "was a nicely presented paper and it reflected the syllabus adequately". It was "easy to read" and "very like last year's paper", she added. Mr McKeon, who gathered the views of some of his students, agreed that foundation level was a nice paper. Students were "happy enough with it", he said. Ms Scanlon said the paper examined the basic skills of arithmetic and numeracy. The paper was easy to read and the diagrams were nicely presented.